Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi: A New Nigeria Where Security Operatives Are Law Abiding Is Possible

BY OLABODE OPESEITAN 

For decades, Nigerians have lived with a bitter paradox. The very men and women sworn to uphold the law have too often been its most brazen violators.

The uniform, once a symbol of order and protection, became a cloak for impunity. The badge, meant to inspire trust, instead evoked fear.

We remember the chilling stories. The 2013 Apo Six killings, where six young traders were summarily executed by police officers in Abuja, their lives snuffed out over a petty altercation.

The 2017 case of Corporal Ajayi Omotilewa, who shot and killed a commercial motorcyclist in Lagos over a N100 bribe. And the 2020 viral video of security operatives breaking into a home in Nigeria’s Southeast, a haunting reminder of how easily the sanctity of private life can be violated.

These are not isolated incidents. Between 2011 and 2021, over 13,000 Nigerians were reportedly killed extra-judicially by state actors. The rot was systemic. The silence was deafening.

It was this festering injustice that ignited the #EndSARS protests in October 2020. What began as a youth-led outcry against the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a Police unit that had become synonymous with extortion, torture, and murder, soon spiraled into a national reckoning.

Tragically, that righteous anger was hijacked by subversive elements, turning a cry for reform into a theatre of chaos. But the core message remained. Nigerians were tired of being brutalized by those meant to protect them.

In this bleak landscape, the emergence of Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi as Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) feels like a quiet revolution. Not because he shouts, but because he listens. Not because he punishes, but because he corrects.

Ajayi has ordered the release of Kenneth Okechukwu Nwafor, a man detained since July 2022 over allegations of IPOB affiliation.

A thorough review exonerated Nwafor. Ajayi did not stop at release. He awarded him ₦5 million in compensation and ensured access to medical care. This was not a one-off gesture.

Just weeks earlier, he had ordered the release and compensation of Mrs. Chineze Ozoadibe, an Abuja-based businesswoman wrongfully detained.

But perhaps the most telling example of Ajayi’s moral compass is the case of a businessman in Jos who was mistakenly shot in the leg during a 2016 security operation.

A Federal High Court had awarded the man ₦10 million in damages in 2018. Yet for years, the judgment was ignored. It wasn’t until Ajayi assumed office that the DSS in 2025 finally complied. And not only did he pay the ₦10 million, he doubled it, adding another ₦10 million as a gesture of goodwill and accountability. He also ensured the man received lifetime access to medical care at the DSS Hospital.

Ajayi’s approach is not performative. It is principled. He has instructed his officers to revisit all inherited cases, insisting on due process, human dignity, and the rule of law. His leadership is not about optics. It is about institutional repentance.

In a country where apologies are rare and restitution rarer still, Ajayi’s actions are radical. They whisper of a new Nigeria. One where uniforms do not shield wrongdoing. One where justice is not a privilege but a right. One where the state, when it errs, has the humility to make amends.

This is not to canonize a man. It is to recognize a shift. A signal that the culture of impunity is not immutable. That reform is not a myth. That the law can be more than a weapon. It can be a balm.

Oluwatosin Adeola Ajayi is not merely leading an agency. He is reimagining what it means to serve. And in doing so, he reminds us that a Nigeria where security operatives are law-abiding is not a fantasy. It is a possibility. One act of justice at a time.