State police: Nigerians divided as National Assembly passes historic bill

The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday advanced the move towards state policing by passing the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Alteration) (State Police) Bill, 2026. 

While most Nigerians agree that the establishment of State Police in Nigeria is long overdue, there have been concerns about its effectiveness and possible abuse by state governors.

The bill, which was sent to the Senate by President Bola Tinubu, was expedited, just like every other bill from the executive since the inception of this administration.

Also central to the proposed constitutional amendment is the reformed Federal Police Service that would take the place of the Nigeria Police Force.

While the bill grants states the constitutional power to create and manage their own police services, it also retains considerable emergency intervention powers for the Federal Government.

According to Section 214 of the proposed legislation, the Federal Police Service would maintain the authority to intervene in a state’s internal security matters under certain conditions. 

These include an actual or imminent breakdown of public order, the ineffectiveness of a state police service, threats to national security, or indications of serious human rights violations, partisan intimidation, or unlawful actions by state policing authorities.

The legislation allows the Federal Police Service to temporarily take operational control of a state police service or any portion thereof, contingent upon presidential approval, Senate oversight, and judicial review.

During the debate on the bill, Senate Leader, Michael Opeyemi Bamidele characterized the proposal as one of the most significant constitutional reforms in Nigeria’s democratic history.

He emphasized that the measure aims to tackle long-standing issues related to the limitations of a centralized policing system in a nation facing various security challenges, intricate geographical realities, and diverse socio-cultural contexts.

DAILY POST recalls a clear signal started on September 2, 2025 when President Tinubu vowed that his administration would create the State Police Service and upgrade the Forest Guard in order to squarely combat insecurity across the country.

Tinubu said this when he received a delegation of eminent citizens of Katsina State led by Governor Dikko Umaru Radda at the State House, noting that current security issues across Nigeria will require the deployment of outfits that understand the terrain and the peculiar culture of the people and can easily network at the grassroots.

With the passage of the bill, Nigerians have been pouring out their reactions, with many expressing reservations. 

Speaking to DAILY POST on Thursday, Barr. Solomon Dalung, a former Minister of Sport and Youth Development, now a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, said the creation of State Police would compound the country’s security situation.

Dalong, a former Chieftain of the All Progressive Congress, APC, does not see the effectiveness of the state police in the war against insecurity across the country.

He said, “Well, the passing of the State Police bill by the Senate is just a political ploy to deceive Nigerians ahead of the 2027 election. 

“The security challenges had been with this government since inception, and if it was serious to consider the issue of State Police, it would have done it long before now. 

“But now, the government realises that it has failed woefully to address security challenges and has no solution at all, so they are now trying to hoodwink Nigerians with the issue of state police.

“Number two, the State Police is desirable, but the timing is wrong, the timing is political, the timing is ill motivated, and it is just intended to satisfy political interest, but not to protect Nigerians. 

“This is because the question now is, What is the architecture of the state police as passed by the National Assembly? What is the problem with the current architecture that it couldn’t protect Nigerians when even over 5 trillion was voted for security, yet Nigerians are not safe.

“So, what will the state police do differently? The state police as contemplated by the bill cannot deal with the current security challenges, except it will compound the security situation. 

“Because it is going to add victimization and marginalization of political opponents by the governors that the issue has been put in their hands. 

“But which way forward? The only solution now is for the National Assembly to amend the Constitution and arm every Nigerian. 

“This is because the current Nigerian political security architecture only protects criminals. It does not protect citizens. 

“It exposes the citizens to be kidnapped by criminals and taken into the bushes, and nothing is done about it. 

“That is why criminals can afford to drive freely. They will drive and pass police checkpoints, brandishing their arms, and nobody will stop them. Nothing will be done.

“But if a Nigerian takes a knife now, the police will arrest him. The DSS will arrest him. We have no devices to track criminals in the bush, but we have devices to track critics of the government. 

“Almost all the activists, half of them are in prison. But they have no device to track criminals who are kidnapping Nigerians, producing video, going online, extracting money, building a criminal economy in the bush. Nothing is happening to them. 

“So this security architecture is meant to protect only criminals, so the citizens must be allowed to be armed, so that everybody will take his defense in his hands. Communities that attempted to resist bandits were raided by security forces, and the machetes in their hands were taken.

“So State Police is a political ploy just to deceive Nigerians to relax, so that criminals can destroy them, so the only good thing necessarily should be that everyone should be allowed to be armed. 

