By Seun Perez Adekunle
Nigeria’s worsening security situation has pushed the country into one of the most consequential governance debates of the Fourth Republic: whether the time has come to decentralise policing. Across the country, communities face daily threats from insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, farmer–herder conflicts, and organised criminal violence. Yet the responsibility for policing over 200 million citizens remains concentrated in a single federal institution, the Nigeria Police Force.
As insecurity deepens and response capacity appears increasingly overstretched, calls for the establishment of state police have grown louder. What was once dismissed as a controversial constitutional idea is now emerging as a serious policy option in the search for a more responsive security architecture.
At its core, state policing refers to a system in which individual states maintain their own police forces responsible for law enforcement within their territories, often operating alongside a federal police authority that handles national security concerns and inter-state crimes. Nigeria currently operates the opposite model: a highly centralised police structure controlled by the federal government.
The legal foundation of Nigeria’s centralized policing structure lies in Section 214(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, which provides that there shall be a police force for Nigeria known as the Nigeria Police Force and that no other police force shall be established for the federation or any part thereof. That final clause is the constitutional barrier that prevents states from creating independent police institutions and effectively anchors the country’s centralised policing system. In practical terms, this means that only the federal government can constitutionally maintain a police force, while states cannot legally establish their own police agencies even when they fund or organize security outfits. Consequently, regional security organisations such as the Amotekun Corps and Ebube Agu operate merely as auxiliary or community-based security arrangements rather than constitutionally recognised police forces.
Because of Section 214, any genuine attempt to establish state police would require a constitutional amendment passed by the National Assembly of Nigeria and approved by at least two-thirds of the State Houses of Assembly in Nigeria. This is why critics of recent proposals insist that debates about implementation must ultimately return to the constitutional question itself; since the law remains the gatekeeper of Nigeria’s policing structure.
Ironically, Nigeria did not always operate such a centralised system. Before 1966, policing in the country reflected the federal character of the state. The system comprised regional police forces, native authority police and a federal police structure. Under the 1963 Constitution, the regions were permitted to maintain their own police organisations alongside the national force. In theory, this arrangement allowed law enforcement to respond more closely to local realities. In practice, however, the arrangement became entangled in the intense political rivalries of the First Republic.
Regional governments were widely accused of using their police forces to intimidate political opponents and influence elections.
The collapse of the First Republic and the military coup of 1966 therefore marked a decisive turning point. The military government abolished regional police forces and centralised policing under a single national command. The logic was simple: a unified police structure would reduce political abuse by regional authorities and strengthen national cohesion in a fragile federation. That philosophy of centralised control survived successive military administrations and was eventually embedded in later constitutional arrangements, including the current 1999 Constitution.
However, Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999 gradually reopened the conversation.
Over the past two decades, calls for state policing have intensified, largely because the country’s security environment has deteriorated significantly. The Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, armed banditry in the North-West, rampant kidnappings across highways and rural communities, farmer–herder conflicts, and recurring communal violence have placed enormous strain on the country’s security institutions. With a population exceeding 200 million people and fewer than 400,000 police officers nationwide, Nigeria operates far below widely cited global benchmarks for police-to-citizen ratios. The result is a security apparatus that often appears overstretched and slow to respond to localised threats.
Recent developments suggest that the debate is moving from political rhetoric to institutional consideration. The Inspector-General of Police, Tunji Disu, recently inaugurated a committee tasked with developing an operational framework for the possible establishment of state police in Nigeria.
The committee, chaired by Professor Olu Ogunsakin of the National Institute for Police Studies, has been mandated to examine issues such as recruitment, training, funding, coordination and oversight mechanisms that could guide a decentralised policing structure. In inaugurating the committee, the IGP acknowledged that the task is both significant and timely, reflecting growing national demands for a policing system that is more responsive to local realities.
Perhaps more telling was Disu’s suggestion that state policing is no longer a distant theoretical possibility but an emerging direction in Nigeria’s security conversation. By insisting that the police institution itself must actively participate in shaping the framework, the IGP appeared to recognise that the debate has reached a stage where outright resistance may no longer be realistic. In his words, the goal is to ensure that any future decentralisation strengthens rather than fragments the country’s national security system.
To be continued tomorrow.
Adekunle, a university lecturer in Political Science and International Relations, wrote from Ibadan.
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