State police: More details, please By Punch Editorial Board on August 14, 2026 – Recommended Nigerian Newspaper Report 55
AFTER decades of indecision, Nigeria finally appears ready to embrace state police.
Despite its potential to advance true federalism and its obvious advantage as a more responsive security arrangement in a volatile, multi-ethnic environment like Nigeria, successive administrations have repeatedly dithered over this crucial reform.
Against this background, President Bola Tinubu’s proposal for a decentralised policing system is welcome. It is, in many respects, a child of necessity.
Opponents of state police focus heavily on one legitimate concern: the possibility of abuse by state governors. Without stringent safeguards, that fear is justified.
But it also conveniently sidesteps an uncomfortable reality: the Federal Government has grossly abused the Nigeria Police throughout its history. That record substantially weakens the argument against decentralisation.
The Nigeria Police is estimated to have a strength of about 370,000 officers. Yet, rather than being deployed where they are most needed, two-thirds of the corps are reportedly attached illegally to VIP duties.
Police officers perform demeaning assignments, following VIP wives to markets and serving as messengers, personal aides, bag carriers, chauffeurs, orderlies and gatekeepers.
Meanwhile, police presence is virtually non-existent in many towns and villages across the country.
The result is a policing system that is simultaneously overstretched where security is desperately needed and wastefully deployed where it is not.
In the past two months, the Tinubu administration has taken bold steps towards actualising state police. It has sent a bill on the matter to the National Assembly.
On July 7, Tinubu established a Presidential Working Group “to examine the legal, operational and financial questions raised by dual policing and translate the resulting policy choices into a coherent draft for the President’s consideration.”
The Chief of Staff to the President and Chairman of the PWG on the National Policing Bill, Femi Gbajabiamila, said the group would present its report to the President on September 3 for review before its transmission to Parliament.
For now, however, the details remain sketchy. On Wednesday, Gbajabiamila gave the public and other stakeholders until 6 pm on August 13 to submit memoranda to the PWG. That deadline appears unnecessarily hasty.
For a reform as fundamental as this, the window should be extended in the interest of thoroughness and broader participation.
On Thursday, the PWG extended the deadline to August 21.
Indeed, the fears of those opposed to state police are understandable, given the country’s volatile political environment. But those fears should be confronted through robust laws and institutions, drawing lessons from jurisdictions that have successfully operated devolved policing systems.
State police is a core feature of federalism. Shockingly, of the 25 federal systems in the world, Nigeria is reportedly the only one that operates a single policing system.
The consequences of this anomaly are evident in the insecurity ravaging the country. Nigeria must close this gap and make decentralised policing work, as its federal counterparts have done.
Consequently, every legal, administrative, operational and constitutional framework required for effective state policing must be built into the system from the outset. The objective must be nothing less than delivering sustainable peace and security to Nigerians.
The Senate has already passed legislation to establish state police and initiated constitutional amendments to provide the necessary legal framework. The Upper Chamber proposed that federal and state policing should be coordinated by the National Police Council.
It proposed confirmation of state police commissioners and independent state police service commissions to oversee recruitment and discipline.
In June, 311 members of the House of Representatives voted in support of an executive bill seeking to amend the 1999 Constitution to accommodate state police.
Earlier, in March last year, the Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, inaugurated an eight-man State Police Committee headed by Olu Ogunsakin to “strengthen Nigeria’s internal security and ensure that policing remains responsive to the realities of our communities.”
The committee subsequently submitted its report to the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution.
Clearly, the instruments of government at the centre are now largely aligned towards state police.
The next constitutional hurdle is securing the approval of two-thirds of the 36 states of the federation.
But legislation alone will not determine whether state police succeeds. Its effectiveness will depend heavily on the genuineness of intent and sincerity of purpose of the political actors involved, as well as the participation, confidence and acceptance of the people.
Nigeria and Nigerians have suffered too many security challenges to be handed a partisan state police enterprise that merely transfers the existing dysfunction from Abuja to the state capitals and further prolongs their hardship. What Nigerians need is effective policing, not simply more police structures.
To enrich the proposal, the Policy Advisory Committee launched a public information portal, nationalpolicingbill.com, and opened a national call for memoranda and submissions.
The National Assembly should deepen this process by ensuring that public participation is meaningful rather than merely procedural.
The operational relationship between the federal and state police must be clearly spelt out to prevent jurisdictional clashes. Equally important, the relationship between states that choose not to establish state police and the federal police must be properly codified.
Most importantly, state police must never become an instrument for intimidating or oppressing real and perceived political opponents, critics, journalists, civil society organisations or ordinary Nigerians.
Robust legal, administrative and operational safeguards must also be introduced to ensure that the pitfalls and failings associated with the federal police, including poor recruitment, inadequate funding, bribery and corruption, lack of equipment and the attachment of officers to VIPs, are neither transferred to state police nor allowed to continue unchecked within the federal force.
State governors, in particular, must ensure merit-based recruitment rather than political patronage.
Police officers must receive proper training in modern policing, community engagement, human rights and the appropriate use of force. There must also be clear and enforceable Standard Operating Procedures for the handling and use of firearms.
Gbajabiamila said: “Nigeria has debated state police for decades. We are now closer than ever to creating it. Yet the harder question is not simply whether policing should be brought closer to the people. It is how to do so without replacing one set of weaknesses with another. That is the purpose of the reforms now underway.”
He is on point. But the real challenge goes beyond rhetoric. The reform must be given teeth through strong institutions at both federal and state levels, backed by transparent rules, adequate funding, independent oversight and broad-based engagement that accommodates the views and concerns of all stakeholders.
The road to entrenching effective state policing is neither abrupt nor partisan. It must be strategic, methodical and continuously evolving.
Nigeria has waited too long for this reform. It must not rush it now, but neither can it afford to get it wrong.
Research Credits
*This compilation series was first researched, written, poster designed and last updated by Toju Micheal Ogbe.
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State police: More details, please By Punch Editorial Board is a report series by PositiveNaija aims to amplify and preserve the truth as done on the editorials of various Nigerian newspapers.
