The controversial and meteoric rise of Bukola Kuti, the Principal Staff Officer (PSO 3) to the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has peeled back a sordid layer of scandal, favouritism, and internal warfare inside Nigeria’s highest policing institution.

SaharaReporters earlier on Friday reported that there is a storm of controversy in the Nigeria Police Force over the preferential promotion of Kuti, who is romantically involved with the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, amid allegations of favouritism in the Force. 

SaharaReporters learnt on Saturday that there have been clashes between Kuti and other female police officers in the IGP office, whom she accused of having amorous affairs with the police boss and fought in a bid to dominate and silence them. 

SaharaReporters learnt that Bukola Kuti, once a junior officer, now sits as an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) an unprecedented promotion achieved within just 10 years of joining the Nigeria Police Force. 

Sources told SaharaReporters that her professional ascent has little to do with competence or merit. Rather, Kuti’s influence allegedly stems from her intimate relationship with the IGP, a fact widely known and whispered across police formations.

SaharaReporters was told by competent sources that within the corridors of Louis Edet House, especially the IGP’s 7th floor office, Kuti is not merely the PSO. She is the gatekeeper, the enforcer, and according to internal sources — the queen of the harem. 

Officers say she routinely targeted and undermined female colleagues she suspected of having near or remote affairs with the IGP. 

One of the top officers familiar with the scandal told SaharaReporters on Saturday, “Her most infamous turf war was with a Superintendent of Police (then DSP), one Victoria David, the IGP’s official secretary.

“Victoria, a northerner celebrated for her beauty, had also become the subject of gossip and surveillance after Force PRO, ACP Muyiwa Adejobi, posted a photo of her on Instagram in 2023, referring to her as the “IGP’s pretty secretary,” the source revealed. 

The Force PRO Adejobi had posted, “We have beautiful and intelligent ones in the force. This is DSP David Victoria, secretary to the IGP. Happy weekend. Ire o.” 

SaharaReporters learnt that the post sparked outrage online, with commenters accusing Victoria of flaunting luxury watches and designer accessories that far exceeded her official earnings.  

SaharaReporters gathered that Adejobi’s post made several Nigerians to question the female officer’s lavish lifestyle. 

Others even mocked her complexion, accusing her of bleaching.

“Rather than defending his secretary from the public scrutiny, IGP Egbetokun stood back. Worse still, he allowed the matter to escalate,” another top source told SaharaReporters. 

“Kuti, alongside another close female ally, Yemisi, allegedly led a quiet, ruthless campaign to have Victoria ousted from the 7th floor. They succeeded as Victoria was abruptly removed from her position.” 

SaharaReporters learnt that when she (Victoria) confronted the IGP about her removal, Egbetokun reportedly shrugged and told her, “There’s nothing I can do.” He also warned her never to speak to journalists or bloggers about her experience.

Meanwhile, ACP Muyiwa Adejobi, the Force Public Relations Officer and a known ally of Kuti, is mired in controversies of his own.

Multiple petitions against Adejobi allege sexual harassment of female officers—petitions that have either been buried or ignored by the same leadership promoting impunity.

Last week, Adejobi himself was also elevated to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police, alongside 37 others. 

However, the promotion remains largely unannounced. 

Sources told SaharaReporters that the Police Service Commission is reluctant to publish the full list due to widespread allegations of nepotism—particularly that 30 of the 38 officers promoted are of Yoruba descent.

This is the state of affairs inside Nigeria’s Police Force leadership a toxic mix of sexual politics, tribal favoritism, and unchecked power. 

The IGP’s office, once expected to be a sanctuary of integrity and leadership, has become a theatre of petty rivalries, manipulation, and moral collapse.

SaharaReporters on Friday reported that multiple sources within the force confirmed that Kuti, who currently serves as PSO 3 (Principal Staff Officer) to the IGP, had risen to the rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), just 10 years after joining the force.

Insiders have described this as highly irregular and far ahead of her contemporaries, many of whom remain at the Superintendent of Police (SP) level.

On Wednesday, SaharaReporters reported that the Police Service Commission (PSC) had approved the special promotion of 37 senior police officers handpicked by Egbetokun, but internal uproar within the force had stalled the public announcement of the list, SaharaReporters learnt.

