•CSOs, stakeholders, regional leaders give success tips

With the passage of the State Police Bill by the Senate, coming after the House of Representatives earlier similar action, pressure has now shifted to the state Houses of Assembly.

To effect a constitution amendment, which approval for state police intends, two-thirds of the state legislature must also pass the State Police Bill.

When ratified by at least 24 state Houses of Assembly and assented to by President Bola Tinubu, the bill would introduce a dual policing structure seen as one of the measures to tackle the worsening security crisis.

Legal experts, retired security chiefs, civil society leaders, regional stakeholders and political figures across the country are therefore calling on state assemblies to expedite action on the bill so that the legal instrument for state police would be secured, even as they have some fears.

The State Police Bill, which seeks to alter Section 214 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to formally establish a Federal Police Service alongside State Police Services, has emerged as one of the most far-reaching constitutional reforms proposals currently before the National Assembly.

The proposal was sponsored in the House of Representatives in 2024 by the Deputy Speaker, Benjamin Kalu, and 14 other lawmakers. It also seeks consequential amendments to several sections of the Constitution to accommodate the new federal and state policing structure. The bill passed second reading in the House on February 20, 2024 and was referred to the House Committee on Constitution Review, before being adopted by the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review as part of the broader constitution amendment process.

On June 11, 2026, the House of Representatives approved the bill with 289 votes, paving the way for the decentralisation of policing and empowering states to establish their own police services. The Senate has also passed the proposal. Under the bill, the President would appoint the Inspector General of Police on the advice of the National Police Council, subject to Senate confirmation, while a State Commissioner of Police would be appointed by a governor on the recommendation of the National Police Council and subject to confirmation by the relevant State House of Assembly.

The legislation also empowers the Federal Police Service to intervene in state policing operations where there is a breakdown of public order, threats to national security, abuse of police powers or serious violations of fundamental rights.

Speaking on the development regarding state police, Director of The Electoral Hub, Princess Hamman Obels, a civil society expert who has championed police reforms, said that Nigeria’s diversity demands a security response that reflects local realities rather than orders issued from Abuja.

She contends that governors, already designated chief security officers of their states, are being denied the tools to match that responsibility, and insists the scale of bloodshed across the country leaves the nation little choice but to act.

Recalling the relative calm of the 1980s, she maintains that insecurity has stalled development for over 15 years, disrupting farming, displacing families and making inter-state travel perilous. Those opposed to reform, she says, have offered no credible alternative.

The same sentiment is echoed by the Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, whose President General, Goodluck Ibem, describes the existing centralised structure as overstretched and incapable of responding to the peculiar security challenges confronting different states.

The coalition insists that police, being closer to the people and familiar with local terrain, language and intelligence networks, will possess far greater capacity to tackle insecurity proactively.

The group points to the alarming rise in kidnapping, banditry, armed robbery and cultism as evidence that reforms can no longer be delayed and must be treated as a national imperative, declaring that the cost of insecurity far outweighs the investment required to secure lives and property.

Director of the Civil Liberties Organisation, Steve Aluko, takes a similarly supportive line, noting that experiences from other countries and existing local security structures within Nigeria demonstrate that state police can significantly improve outcomes.

While careful not to promise a complete solution, he believes the new structure will drastically reduce the current carnage, and points to existing security votes already allocated to governors and local government chairmen as a readymade source of funding.

In Imo State, Goddy Uwazuruike, former president of the Igbo socio cultural organisation, Aka Ikenga and a one-time member of the 2014 National Conference, took a more conditional view, arguing that state police can only succeed under what he called an upright leader. Even so, he maintains that the project is financially feasible if governments curtail wasteful spending.

Uwazuruike suggested that funds currently lavished on private jets and other extravagances could instead be channelled into policing.

These voices, taken together, form the backbone for the case for reform. A country bleeding from kidnapping, banditry and communal violence cannot continue to wait on a single, distant police command that has manifestly struggled to keep pace with the scale and variety of the threat. The argument is not that state police is a perfect solution. It is that the current arrangement has been tested for decades and found wanting, and that a structurally diversified system, properly built, offers Nigeria’s best remaining chance of bringing security closer to the people who need it most.

Can state police actually fight crime?

The first and most pressing concern raised by stakeholders is whether state police will possess the operational capacity to tackle the very challenges it is meant to solve.

Constitutional lawyer, Chief Festus Ogwuche, cautions that the existing centralised system has not even been repositioned away from what he calls its constabulary pedigree, making it premature to expect a wholesome modern police mechanism to spring fully from a state versus federal collaboration.

Board of Trustees member of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Anthony Sani, puts the matter plainly, insisting that capacity must be built rather than wished into existence.

According to him, the Nigeria Police Force would have had sufficient capacity to secure the nation if it were adequately staffed, trained, equipped and motivated, adding that the same logic must apply to its state successors. Unless deliberate investment is made in personnel numbers, training, equipment and morale, he warns, Nigerians should not expect state police to be any kind of magic wand.

