The Decentralized Rifle: Can Nigeria Survive State Policing? By Lawson Akhigbe

Nigeria is currently witnessing an extraordinary, almost breathless rush to amend the 1999 Constitution. On June 15, 2026, President Bola Tinubu transmitted an official Executive Constitution Alteration Bill to the National Assembly, effectively demanding a dual policing framework. This executive push has acted as a high-powered catalyst, forcing a legislative apparatus notorious for its sluggishness into overdrive. The House of Representatives has already held massive national and regional public hearings, and the Senate is truncating recesses to harmonize this executive blueprint with parliamentary drafts.

We are told this is the silver bullet for our security paralysis. But as Nigeria stands on the precipice of altering Section 9 and dismantling Item 45 of the Exclusive Legislative List, we must ask: Are we solving a modern security crisis, or are we reawakening old ghosts that once broke the back of our democracy?

The Ghost in the Room: A History of Fractured Uniforms

To understand why the prospect of state police causes both exhilaration and terror, one must look at the historical trajectory of law enforcement in Nigeria, stretching from independence to the collapse of the First Republic and the subsequent militarization of the state.

The First Republic and the Native Authority Tyrants

Before the first coup of 1966, Nigeria actually operated a decentralized model. Alongside the federal police, there were Native Authority (NA) police forces in the North and Local Government police forces in the West.

Far from being an idyllic era of localized safety, these forces quickly mutated into the private armies of regional political barons. The ruling parties used local police to terrorize, intimidate, and violently suppress opposition figures. If you belonged to the AG in the West or the NPC in the North, the local police shielded you; if you were the opposition, they jailed you. The weaponization of these local forces so thoroughly compromised electoral integrity and regional stability that it became a primary justification for the January 1966 military coup.

The Iron Fist of Military Centralization

When the military took over, they looked at the chaos of the First Republic and concluded that decentralized armed forces were an existential threat to the unity of a multi-ethnic state. The local police forces were promptly abolished and swallowed by a singular, highly centralized Nigeria Police Force (NPF).

Decades of military dictatorship cemented a philosophy of command-and-control from Lagos (and later Abuja). The police were no longer configured to protect communities; they were structurally designed to protect the regime from the citizens. This militarized mindset created the bloated, unresponsive federal behemoth we see today, a force where a Commissioner of Police in Zamfara cannot deploy men to stop a violent raid without calling an Inspector General in Abuja for permission.

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” The Native Authority police did not fail because decentralization is bad; they failed because they lacked federal guardrails and institutional insulation from political actors.

The Three-Stage Roadmap to the New Framework

Dismantling this deeply entrenched military architecture requires a meticulous, three-step legislative and operational roadmap.

First is the Constitutional Alteration, which functions as the foundational “unlock.” Currently, policing sits exclusively in the domain of the Federal Government. The bill must successfully shift policing to the Concurrent Legislative List. This requires a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of the National Assembly and, crucially, ratification by at least 24 out of the 36 State Houses of Assembly. While some state assemblies will vote blindly on party lines, many will face fierce local pressure, forcing them to conduct rushed public dialogues to gauge the public’s appetite for a governor-controlled police force.

Second comes the Federal Enabling Act. Amending the constitution only grants the permission to create state police; it does not build them. The National Assembly must pass a subsequent federal law that dictates the operational limits and interaction safeguards between the NPF and state forces. Under Section 4(5) of the Constitution, if a state police law conflicts with a federal police law, the federal law automatically reigns supreme. This federal framework must clearly define boundaries regarding cross-border crimes and the protection of federal assets.

Third is the State Domestication phase. Each individual state wishing to opt-in must pass its own localized legislation through its House of Assembly. This is where the structural details, funding mechanisms via state taxation, and local recruitment standards must be fiercely debated by citizens.

The Operational Friction: When Uniforms Clash

Even if the legislation passes smoothly, the real test lies in the machines of state police and their interaction with the national police force. Without a crystal-clear operational framework, we are heading toward jurisdictional warfare.

Consider the financial reality: the economic variance between states will dictate the quality of security. A wealthy state like Lagos will be capable of deploying high-tech surveillance, advanced forensic units, and competitive salaries for its personnel. Conversely, a cash-strapped state heavily reliant on federal allocations may struggle to pay basic salaries, running the risk of creating underfunded, poorly equipped, and highly disgruntled state forces prone to corruption.

Furthermore, the legal boundaries of authority remain dangerously vague. What happens when a state police force attempts to investigate a financial crime that crosses into a neighboring state? Who holds supreme authority when a state governor orders his police force to shut down an infrastructure project or an opposition rally that is actively protected by federal NPF officers?

Verdict: A Leap of Faith

Nigeria’s security architecture is broken, and centralization has failed to protect the populace from the predatory kidnapping industry and regional insurgencies. Decentralization is necessary, but if we rush this process merely to satisfy an executive timeline without establishing rigid, independent oversight boards, we risk converting 36 governors into 36 emperors with private armies.

The legal and operational frameworks cannot be drafted behind closed doors in Abuja. They must be dragged into the public square, dissected, and heavily insulated against political bias. If we fail to build robust firewalls between state governors and state police commanders, we will find that the ghosts of 1966 have not been buried they have just been given brand-new uniforms.