SaharaReporters gathered that the promotions, largely considered controversial, have sparked ethnic and institutional tensions within the Nigeria Police Force.

What has also sparked particular outrage is that Kuti reportedly spent only six months as a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) before receiving the controversial promotion to ACP — a career trajectory seen by many within the force as a product of her close personal ties to the IGP rather than merit or seniority.

In January, Kuti was among the police officers decorated with new ranks by IGP Egbetokun during a ceremony held at the Louis Edet House, Force Headquarters, Abuja.

Sources further revealed that Bukola Kuti is one of two female officers handling the IGP’s personal and domestic affairs.

The second officer, identified only as Yemisi, holds the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and is said to accompany the IGP on official and personal trips frequently.

Yemisi, who reportedly began her service as Egbetokun’s orderly, allegedly relocated to Abuja after he was appointed Acting Inspector General of Police in June 2023 by President Bola Tinubu, replacing former IGP Usman Alkali Baba.

“Kuti’s mates are police superintendents. She had only spent six months in the CSP rank before she was promoted to ACP,” one of the sources said.

“She handles IGP domestic affairs in addition to another lady called Yemisi, who constantly travels with the IGP. Yemisi is also an ASP.”

Despite her elevated rank, Bukola Kuti is reportedly not involved in substantive police work. Instead, she is said to operate primarily as a contractor responsible for providing catering services within the police establishment.

“This woman doesn’t even do real police work,” said one source. “She handles domestic duties and contracts, but keeps rising above others who actually work. She is responsible for cooking as a contractor for police work.”

Her promotion has left many officers demoralised, especially those who joined the force around the same time but remain in lower positions despite years of service and experience.

According to insiders, the police leadership has refrained from making her latest promotion public due to the sensitivity of the matter and fears of backlash over ethnic imbalance in recent special promotions under IGP Egbetokun’s tenure.

In a related development, Asuquo, another senior staff officer believed to have been responsible for managing the IGP’s official workload, was removed in connection with the recent age falsification scandal that rocked the force. 

His removal cleared the way for Kuti’s promotion and expanded influence.

SaharaReporters had earlier reported that out of the 37 officers promoted under “special consideration,” 30 were allegedly of Yoruba origin — fuelling growing concerns that IGP Egbetokun is presiding over a regionally biased or “provincial” police leadership.

The development has sparked discontent across various police commands, particularly among officers who believe they were overlooked for promotion despite being qualified, allegedly due to ethnic considerations.

According to sources, suggestions had been made to release the list in batches to avoid backlash, but pressure was mounting on the PSC to go ahead and publish the entire list despite the ongoing internal discontent.

“There have been suggestions to release the list in batches to ease tensions within the police force, particularly among officers who were overlooked for promotion due to ethnic bias,” a source said.

Several of the promoted officers are said to be close associates of the IGP, either currently working with him on the 7th floor of the Force Headquarters in Abuja or longstanding allies from his previous postings. 

Source: SaharaReporters

Sani Shinkafi, a security expert, has said that the Nigerian government thwarted the capture of a bandit leader, Bello Turji, by the Civilian Joint Security Task Force (CJTF) in Zamfara State, Nigeria’s north-west.

Mr Shinkafi, a former chairperson of the Committee on Security and Prosecution of Armed Bandits in Zamfara, spoke when he appeared as a guest on Channels TV’s The Morning Brief on Thursday.

Banditry in Zamfara State

Like Sokoto State in the North-west, Zamfara State has been plagued by a series of terrorist attacks by hoodlums locally referred to as bandits.

Hundreds of people have been killed and millions displaced in the attacks.

The bandits are often led by Mr Turji who has been terrorising the North-western states of Zamfara and Sokoto, imposing levies on helpless residents and killing many of them.

In response, the Zamfara State Government recruited hundreds of persons into the CJTF to complement the efforts of conventional security operatives to fight banditry in the state.

The government, in January 2024, set up the Community Protection Guards (CPG), also known as Askarawa to help in the fight against banditry in the state.