A more reassuring picture comes from retired Assistant Inspector General of Police and security sector reform expert, Austin Iwar, who argues that fears over manpower are largely misplaced.

He explains that the bulk of personnel for the new state police forces would be drawn from the existing Nigeria Police Force, as already suggested by the Inspector General, with seasoned officers forming the backbone of the new structure while freshly recruited officers train alongside them. This transitional approach, in his view, addresses the capacity question more credibly than building an entirely new workforce from scratch.

The funding question

Nowhere is anxiety more acute than over funding, both the immediate cost of standing up the architecture before the bill becomes law, and the long term burden of sustaining it afterwards. Anthony Sani warns bluntly that funding, the very issue that has long crippled the Nigeria Police Force, would most likely become the same challenge confronting its state successors, and prays that state governments will secure the resources needed to build genuine capacity.

It is here that AIG Austin Iwar offers the most detailed roadmap to emerge from the debate, proposing a tripartite funding arrangement involving the federal government, state governments and dedicated Police Trust Funds. Under his model, the federal government would contribute 60 per cent of joint funding directed specifically at hardware, including firearms, armoured vehicles and drones, items that typically require international security clearance and which foreign manufacturers in markets such as the United Kingdom and the United States would, in his estimation, prefer to supply through a federal rather than a state buyer.

The remaining forty per cent from state governments, he suggests, would cover forensic laboratories, communications infrastructure, intelligence operations, salaries, allowances, welfare, insurance and the maintenance of barracks and police stations, with individual state Police Trust Funds plugging any remaining gaps.

Policing, he concedes, remains a very expensive undertaking, while insisting that funding needs not be an insurmountable obstacle if all three funding strands are properly harnessed.

Other stakeholders offer complementary solutions. Steve Aluko points to existing security votes already in the hands of governors and local government chairmen as an underused resource.

Goddy Uwazuruike argues that curbing extravagant official spending could free up significant sums, while The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, even though acknowledges the financing concern, insists that security can never be sacrificed on the altar of budgetary excuses. It urged the Federal Government and National Assembly to design a transitional funding mechanism and security support package to carry states through the early years before constitutional and legal frameworks are fully in place.

The coalition notes that many states already commit considerable resources to vigilance groups operations and security logistics, resources that could, with proper planning, be redirected into a more structured and accountable state police framework.

Managing insecurity in the interim

A related and equally urgent question is how Nigeria copes with insecurity in the period between the bill’s passage and the actual operational readiness of state police structures, a gap that legal and administrative processes suggest could run into years.

Anthony Sani urges government to use the interim to double their efforts at strengthening existing security personnel, including a renewed push on forest guards capable of taking the fight to bandits and terrorists hiding in Nigeria’s vast woodlands.

The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders makes a similar appeal, calling for intensified support for existing agencies through improved intelligence gathering, community policing, technological surveillance and closer collaboration with recognised local security outfits, pending the full rollout of state police.

Bayelsa-based Civil Liberties Organisation chairman, David West, raised a related structural worry, cautioning that state police should not be confined to state capitals and urban centre, while neglecting rural communities. He said that this would defeat the entire purpose of bringing policing closer to the people.

Governors and the fear of abuse

If there is one anxiety that recurs in almost every discussion, it is the fear that state governors could turn state police force into a personal or political weapon. Chief Festus Ogwuche, drawing on the bitter experience of Nigeria’s First Republic, when a native police system became entangled in political suppression and helped accelerate the deterioration of security in parts of the country, warns that allowing state forces to run parallel to the federal police risks tempting state officials to pursue political ends and inflict vendettas on opponents.

Speaking from Port Harcourt, he offers a pointed illustration, suggesting that the political rivalry between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor Nyesom Wike could have turned considerably more dangerous had a Rivers State police force already existed on the ground.

Anthony Sani was equally direct, stating without equivocation that state governors will almost certainly abuse state police to the detriment of the very citizens who elected them.

He likened this risk to the manner in which governors have already taken over state electoral commissions and undermining multiparty democracy at the local government level. He warned that state police personnel could, in ethnically diverse and conflict prone states, take sides in local disputes and become part of the problem rather than the solution.

Public affairs analyst, Austin Onuoha, speaking from Benue State, shares this scepticism, arguing that placing a new police apparatus in the hands of governors invites abuse, particularly around elections, and warns Nigerians to be prepared for the consequences should that happen.

Former Theatre Commander of the Multi National Joint Taskforce in the North East, General Jonathan Temlong, dismissed the entire project as an exercise in futility and cautioning that state police are not the army and offers no silver bullet against banditry.

