By Ladidi Sabo
As support grows for decentralised policing, constitutional lawyers warn that the real challenge is no longer whether states should have police forces, but how to stop them from becoming instruments of political power.
For years, the argument for state police seemed straightforward.
Nigeria’s security challenges had outgrown a policing system directed almost entirely from Abuja. Communities battling terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and violent crime often waited for decisions from a command structure hundreds of kilometres away. Governors, despite being described as the chief security officers of their states, repeatedly complained that they lacked operational authority over police formations working within their territories.
The case for decentralisation gathered momentum because the existing arrangement was struggling to keep pace with reality.
Today, that conversation has changed.
Few serious observers still question whether Nigeria needs policing reforms. The sharper question now is whether the country can devolve policing powers without also creating new opportunities for political abuse.
That concern has become the defining fault line in the constitutional debate now unfolding in the National Assembly.
Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, believes the danger lies not in the idea of state police itself but in the way it is currently being pursued.
Speaking during a July appearance on Arise Television, he described the present proposal as “an invitation to anarchy,” arguing that the country appears ready to transfer enormous coercive powers to state governments without first building the constitutional restraints that should accompany them.
Odinkalu’s intervention was striking because he did not reject decentralised policing outright.
Instead, he questioned the circumstances surrounding the proposed constitutional amendment.
Introducing such sweeping powers close to another election cycle, he argued, inevitably raises questions about motive. In his view, policing should never become another weapon in Nigeria’s already fiercely contested electoral politics.
He also criticised what he described as the absence of meaningful public participation.
Although several versions of the proposed constitutional amendment are reportedly circulating within the National Assembly, Nigerians have had little opportunity to study them or debate the implications before lawmakers proceed further.
For a reform that would fundamentally reshape policing in Africa’s largest democracy, that lack of openness troubles many constitutional scholars.
Odinkalu also pointed to another weakness.
Creating new police organisations is relatively easy on paper. Building institutions capable of exercising those powers fairly is considerably harder.
Questions about recruitment standards, operational independence, disciplinary procedures, civilian oversight and inter-agency coordination remain largely unanswered.
Without those foundations, he warned, decentralisation could simply replace one set of problems with another. His criticism extends beyond policing itself.
No police system, he argued, can function effectively if the institutions responsible for justice remain weak.
Across many states, Ministries of Justice continue to struggle with inadequate funding, shortages of prosecutors and delays in criminal trials. Courts are overburdened. Correctional facilities remain overcrowded.
Strengthening the police without strengthening the justice system, he suggested, risks producing more arrests without necessarily producing more justice.
Perhaps his most provocative argument concerned Nigeria’s elections. According to Odinkalu, insecurity cannot be separated from public confidence in democratic institutions.
Where citizens believe elections are manipulated, political grievances often deepen into violence, creating pressures that no policing structure—whether federal or state—can resolve on its own.
Interestingly, his concerns are finding echoes among politicians who otherwise support policing reforms.
At the Building a National Consensus for State Police and National Security Conference organised by Arise News and THISDAY in Abuja, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan urged lawmakers to ensure that any state police system remains insulated from partisan control.
“State police should never become an instrument of political oppression or executive intimidation,” she said.
Her concern was not with decentralisation itself but with the possibility that governors could exercise unchecked influence over policing if constitutional safeguards prove inadequate.
She also drew attention to an issue that rarely receives the same attention as constitutional design: money.
Creating police organisations without sustainable funding, she warned, would leave them poorly equipped, poorly trained and vulnerable to corruption.
Her intervention reflected a growing consensus that the success of state police will depend as much on governance as on legislation.
Lessons Beyond Nigeria
The fears surrounding state police are understandable.
Nigeria has experienced repeated allegations of political interference in security institutions, particularly during elections.
Yet experience elsewhere suggests that decentralised policing does not inevitably produce authoritarianism.
The United States operates thousands of state, county and municipal police agencies alongside federal law enforcement. Canada divides policing responsibilities between federal, provincial and municipal authorities. Germany entrusts most policing functions to its sixteen states, while Australia follows a similar federal model.
India, another large and diverse federation, constitutionally assigns policing to state governments.
These systems are far from perfect. Political interference still occurs.
What distinguishes them is not simply that policing is decentralised, but that political power is constrained.
Independent police commissions oversee appointments and discipline.
Courts possess real authority to review executive actions.
Legislatures conduct oversight.
Citizens have functioning complaints mechanisms.
The media remains free to scrutinise abuses.
Those institutions—not the existence of state police—are what reduce the risk of political capture.
That is the lesson many constitutional lawyers believe Nigeria should heed.
If state police eventually becomes part of Nigeria’s constitutional architecture, the legislation will have to answer difficult questions before the first officer is recruited.
Who appoints state police commissioners?
Can governors direct criminal investigations?
Who disciplines officers?
Who investigates complaints against them?
How are disputes between federal and state police resolved?
Can citizens challenge political interference quickly and effectively?
Those answers may prove far more important than the debate over whether state police should exist.
Nigeria’s security crisis demands fresh thinking. The centralised model has struggled against increasingly localised threats. Communities want faster responses, better intelligence and officers who understand local realities.
State police may well become part of that solution. But history, in Nigeria and elsewhere, offers a simple reminder. Democracies are rarely weakened because institutions receive new powers.
They are weakened when those powers are granted without equally strong mechanisms to restrain them. That is the constitutional test now before the National Assembly.
If lawmakers get it right, state police could become one of the most consequential reforms since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
If they get it wrong, Nigeria may simply exchange one policing problem for another.