‘How Nigerian govt foiled attack on Bello Turji’

Mr Shinkafi, during the TV programme, said the Nigerian government halted an attack which would have resulted in the capture of the bandit leader and the killing of his foot soldiers.

The security expert, who hails from Zamfara State, said, during an operation, some village chiefs had deployed both CJTF and CPG operatives to a forest in Shinkafi Local Government Area of the state to battle Mr Turji and his foot soldiers.

“As the fight continued, they were about to capture (Bello) Turji. Many of his foot soldiers were killed in hundreds.

“But the federal government (of Nigeria) halted the fight (against Turji). And told them (CJTF and CPG) to go back and settle at the Shinkafi (LGA) and that they (federal government) were going to use dialogue to settle with Bello Turji,” he narrated.

“So if the government had allowed this civilian JTF to continue advancing to the bandits camp, I assure you Bello Turji could have been a history by now.”

Mr Shinkafi recalled that Mr Turji later rejected the dialogue spearheaded by some community and religious leaders, insisting that he would not be part of the dialogue since Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara was not involved.

He did not, however, mention when the incident happened. But there are indications it happened between late 2024 and early 2025.

Meanwhile, Governor Lawal has consistently maintained that he would not negotiate with bandits.

Why CJTF operatives are struggling to defeat banditry

Mr Shinkafi said the CJTF operatives have been struggling to defeat bandits in Zamfara because there was no operational support from conventional security operatives.

He said there was a time the civilian JTF killed some of the bandits and advanced to attack Mr Turji but received no support.

“A lot of victories had been made because some of these (Turji’s) lieutenants were killed by these civilian JTF. And when these civilian JTF went to fight with Bello Turji, the military and other security agencies backed out (from the operation),” he said.

“And there was no operational support.”

He also said defeating Mr Turji has been difficult because, unlike the bandits, the operatives have poor knowledge of the state’s terrain.

“The terrain (to the bandits hideout) is not motorable. It’s very deplorable. And these bandits know this terrain more than the civilian JTF because the civilian JTF (operatives) are not indigenes of the state,” he said.

Presidency silent

When contacted on Thursday, Bayo Onanuga, the spokesperson to President Bola Tinubu, referred a PREMIUM TIMES reporter to Usman Zakari, a media aide to the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu.

Mr Zakari did not respond to several calls and a text message seeking his comments, more than a day after.

Source: Premium Times

How did a 12-year-old get here?? What kind of system will allow a mere preteen to remain incarcerated for 10 years without trial and without giving a hoot? And when did 12-year-olds start going to jail and mixing with hardened criminals? Emeka’s story is the story of our unfeeling, calloused and broken justice system.

July 11 was supposed to be a routine prison visit for Alex Umuchioke Ogoke, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria and Leeds Legal Firm. Ogoke had walked into that Nigerian correctional facility in Imo State to request the usual list of indigent inmates in need of pro bono legal representation.

He did not expect to find a gaunt, sickly young man slumped by the records desk, begging the officers for money to buy garri. Ogoke was taken aback by how young and how sick the boy looked. So, he requested his case file.

The officers told Ogoke the boy’s name was Emeka Nzeruike. He was hungry but he had no family. His case file shocked Ogoke. “I asked how long he had been in custody, and they said since 2015. I asked his age. He said 22,” Ogoke recounted. “That meant he was just 12 when he was arrested.”

Nzeruike had spent a decade behind bars, without trial, without conviction, and without anyone checking on him. He had simply vanished into the cracks of Nigeria’s criminal justice system. The deeper Ogoke looked, the more disturbing the details he found.

EMEKA, THE BOY ALONE

Nzeruike was arrested in 2015 in Imo, alongside an adult, for stealing. Both were charged and granted bail by a magistrate in Iho.

While the other suspect’s family secured a surety and got him out almost immediately, Nzeruike remained locked up.

“He had no one,” said Ogoke. “His mother was already dead, and his father had remarried and moved to Benue State. He never once came to visit Emeka. Not in ten years.”

When the lawyer eventually tracked Nzeruike’s father down, he learnt that the man had no relationship with his son and even if he did, he was too poor to have rescued him anyway.

