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By Semilore Adelola
Claim
On June 19, 2023, a popular Twitter influencer, Rinu Oduala with the handle @SavvyRinu, alleged that the newly appointed acting Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egbetokun was previously an orderly for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and a ‘staunch loyalist’.
She believed that his sentiment can hinder the police reform Nigerians have clamored for since 2020.
Full text of the claim reads: “So Tinubu’s former police orderly and ‘staunch loyalist’ is now the new Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police Force?”
Screenshot of SavvyRinu’s claim.
On Monday, June 19, 2023, Deputy Inspector General, Kayode Egbetokun, was appointed as the next Inspector-General of Police in an acting capacity pending constitutional confirmation by the National Assembly.
Dele Alake, the President’s special adviser on special duties, communication and strategies, in a statement, had announced a list of newly appointed services chiefs.
Rinu’s tweet was supported by her followers as a show of lack of trust in the new appointment. The tweet gathered over 5635 reactions and 1906 retweets in a few hours and keeps increasing.
More Findings About The New IGP
The newly appointed IGP Egbetokun, is a 59 years old citizen of Ogun State who enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force as a Cadet ASP (Course 16) on 3 March 1990, served as Chief Security Officer to Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he was governor of Lagos State from 1999 to 2005.
Before his recent appointment, he also served as the Commander of Rapid Response Squad in Lagos, the Squadron Commander of Mopol 5, Benin, Benin City, the Officer-in-Charge of the Anti-Fraud Unit at the FCT Command in Abuja, and the Chief Superintendent of Police, Administration at the Lagos State Command Headquarters in Ikeja.
ROUNDCHECK Findings
ROUNDCHECK subjected the claim to Google keyword research ‘Egbetokun former police orderly to Tinubu’ in order to verify the validity of the claim made by SavvyRinu.
We discovered that from 1999 to 2005, Egbetokun served as the CSO to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu when he was formerly the Governor of Lagos State, according to a number of mainstream media outlets.
The information was found on media outlets like Premium Times, Punch, Daily Trust, Ripples Nigeria and other news publishing organizations.
Based on our findings, we found that the new IGP, Kayode Egbetokun was a former CSO to President Tinubu.
Verdict
Note that, an orderly is an officer ‘assigned to perform various services (such as carrying messages) for a superior official.’
The claim made by SavvyRinu that Nigeria’s new IGP was a former orderly to President Tinubu is CORRECT.
This report is produced by this author, under the ROUNDCHECK’s Volunteers Network Project cohort III.
