Last week, President Bola Tinubu renewed calls for the establishment of state police amidst Nigeria’s growing insecurity, a subject previously viewed with skepticism, but now the country’s most preferred recourse for peace and stability.
Obviously, from the harrowing attacks and security breaches reported nationwide, Nigeria can no longer cling to an overstretched, over-centralised policing structure that is clearly struggling to keep pace with the security threats multiplying across the country.
President Tinubu’s call for decentralised policing is therefore not only timely, but must be construed by legislative authorities as urgent, to enact relevant laws and pull the nation out of its daily struggles with rising waves of attacks in local communities.
Tinubu had, at an interfaith breaking of fast with members of the House of Representatives at the State House, restated his support for decentralised policing as part of broader efforts to strengthen national security.
Apparently, his position reflects a growing consensus among security professionals, governors and ordinary citizens who daily confront the limits of a federal policing system designed for a far less complex Nigeria.
Across the globe, the reality is that effective policing is local. Bandits, kidnappers and violent criminal networks exploit the gaps created by distance, slow response times and weak intelligence flow.
A command structure that requires officers in remote communities to await direction from a central authority in Abuja is increasingly out of step with the speed and fluidity of the growing security threats across the country.
State police offers a more pragmatic approach as officers recruited from their communities bring critical advantages such as knowledge of the terrain, cultural familiarity and language competence.
It is important to note that these advantages are operational assets, not mere conveniences as intelligence gathering improves when communities trust the officers among them.
Response time shortens when deployment decisions are taken closer to the point of danger and accountability strengthens when those responsible for security are directly answerable to the populations they serve.
Already, Nigeria is naturally drifting toward decentralised policing, however, in an informal and poorly regulated manner.
Across the federation, states fund various security outfits: Hisbah corps in parts of the North, Amotekun in the South-West, Ebubeagu in the South-East, alongside numerous vigilante and neighbourhood safety agencies.
We submit that the proliferation of these regional policing substitutes is self-evident that the demand for localised security response has outpaced the capacity of the federal police.
The immediate step to take is for the National Assembly to expedite constitutional amendments to legalise, standardise and properly supervise what is already happening in practice.
While opponents’ frequent warning of potential abuse by state governors is legitimate, the appropriate response to possible misuse is strong institutional design, and not trying to paralyse the policy.
With clear constitutional guardrails, independent state police service commissions, judicial oversight and defined operational limits, the risks of governors’ interference can be substantially mitigated.
Nigeria already manages complex federal–state power relationships in revenue, education and health; policing should not be treated as uniquely unmanageable.
It is no longer news that the centrally controlled Nigeria Police Force, NPF, despite decades of exclusive authority, remains overstretched and often thinly deployed in rural communities.
Across the country, it is evident that the federalised approach to policing has not delivered the security Nigerians were promised.
On questions surrounding funding challenges that might emerge from the establishment of state police, opponents must realize that the obstacle is surmountable.
States already spend significant resources through security votes and direct financing of auxiliary security bodies. Folding these expenditures into a transparent, legislatively approved state police framework would likely improve financial accountability while strengthening operational capacity.
President Tinubu’s renewed endorsement should therefore mark a turning point and translate into urgent action, not empty and unresolved discourses.
The National Assembly, under the leadership of Senate President Godswill Akpabio and Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, must now move the debate from advocacy to constitutional amendments to develop funding formulas, command structures and oversight mechanisms.
What Nigeria requires now is not mere agreement about the problem, but decisive action toward a solution and the moment for that decisive solution has unmistakably arrived.
