There is something almost poetic about the imagery. Red vehicles, red ties, red SUVs: the colour of fire, and of emergency. But the convoy that escorted Federal Fire Service (FFS) Controller-General (CG) Olumode Adeyemi through Kogi State over the Easter weekend was not rushing to any emergency. It was a homecoming parade, and Nigerians are asking why.
Video footage showing a grand motorcade of FFS-branded vehicles — Toyota pickups, SUVs, outrider motorcycles, support vans — rolling through highways and local roads began circulating widely on Monday.
EDITOR’S PICKS
The fire service had itself posted the video on its official channels on Saturday evening, captioning it with stakeholder commendations of President Tinubu and an announcement that a new fire station in Kabba was “underway.”
𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢: 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗳’𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗼𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗞𝗼𝗴𝗶 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗸𝘀 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲
Credit: X | Fedfireng
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By Monday, after the footage had drawn widespread outrage online, the post had been quietly deleted.
A Service That Cannot Put Out Fires
The backlash was swift and pointed, because Nigerians understand the context. The Federal Fire Service is not a well-resourced agency operating at optimal capacity. It is a chronically underfunded institution that routinely arrives at fire scenes without water, with ageing equipment, or not at all.
The gap between what the service is supposed to do and what it actually does is well-documented and painfully familiar to anyone who has watched a building burn while waiting for help that came too late.
This is the institution whose CG arrived in Kogi like a visiting dignitary, with outriders clearing the road and crowds cheering from the roadside.
One social media user, Magnus Etta, put it plainly: “Rather than buy fire service trucks and repair fire hydrants, the fire service chief is seen driving in luxury cars with security details.”
We are not angry enough as a people.
Rather than buy fire service trucks and repair fire hydrants. Fire service chief is seen driving in luxury cars with security details and shooting guns. What’s really going on in this country ?
— Magnus Etta (@dope_kilo1) April 6, 2026
Another, Chibuike Okafor, reduced it to a phrase that has since circulated widely: “Fire Service get convoy but no get water.”
These are not merely sarcastic takes. They reflect a legitimate institutional question: where is the money going?
The Bigman Problem
What happened in Kogi is not unique to the fire service, which is precisely what makes it so troubling. Nigeria has institutionalised a culture of official opulence that is almost entirely disconnected from performance.
Agencies that cannot meet their core mandates operate with the trappings of importance — convoys, security details, protocol officers, and ceremonial receptions — because those trappings are how power is communicated in the Nigerian state.
The fire service, by posting the video itself, believed it was showcasing a success.
In its own logic, a CG returning home to receive royal blessings and pledge a new fire station is a story worth telling. The deletion, when the mockery came, only compounded the damage, confirming that the agency understood, belatedly, how badly it had misjudged the public mood.
Adeyemi was appointed in July 2025. His tenure is young, and it would be premature to reduce him to a symbol of everything wrong with the service. But leadership choices communicate priorities, and the choice to make this homecoming a spectacle and then amplify it on official channels was a misjudgement.
What the Convoy Actually Costs
The deeper issue is not the vehicles themselves but what they represent: a model of governance in which the visible comfort of officials is funded before the operational needs of institutions.
FURTHER READING
A fire service often without water cannot justify a convoy with outriders. And a leadership that does not understand that distinction and needed to be shamed into deleting its own post to grasp it has already told Nigerians everything they need to know about its priorities.
Philip Ibitoye is a Special Correspondent with EKO HOT BLOG. Click here to find daily analysis and critical insight on trending issues in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria.
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