How CP Tijani Olaiwola Fatai is turning up the heat on violent crime in Nigeria’s toughest policing environment
Dipo Kehinde/
There are tough cities to police. And then there is Lagos.
A sprawling megacity of more than 20 million people, Lagos is a combustible cocktail of enormous wealth and grinding poverty, sprawling waterfronts and dense inner-city communities, highways, markets, ports, financial districts and an underworld constantly reinventing itself.
To police such a city requires more than a uniform and a command structure. It requires intelligence, nerve, speed, strategy and, when criminals test the resolve of the state, toughness.
Enter Tijani Olaiwola Fatai. His initials spell TOF. Pronounce it and you hear something else: Tough.
For criminals operating across Lagos, that coincidence is increasingly assuming an ominous meaning.
Since taking charge of the Lagos State Police Command, CP Tijani Olaiwola Fatai has sought to stamp his authority on the security architecture of the state through intelligence-led policing, aggressive disruption of criminal networks, reinforcement of specialised tactical units and a philosophy that appears simple enough: Take the battle to criminals before they take it to the people.
Welcome to TOF Times.
When the Going Gets Tough…
Lagos has historically been regarded as one of the most demanding police commands in Nigeria.
Its peculiar security challenges range from armed robbery, kidnapping and cult warfare to traffic robbery, cybercrime, car theft, land-related violence, drug-linked crime and organised gangs operating across state boundaries.
Fatai therefore inherited a command where success cannot merely be proclaimed. It must be demonstrated.
The early statistics provided an indication of his direction.
Within the opening phase of his tenure, the Command reported hundreds of arrests, alongside the recovery of several firearms, rounds of ammunition, live cartridges, many vehicles, laptops, mobile phones and other exhibits.
But numbers tell only part of the story.
Behind them was an emerging policing doctrine built around intelligence gathering, tactical deployment, community partnership and rapid response.
Then came more operations.
Armed robbery suspects were picked up. Cult groups were penetrated. Vehicle theft and vandalism syndicates were disrupted. Firearms were recovered. Suspects linked to ransom demands were arrested.
The Command also recorded breakthroughs in major fraud investigations, including a case involving about N130 million and vehicles valued at more than N520 million.
The message was becoming increasingly difficult for the underworld to ignore: Lagos was getting TOF.
From Reaction to Disruption
Perhaps one of the defining features of Fatai’s approach has been the attempt to move policing beyond waiting for crimes to happen.
Traditional reactive policing deploys officers after the gunshots, after the kidnapping, after the robbery.
Intelligence-led policing seeks to get there earlier.
That distinction became evident in several operations under his watch.
At Jakande Estate, a suspected kidnapping operation was foiled, with four suspects neutralised and weapons and ammunition recovered.
Elsewhere, investigations and raids yielded rifles, pistols, magazines and ammunition.
Cable vandals came under pressure. Suspected “One Chance” operators were pursued. Cultists and suspects accused of illegal possession of firearms were rounded up.
Each successful operation represented more than an arrest.
A recovered gun is potentially a robbery prevented.
A dismantled kidnapping cell represents potential victims who may never experience captivity.
A disrupted cult network could mean a street spared another cycle of retaliatory bloodletting.
That is where proactive policing acquires its real value.
Ko S’Aye: No Room for Evil
The philosophy would eventually acquire a name with unmistakable Yoruba flavour: Operation Ko S’Aye.
Loosely interpreted in its security context, the declaration is uncompromising: there is no room for evil.
And it has not been confined by artificial boundaries.
Criminals rarely respect state borders. Kidnappers operating in Lagos can disappear into Ogun. Robbers can strike in one jurisdiction and seek sanctuary in another.
Under Fatai, the Lagos Command has increasingly embraced inter-state collaboration and intelligence sharing.
That approach was demonstrated in joint Lagos-Ogun operations that produced sweeping arrests, rescued kidnapped victims and dismantled suspected criminal formations.
At one point, a major joint operation recorded 88 arrests, five rescued victims and four suspected kidnappers neutralised.