Niger State APC chieftain and former state commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Hon Jonathan Vatsa, voices perhaps the bluntest dissent of all, insisting that recruiting the same Nigerians and entrusting them to the same state level leadership will simply reproduce the corruption and dysfunction already afflicting the federal force, predicting that conditions under state police could end up worse than the present arrangement.

Goddy Uwazuruike, while admitting the fear that governors and the President might simply appoint loyalists to police leadership positions, insists that with an upright leader, the system will work.

Steve Aluko maintains that a properly framed State Police Act, supported by an active citizenry, the Human Rights Commission and other oversight bodies, can provide sufficient checks and balances.

The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders is the most emphatic on this point, refusing to accept that the risk of abuse should be used to deny Nigerians the security they desperately need. The coalition instead proposes a detailed legal architecture: a robust framework with strict oversight mechanisms, independent and legislatively supervised recruitment processes, severe penalties for political interference, and an outright ban on absorbing political appointees, party loyalists, thugs or enforcers into the new state formations.

Recruitment, it insists, must be strictly merit based, transparent, professional and subject to independent scrutiny.

Port Harcourt based security expert, Jackson Ojo, offers perhaps the most structurally detailed answer to the abuse question, proposing that each state police force be overseen by a State Police Commission composed jointly of appointees from the governor, the state legislature, the judiciary and civil society.

Under his proposal, recruitment, promotions and disciplinary actions would run through this Commission rather than the governor’s office, while funding would flow from a dedicated account in the state budget audited annually by the Auditor General and State Assembly, removing the governor’s ability to starve or weaponise the budget at will.

He further recommends a State Policing Act defining jurisdiction, banning political deployments and granting citizens the right to sue for abuse, alongside a Federal State Policing Council comprising the Inspector General, state commissioners and human rights representatives to handle cross state crimes and review complaints. Body cameras, public complaint boards and mandatory reporting of arrests or use of force, he argues, would keep the entire system transparent.

AIG Austin Iwar adds a further layer of reassurance, noting that legal safeguards can be built directly into the enabling law to prevent governors from hijacking the system, and calling for structures that insulate state police from political interference from the outset rather than as an afterthought.

Anthony Sani, despite his blunt warnings, concedes that since state governments themselves have clamoured loudest for state police, it falls on them to source the necessary finances and manage the institution for genuine performance, rather than treating it as another patronage vehicle.

Can states afford to run their own police?

Closely tied to the funding question is whether individual states possess the financial muscle to sustain a police force over the long term, particularly poorer states with thin internally generated revenue. Public affairs analyst, Austin Onuoha, argues that many state governments have not demonstrated sufficient capacity even in core sectors such as education, infrastructure and local government administration, casting doubt on their readiness to manage something as demanding as policing.

Hon Jonathan Vatsa makes a similar point with characteristic bluntness, observing that some governors cannot even adequately equip and manage local vigilante groups, let alone a full-fledged state police force, and predicting that ill-equipped state units could end up worse off than federal officers he describes as still carrying wooden batons on duty.

he Coalition of South East Youth Leaders rejects this pessimism outright, insisting that many states already generate substantial revenue and possess the administrative structures needed to manage a modern police service, provided there is proper planning, accountability and investment.

Anthony Sani strikes a more measured note, arguing simply that having long demanded state police, state governments bear the responsibility of finding the resources to fund and manage it properly.

The final concern raised consistently by stakeholders is whether state police, even once established, would be equipped to meet the technical and operational demands of modern policing, from forensics and intelligence gathering to communications and rapid response capability.

The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders argues that with proper planning, accountability, training, technological investment, forensic capability, intelligence systems and modern operational equipment, state police can indeed meet contemporary law enforcement standards.

AIG Austin Iwar’s funding model speaks directly to this concern, recommending channelling federal resources towards heavy hardware such as armoured vehicles and drones, while state resources cover forensic laboratories and communications infrastructure, a division of labour designed specifically to ensure modern policing tools are not left out of the equation.

David West strikes a note of caution on this point, observing that the framework for funding modern policing infrastructure remains insufficiently spelled out. He notes that since the assumption of office by President Tinubu, governors have largely stopped complaining about poor federal allocation, but warns that the addition of an entire new police wage bill makes it essential that a proper financing framework be established from the outset to equip the new force with modern facilities.

The bottom line

Taken together, the testimony gathered from legal experts, retired security chiefs, civil society leaders and political figures across Nigeria’s regions does not amount to a rejection of state police. It amounts to a demand that the project be built properly. Every genuine concern raised, capacity, funding, the interim security gap, the risk of gubernatorial abuse, state level financial capacity and technical readiness for modern policing, has been met with a concrete proposal on how it might be addressed.

From Jackson Ojo’s independently governed State Police Commission to Austin Iwar’s tripartite funding model to the Coalition of South East Youth Leaders’ insistence on merit-based recruitment and a transitional funding package, everybody is agreed that state police would help in ensuring security in the country. (The Sun)