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Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Disu decorated eight newly promoted Deputy Inspectors-General of Police on Monday at the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan Peacekeeping Hall in Abuja, charging them to treat their elevation as a mandate for institutional transformation rather than personal achievement, the first major command restructuring under his leadership since he was sworn in by President Bola Tinubu on March 4.
The eight officers decorated are DIG Zacharia Achinyan, DIG Zango Ibrahim Baba, DIG Isyaku Mohammed, DIG Margaret Agebe Ochalla, DIG Mohammed Abdul Sulaiman, DIG Kenechukwu Onwuemelie, DIG Umar Shehu Nadada, and DIG Fayoade Adegoke — the last of whom had been decorated a week earlier. Their promotions complete a sweeping restructuring of the force’s top management tier that was triggered by Disu’s own appointment, which compelled the compulsory retirement of several serving DIGs who outranked him in seniority at the time of his elevation.
“This ceremony represents far more than the adornment of new insignia,” Disu told the assembled officers, their families, and senior police leadership. “Your elevation to this highly strategic rank is a testament to your professionalism, leadership capacity, and consistent record of service to the nation. Promotion to the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Police represents one of the highest levels of professional trust within our institution. It is both an honour and a call to duty that demands wisdom, integrity, courage, and an unwavering commitment to the principles of justice and service.” Disu reminded the officers that their responsibilities extended well beyond operational command — encompassing institutional direction, internal discipline, reform leadership, and strategic alignment of policing with Nigeria’s evolving security environment.
The IGP was direct about the nature of the threats the newly decorated officers would confront at the most senior level of the force. He cited organized crime, cyber-enabled offenses, and violent criminal networks as the primary growth areas in Nigeria’s threat landscape, warning that the force’s leadership could not afford to be reactive.
“The security environment in which we operate continues to evolve in complexity,” he said. “It is therefore imperative that our leadership remains forward-looking, strategic, and firmly committed to professionalism and operational excellence.” He charged the officers to strengthen intelligence-led policing, deepen inter-agency cooperation, and reinforce accountability within the ranks as their three immediate priorities.
The promotion sequence leading to Monday’s ceremony had unusual procedural speed. An internal police wireless message from the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters showed the interactive promotion examination for the seven Assistant Inspectors-General took place on Friday, March 6, 2026 — just three days before Monday’s decoration ceremony.
The examination was held at the chairman’s conference room on the sixth floor of the Police Service Commission’s corporate headquarters in Jabi, Abuja, with the officers directed to appear in conventional attire of black jacket, beret, and swagger cane. The speed of the process reflected the urgency Disu placed on assembling a management team he could direct from the outset of his tenure. Pressure had been mounting from institutional stakeholders urging President Tinubu to overhaul the police leadership structure to allow Disu to assemble his own team, with existing DIGs described as mounting pressure on the new IGP rather than supporting his reform agenda.
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At least eight serving DIGs — including Yahaya Abubakar (Finance), Adebola Hamzat (Logistics), Adebowale Williams (ICT), Frank Mba (Training), and Basil Idegwu (Research and Planning) — were retired to preserve the command hierarchy following Disu’s appointment. Their departure created the management vacuum that Monday’s ceremony filled. The restructuring also intersected with the broader question of Disu’s own tenure length: born on April 13, 1966, he was originally due to retire in April 2026, but under the amended Police Act, Inspectors-General are permitted to serve fixed four-year tenures regardless of statutory retirement age, potentially keeping him in office until 2030.
The ceremony attracted a cross-section of dignitaries including federal lawmaker Godwin Offiono of Ogoja/Yala Federal Constituency, National Agency for the Control of AIDS Director-General Dr. Temitope Ilori, former State Security Service spokeswoman Marilyn Ogar, and members of the Force Management Team alongside retired senior officers and the families of the newly decorated DIGs. The diversity of attendance underscored the symbolic weight that police leadership transitions carry in Nigeria’s security architecture — each significant promotion reshaping command loyalties, operational priorities, and departmental cultures simultaneously.
The most pointed contribution of the day came from a former Commissioner of Police in the Federal Capital Territory, Lawrence Alobi, who used the goodwill message slot to deliver a sober warning to the serving officers present. Alobi said that since his retirement he had watched developments within the force “with a heavy heart.”
“I watch with a heavy heart the actions of some of the current crop of officers in the Nigerian Police Force, and it makes me weep,” he said, without naming specific officers or incidents. His intervention cast a shadow of institutional accountability over a ceremony designed to celebrate professional achievement, suggesting that those gathered were inheriting a force whose reputation had been damaged by the conduct of some of their colleagues.
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Disu has moved quickly since taking office to signal a change in institutional culture. Within his first week he inaugurated a state police committee, appointed a new Force Public Relations Officer, issued a public warning that the era of impunity within the force was over, and told officers at his inaugural conference that accountability and zero tolerance for corruption would define his tenure. Monday’s decoration ceremony was the clearest demonstration yet that the structural preconditions for those commitments — a management team of his own choosing, accountable directly to his command — were now in place.
