Nigeria’s Senate Backs State Police in a Historic Shift

NIGERIA · POLITICS

Nigeria’s Senate has voted to let the country’s 36 states run their own police forces, a historic break with a century of centralised policing. The Nigeria state police amendment now needs the backing of two-thirds of state assemblies before it can become law.

What the Senate approved

Nigerian senators passed a constitution alteration bill that would, for the first time, allow the country’s 36 states to set up their own police forces. More than two-thirds backed the measure, the threshold a constitutional change requires.

Lawmakers abandoned an electronic voting system over fears of technical glitches and instead voted by standing and raising their hands. Under the key clause, each state police service would be headed by a commissioner appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state assembly.

The federal police, led by the Inspector-General, would continue to operate alongside the new state forces.

Why Nigeria wants state police

Insecurity has become the defining concern of Nigerian life. Mass kidnappings for ransom, rural banditry in the north-west and a long jihadist insurgency in the north-east have stretched the state to its limits.

A single national force polices a country of more than 200 million people spread across a vast territory. Supporters argue that officers answerable to states, and drawn from local communities, would respond faster and understand the ground better.

For many Nigerians, the promise is simply more police who actually know the area they patrol.

Confidence in the federal police has been battered by years of high-profile failures. Many Nigerians say they would trust a force recruited and overseen closer to home.

A century of centralised control

Nigeria has run a single, centrally controlled police force since the colonial era, a model retained at independence. Calls to decentralise have surfaced for decades, usually stalling over fears of misuse.

This vote marks the furthest the idea has ever advanced in the National Assembly. It reflects a growing consensus that the centralised model has failed to keep citizens safe.

The shift, if completed, would rank among the most significant changes to Nigeria’s security architecture in generations.

The case in favour

Proponents point to federations such as the United States, where sub-national police are the norm. Local forces, they argue, bring proximity, local knowledge and clearer lines of accountability.

Some states have already experimented with regional security outfits to fill the gap. Formal state police would give those efforts legal standing and proper powers.

The reform also responds to relentless public pressure to do something about insecurity.

The fears it raises

Critics warn that governors could turn state police into private armies aimed at rivals and protesters. Nigeria’s history of electoral violence makes that risk far from theoretical.

There are also hard questions about money, training and oversight, and about the wide gap in capacity between richer and poorer states. Without safeguards, reform could deepen abuses rather than curb them.

Much will depend on the detail still to be worked out.

The road ahead

Senate approval is only the first step. The amendment must also clear the House of Representatives and then win the support of at least two-thirds of the 36 state assemblies.

Only after that can it return to President Tinubu for his signature. The process could take many months, and disputes over funding and control are certain to follow.

For now, a long-debated idea has cleared its highest hurdle yet.

Civil-society groups and governors are already pressing for safeguards as the bill moves through the assemblies. The coming months will test how much real power states are willing to hand their police.

Why it matters beyond Nigeria

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous nation and one of its largest economies, so its choices echo across the region. Security is the top concern for citizens and a key worry for investors weighing the market.

A serious move toward decentralised policing would be watched closely by other African states wrestling with the same problem. Few questions matter more to the continent’s future than how it keeps its people safe.

The experiment, if it proceeds, will be studied well beyond Nigeria’s borders.

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