Nzeruike himself had told the lawyer that he had not seen his father in the four years leading up to his arrest. As a lonely 12-year-old, he was stuck in prison with no one to bail him out and no way to meet his bail conditions.

Determined to find some kind of family link, Umuchioke travelled to Nzeruike’s ancestral village in Ikeduru. There, he met the boy’s grandmother, the only relative he remembered.

“I had to go to Emeka’s village, Ikeduru, and I found his grandmother, the only person he knew before prison. She was shocked. She thought I was coming to tell her Emeka had died. She lives in abject poverty, surviving by farming other people’s land,” Ogoke recounted.

She kept asking, “Is he really alive?”

DIE OF HUNGER OR DIE OF BEATING: GLIMPSE INTO PRISON LIFE

In prison, Nzeruike had learnt to survive in brutal ways.

“People told me that whenever food vendors came, Emeka would snatch a piece of bread and eat while they beat him,” the lawyer said. “He told me he had nothing to lose. It was either die of hunger or die from beating.”

The first time he ever bought soap, he told Ogoke, was the day he gave him some money.

The details of Nzeruike’s story in prison are not surprising.

According to the 2025 Appropriation Bill, the federal government allocates just N1,270 (about $0.84) per day to feed each inmate across Nigeria. That figure is over N500 short of what it costs to provide one healthy meal. A single healthy meal according to the NBS costs an estimated N1,651 per serving.

BROKEN JUSTICE SYSTEM

The lawyer said this case was one of the hardest he has ever handled. For days, he chased leads at the wrong magistrate’s court.

“We were going to the wrong division entirely,” Ogoke said. “The records said one thing, but Emeka remembered being taken somewhere else as a child.”

It turned out the case was filed in the Iho Magistrate Court, not Nwabosi as previously thought. Ogoke said, “We finally found the court that charged him and pulled out the record. He had been granted bail all along.”

Record-keeping failures, Ogoke said, are rampant. Even worse are the distortions that happen at the earliest stage of prosecution. These errors, according to the lawyer, are courtesy of the police.

“In similar cases to Nzeruike’s, the police write 18 or 19 on the charge sheet. It’s a common trick to bypass child protection laws. And magistrates often don’t question it,” the lawyer explained.

FIJ has reported how overcrowded courts, limited judicial capacity and the sheer volume of cases cause severe delays. At press time, Nigeria has an estimated six judges per million citizens. For the poorest detainees, this often means indefinite incarceration.

“When I went to pick Emeka up from prison after his discharge,” Ogoke said, “another minor was being brought in. His name was Onyemachi Amadi. He had just been remanded for allegedly stealing palm kernel oil.”

The lawyer said that more than half of prison inmates today were either innocent or victims of police oppression. “I’m currently handling the case of 14 boys from the North. They were picked up randomly at a junction, held at the station for five days, then dumped in prison. They’ve now been there for over two months. This is how it starts. Two months, then four, then a year.”

Ogoke continued: “These people are too poor to afford legal help. Some are even breadwinners. So their detention devastates entire families. That’s why we keep calling for criminal justice reform.”

ANOTHER CHANCE AT LIFE

Today, Nzeruike is finally free but the scars are deep. He is currently in hospital, receiving treatment for malnutrition and rashes.

The lawyer told FIJ that he and his team were arranging therapy.

“He’s lost in this world,” Ogoke said. “He doesn’t understand what’s happening around him. After therapy, we’ll ask him what he wants, whether to go to school, learn a skill, or both and support him.”

For the first time, the lawyer made a public call for support. Donations have poured in through the law firm’s account, helping to fund Nzeruike’s recovery.

But the bigger questions remain unanswered: How many more boys are locked away, forgotten by both state and family? How many others never get a visit from a lawyer?

Ogoke concluded with a plea:

“Magistrates must be more circumspect when ruling on minors. Courts should be mindful of inmates like Emeka who are technically free but cannot perfect bail because they have no one.

“And I say this to fellow lawyers—visit detention centres. Take up pro bono cases. People are suffering. We need more people to join this fight.”

This article was originally published on 31.07.2025 by Foundation for Investigative Journalism