Other Ko S’Aye raids produced mass arrests and the recovery of weapons and materials associated with criminal activity.
For organised crime, geography is an advantage only when security agencies operate in silos.
The emerging philosophy under TOF appears designed to remove that advantage.
Taking the Fight to Cultism
Another front has been cultism.
Few crimes possess the capacity to destabilise neighbourhoods as quickly as violent cult rivalry. From street fights, cult clashes can escalate into assassinations, reprisals and seemingly endless cycles of bloodshed.
The Command’s Violent Crime Response Unit has consequently become an important spearhead in the offensive.
In one recent breakthrough in Mushin, VCRU operatives arrested four suspected members of the Aiye Confraternity.
One of those arrested was identified by police as a former chairman of the group who allegedly made disclosures concerning cult activities and killings.
The investigation subsequently led officers to Idi-Oro, where a locally fabricated Beretta-type pistol and live 9mm ammunition were recovered.
It was classic intelligence-led policing: information, arrest, interrogation, actionable intelligence, follow-up operation, recovery.
Rather than merely picking suspects off the streets, investigators attempt to penetrate the architecture behind the crime.
That is the difference between arresting criminals and dismantling criminal networks.
Building the Men Who Fight the Crime
Fatai also appears to recognise an elementary truth sometimes overlooked in security administration: You cannot demand twenty-first-century policing from officers equipped for yesterday.
His commissioning of the renovated operational base of the Violent Crime Response Unit at Ijora Olopa therefore carried significance beyond bricks and paint.
The ceremony coincided with additional operational vehicles and logistical support for tactical policing.
Equipment does not replace courage or intelligence, but courage without mobility, communications, protective equipment and logistics can quickly become a liability.
A police commissioner who wants results must therefore build not only operations but operational capacity.
The VCRU investment fits that equation.
Give capable officers intelligence.
Give them mobility.
Give them logistics.
Give them leadership.
Then demand results.
A Different Kind of Toughness
But toughness in modern policing cannot simply mean force.
The truly tough police commander is one capable of combining firmness with restraint, enforcement with accountability, and tactical aggression against criminals with respect for the rights of law-abiding citizens.
That distinction is crucial.
Lagos does not need a police force that citizens fear.
It needs a police force that criminals fear and citizens trust.
That is ultimately the standard against which the TOF era must be judged.
IGP Tunji Disu set that standard long ago as RRS Commander in Lagos where his tough and efficient men were nicknamed The Good Guys.
Every arrest must withstand investigation.
Every investigation must withstand prosecution.
Every deployment must recognise that the policeman is simultaneously an enforcer of the law and a servant of the public.
For Fatai, sustaining operational momentum while deepening public confidence may therefore become as important as the arrest figures themselves.
The Heat Is On
No policecommissioner can eliminate crime completely from a megacity like Lagos.
Crime mutates.
Criminals adapt.
New gangs emerge as old ones disappear.
Technology creates new opportunities for offenders even as it gives investigators new tools.
That is why the real measurement of effective policing is not the impossible promise of a crime-free society, but the capacity to make the environment progressively more hostile to criminals.
Under CP Tijani Olaiwola Fatai, the Lagos State Police Command has shown signs of doing precisely that: pursuing kidnappers, raiding criminal enclaves, confronting cult gangs, recovering firearms, strengthening tactical units and extending collaboration beyond Lagos whenever criminals attempt to exploit jurisdictional boundaries.
There will inevitably be more tests.
There will be difficult days.
There will be criminals who believe they are smarter, faster or more ruthless than the police.
But the emerging response from the Lagos Command is equally unmistakable:
If criminals want to make Lagos tough for residents, the police intend to make Lagos tougher for criminals.
And at the centre of that equation is a Commissioner of Police whose three initials have unexpectedly become a fitting shorthand for his assignment.
Tijani. Olaiwola. Fatai.
TOF.
For law-abiding Lagosians, they are merely initials.
For the men of the underworld, however, these may indeed be TOF Times.
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