Image of former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Idris Wase.

A former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Idris Wase, has raised the alarm that bandits are issuing direct threats to kidnap members of the National Assembly. He made the disclosure on Wednesday during continued debate on national security in the green chamber.

Wase, who represents Wase Federal Constituency of Plateau State, said the escalating threats make it necessary for President Bola Tinubu to review his recent directive withdrawing police operatives from Very Important Personalities.

“We are being threatened. Bandits are threatening to kidnap us,” he told his colleagues, urging the President to clarify the categories of officials entitled to security protection. He warned that the blanket withdrawal of police aides could expose key government officials to avoidable danger.

His comments follow Tinubu’s order on Sunday directing the Nigeria Police Force to recall officers assigned to VIPs nationwide. The directive, issued during a high-level security meeting with Service Chiefs and the Director-General of the DSS, transfers responsibility for VIP protection to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps.

The Presidency has defended the policy as a strategic effort to return more officers to regular policing duties, especially in under-policed rural communities where residents remain vulnerable to banditry and insurgent attacks.

Wase, however, argued that the government must provide clear guidelines on who qualifies as VIPs, recalling past security lapses in which suspected insurgents were discovered among recruits into military and police formations.

His intervention comes as Nigeria grapples with a renewed wave of mass abductions.

More than 1,500 schoolchildren have been kidnapped since the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction, which drew global outrage. The crisis surged again last week when heavily armed attackers stormed St Mary’s Catholic boarding school in Niger State, seizing at least 300 students and staff. The Christian Association of Nigeria reports that about 250 of them remain missing.

That attack was the third school abduction in one week, prompting President Tinubu to cancel his planned trip to the G20 Summit in South Africa to address the growing crisis.

In a separate incident, 24 schoolgirls abducted from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Maga, in Kebbi State on November 17 were released on Tuesday. Their school had been raided by gunmen who killed two staff members and kidnapped 25 students. One girl escaped shortly after the attack.

Tinubu commended security forces for what he described as a “swift response,” although officials have not disclosed how the girls were freed.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, has suffered recurring waves of mass kidnappings by armed groups who operate with alarming freedom, leaving families, communities and schools in prolonged fear.