From Capability to Command: Investing in Women's Leadership in the Nigeria Police Force

By Napoleon Enayaba

August 11, 2026

Keynote Speaker, Dr Obiageli Ezekwesili, with Participants and Facilitators at the First Cohort of the Women Police Leadership Programme, Lagos, May 2024

UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Nneka Eze describes May 2024 as a turning point in a career spanning decades. She was among the senior women officers gathered in Lagos for the first cohort of the Women Police Leadership Programme (WPLP), training unlike anything she had encountered in the Nigeria Police Force.

After the workshop, I became bolder, expressive, resilient, and assertive. It was a journey of self-discovery, a moment of self-awareness that ‘I can do it'

ACP Nneka Eze, Gender Unit, Force Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja

Today she serves in the Gender Unit of the Force Criminal Investigation Department in Abuja. “I have never been the same after the training, always holding my head high,” she says. Her story is becoming a pattern.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Nneka Eze, Gender Unit, Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), Abuja, a graduate of the first cohort of the Women Police Leadership Programme.

UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya

Capability was never the constraint

Women make up only around one in ten personnel of the Nigeria Police Force, and only four women have ever attained the rank of Deputy Inspector-General. A culture survey of participants captured the paradox: 96.3 percent agreed women officers are equally capable given equal training and opportunity, yet a majority did not believe equal opportunities exist. Capability was never the constraint. Opportunity was. The WPLP was designed to close that gap.

Three cohorts, one deepening pipeline

The first cohort convened in Lagos in May 2024 for officers from Assistant Superintendent to Assistant Inspector-General. The second, at the National Institute of Police Studies (NIPS) in Abuja in November 2025, recorded 95.6 per cent satisfaction, with officers rating themselves proficient or expert rising from 35 to 60 per cent after training. The third, co-convened by the Police Reform Secretariat, NIPS and UNDP in mid-2026, reached operational command level: 35 Superintendents and Chief Superintendents from fourteen commands, returning a 97.9 per cent rating.

Inside the fellowship

The WPLP is a fellowship, not a course. An intensive residential week replaces lectures with role play, storytelling and interactive sessions on leadership, emotional intelligence and people awareness, weaving coaching, wellbeing and work-life balance throughout. Its faculty pairs leadership experts and senior officers with distinguished Nigerian women: Dr Obiageli ‘Oby’ Ezekwesili gave the first keynote; Eugenia Abu, a Nigerian broadcast Journalist, Writer, Poet and Media Consultant delivered the second; Ms Adedayo Benjamins-Laniyi of the Maryam Babangida National Centre for Women Development gave the third, with Ms Hadiza Bala Usman, Special Adviser to the President on Policy Coordination, on the faculty.

Participants then spend three months in mentorship cohorts anchored by accomplished women mentors, closing with an ad hoc mentorship session. The closeout of the first cohort in October 2025 featured UNDP Resident Representative Elsie Attafuah and UN Women Nigeria Country Representative Beatrice Eyong, among others. Crucially, this is not donor-driven: NIPS delivers the programme, with UNDP support to develop its curriculum, learning strategy and faculty roster.

**Participants of the Third Cohort of the Women Police Leadership Programme. [Photo: Nigeria Police Reform Secretariat (NPRS), July 2026]

The evidence: what happened next

A July 2026 impact survey of 32 alumnae across all six geopolitical zones asked what changed:

59% promoted or appointed to new leadership roles, including elevations to Assistant Inspector-General and Commissioner of Police.

94-97% report significantly or extremely strengthened confidence and influence.

100% have mentored, coached, or supported other officers.

1,200+ officers reached through alumnae mentoring and step-down activity.

The result is without precedent: every one of the Force's 37 commands today counts at least one WPLP-trained woman leader.

The ripple effect

ACP Olabisi Okuwobi of the National Cyber Crime Centre embodies the multiplier, intentionally mentoring male and female officers alike. When one of her officers attended the third cohort, the effect came full circle: “They said, no wonder, Madam, it is just like you are living it in the office.”

“This is a game changer for the Nigeria Police Force. Do not stop, because it is by not stopping that you will have the fulfilment of this investment.” - ACP Olabisi Okuwobi, National Cyber Crime Centre, Nigeria Police Force.

Her charge to the design and partnership behind the Leadership programme was equally direct: “Do not stop, because it is by not stopping that you will see the fulfilment from this investment.”

Leading where officers are made

At the Police College, Oji River, Commissioner of Police Uduak Otu Ita, Deputy Commandant and pioneer cohort member, leads where the Force forms its next generation of officers. Across three decades of service, including African Union missions in Somalia and Sudan, her verdict is unambiguous: “It did not merely improve my leadership skills. It awakened my leadership consciousness.”

CP Uduak Otu Ita (2nd from left) with other participants at the First Cohort of the Women Police Leadership Programme, Lagos, May 2024

UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya

Gender inclusion is not an act of charity. It is a strategic necessity for institutional effectiveness. Women are not asking for special treatment. Women are asking for equal opportunity to serve, to lead, and to contribute.

CP Uduak Otu Ita, Deputy Commandant, Police College, Oji River

Executive Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Pastor Umo Bassey Eno, with Commissioner of Police Uduak Otu Ita

Akwa Ibom State Government

Heard at the very top

At the close of the Senior Police Leadership Course at NIPS on 5 June 2026, Inspector-General of Police Olatunji Rilwan Disu told the room: “I have heard all they have said about the women leading police divisions in Lagos. If they are doing a good job, why would I want to change them?”

It is a simple standard, and a radical one: performance, not gender, decides who leads. It is also precisely the standard the evidence from the WPLP has been building towards.

From programme to national agenda

On 15 July 2026, the Women Police Conference convened in Abuja, reinaugurating the women's network in the Force and driving implementation of the gender-responsive provisions of the new Police Regulations. The timing matters: both chambers of the National Assembly have passed a constitutional amendment providing for federal and state police. Each state service will need founding leaders, and Nigeria now has a nationwide corps of women officers, trained, networked, and present in every command. The question is no longer whether women can lead Nigeria's police, but whether Nigeria will give them the chance, in the senior command of the Force and at the head of the state police services taking shape.

“Women leaders bring empathy, collaboration, and resilience—critical for modern policing” - Elsie Attafuah, Resident Representative, UNDP Nigeria.

Women Police Leadership Programme Cohort

UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya

Empower a woman police officer today

ACP Eze wants the programme to reach every woman officer, “to help them believe in themselves.” The leaders were already there. CP Ita puts the challenge in one sentence: “Empower a woman police officer today, and you strengthen the future of policing tomorrow.” Nigeria is finding out what happens when it does.

Participants and Facilitators at the close of the Women Police Leadership Conference, United Nations House, Abuja, July 2026.

UNDP Nigeria/Tolu Oresanya

About the partnership

The Women Police Leadership Programme (WPLP) is delivered by NIPS and designed with technical support from UNDP as part of the Supporting Police Accountability and Transformation (SPAAT) project, Nigeria's government-led police reform partnership, with generous funding from the Government of Germany, alongside the Global Security-Sector-Reform Foundation and the CLEEN Foundation. The partnership also supported the new Nigeria Police Regulations, gazetted in February 2026, and trained over 4,010 police personnel: every result achieved together with the Force, never merely for it.