“The greatest peace is in the bandits’ enclaves. Have you ever heard that they are fighting amongst themselves? No. 

“This is because everybody is bearing arms, so they have the greatest peace there. It is we here that has been asked to surrender our security to the bandits. Bandits are kidnapping our women, even with retired military personnel, killing and extracting ransom from us. 

“So, as I said, State Police is a good idea, but with a very bad intention, and it will not serve any purpose. 

“Rather, it’s going to compound the situation, because now the critics of the government, at the state and local government levels, all of them should begin to prepare, which of the state prisons will be their homes.”

However, a popular Abuja-based political analyst, Jide Ojo, who also spoke to DAILY POST on Wednesday, sees nothing wrong with the creation of State Police. 

He said all other countries running the federal system of government have police structures at all levels of government down to the community.

He said, “The truth is that this State Police is long overdue because out of the 14 countries that operate federalism, only Nigeria has been running a unilateral policing system. 

“Canada, Australia, Germany, every federal republic that I know has multiple policing systems.

“So Nigeria once had multiple policing systems in the First Republic, but it was scrapped by the 1979 Constitution because of alleged abuse, but as at that time, the insecurity of Nigeria was not even anywhere close to what we currently experience. 

“You may argue that we have vigilantes, we have Amotekun and all these ones, but they are very limited in scope, and their roles are not well defined, and it is about the time that we have this second layer policing system. I fully endorse this. I’ve advocated for this over the years. 

“In a federal system, what needs to be done is parameters to be set within the areas that state police will operate and areas federal police will operate and that’s already earmarked in the bill that I have seen.  

“The issues on how to prevent abuse have also been offered in the bills, and we must understand that we already have a state high court, we already have a state prison arising from the amendment under Buhari. 

“There is already devolution of prison service from federal to state, so it’s now under concurrent, so it’s also in line with global best practices to move this security, particularly, police from exclusive. 

“This is just an additional layer of efforts to tackle insecurity, because the failure of the president to act on this matter will impact negatively on his re-election bid in 2027. 

“People are already complaining. The opposition is saying ‘resign because you cannot protect us,’ and when you know that Section 14, subsection 2b of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria said that security and welfare of citizens shall be the primary purpose of government. 

“We have less than 400, 000 policemen, the armed forces is about 200, 000 and we have a population of over 200 million in 2026. 

“But with states now having the law, the legal backing to start their own police, even if it is 10,000 or 50,000, will help to secure their own state. 

“So, a state like Lagos, a state like Kano Kaduna, a state like Oyo, who are facing enormous security challenges, will decide to go and establish, and states that feel that they don’t have the resources to establish will not be forced to establish. It’s just going to afford the country an additional layer of security. 

“Don’t forget that this Tinubu administration has also set up forest guards, because after the adoption in Oyo State, he approved the deployment of 1000 forest guards to Oyo State. 

“Likewise, he has approved the deployment of 1000 forest guards to Katsina. So the forest guards will not be scrapped. It’s already backed by law.

“The Civil Defense will still be there, the DSS will still be there. The Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy and all of them will still be there.”

Speaking on Arise News on Wednesday, Borno South Senator, Ali Ndume, said Nigeria needs at least one million police officers for a population of over 200 million people.

According to him: “What prompted me to support state police 100% is the reality that the number of police officers we currently have is far from adequate.

“Nigeria’s total police strength is nothing to write home about. According to the UN benchmark, there should be between 200 and 400 police officers for every 100,000 people. Nigeria is nowhere near that standard.

“A vast country like Nigeria, if you have centralized the policing under one IGP controlled by the center, not decentralizing it, that will never be effective, and that is where we found ourselves.

“So, I don’t see anything wrong with having a decentralized police system, that is to say, the state police under the state governor, who is the chief security officer of the state.”

Also speaking on the matter, a human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, pointed out that unless unemployment is tackled, state police may not be the solution to insecurity in Nigeria.

Falana made this statement on Thursday when he appeared as a guest in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.

“I don’t think we should criminalize politicians, and I don’t want to engage in any conspiracy theory.

“The debates have been on since we started the campaign for restructuring in the country and set out a new phenomenon.

“How do we have more police stations? How do we employ more policemen and women without considering social security? Why are we not talking of creating employment for young people? Why are we not giving assistance to Nigerians that are vulnerable, extremely poor?

“Unless you address this problem holistically, creating a state police or local government police will not address the crisis of insecurity in the country,” he said.