Nigerians have continued to express mixed reactions after the National Assembly moved forward with one of the country’s most significant security reforms.
On Wednesday, the Senate passed the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Alteration) (State Police) Bill, 2026, bringing the country closer to the establishment of state-controlled police structures.
Although many Nigerians believe the creation of State Police has become necessary, concerns remain over its implementation and the possibility of political interference by state governors.
The proposed legislation, transmitted to the Senate by President Bola Tinubu, received accelerated consideration, similar to several executive bills introduced under the current administration.
A major aspect of the amendment is the creation of a restructured Federal Police Service, which would replace the existing Nigeria Police Force.
While the bill grants state governments the constitutional authority to establish and operate their own police services, it also preserves specific intervention powers for the Federal Government.
Under Section 214 of the proposed amendment, the Federal Police Service would retain the right to intervene in state security matters under certain circumstances.
Such situations include an actual or anticipated breakdown of public order, the inability of a state police service to effectively manage security challenges, threats to national security, or allegations of serious human rights abuses, political intimidation, or unlawful conduct by state policing authorities.
The proposed framework also empowers the Federal Police Service to temporarily assume operational control of a state police service or part of it, subject to presidential approval, Senate supervision, and judicial review.
Leading debate on the bill, Senate Leader Michael Opeyemi Bamidele described the proposal as one of the most important constitutional changes in Nigeria’s democratic history.
He stated that the legislation seeks to address long-standing concerns about the limitations of a centralized policing structure in a country faced with diverse security challenges, complex geographical conditions, and varying cultural realities.
ZINGTIE recalls that President Tinubu had earlier indicated support for State Police on September 2, 2025, when he pledged that his administration would establish State Police Services and strengthen the Forest Guard system to address insecurity.
The President made the remarks while receiving a delegation of prominent Katsina State citizens led by Governor Dikko Umaru Radda at the Presidential Villa.
He explained that current security challenges require security structures that understand local terrain, cultural peculiarities, and community dynamics.
Following the Senate’s approval of the bill, reactions have continued to emerge from different sections of the country, with several Nigerians expressing concerns about the proposed arrangement.
Speaking with ZINGTIE on Thursday, former Minister of Youth and Sports Development and a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Barrister Solomon Dalung, warned that the introduction of State Police could further complicate Nigeria’s security situation.
Dalung, who was previously a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, said he remains unconvinced that State Police would effectively address insecurity across the country.
He said, “Well, the passing of the State Police bill by the Senate is just a political ploy to deceive Nigerians ahead of the 2027 election.
“The security challenges had been with this government since inception, and if it was serious to consider the issue of State Police, it would have done it long before now.
“But now, the government realises that it has failed woefully to address security challenges and has no solution at all, so they are now trying to hoodwink Nigerians with the issue of state police.
“Number two, the State Police is desirable, but the timing is wrong, the timing is political, the timing is ill motivated, and it is just intended to satisfy political interest, but not to protect Nigerians.
“This is because the question now is, What is the architecture of the state police as passed by the National Assembly? What is the problem with the current architecture that it couldn’t protect Nigerians when even over 5 trillion was voted for security, yet Nigerians are not safe.
“So, what will the state police do differently? The state police as contemplated by the bill cannot deal with the current security challenges, except it will compound the security situation.
“Because it is going to add victimization and marginalization of political opponents by the governors that the issue has been put in their hands.
“But which way forward? The only solution now is for the National Assembly to amend the Constitution and arm every Nigerian.
“This is because the current Nigerian political security architecture only protects criminals. It does not protect citizens.
“It exposes the citizens to be kidnapped by criminals and taken into the bushes, and nothing is done about it.
“That is why criminals can afford to drive freely. They will drive and pass police checkpoints, brandishing their arms, and nobody will stop them. Nothing will be done.
“But if a Nigerian takes a knife now, the police will arrest him. The DSS will arrest him. We have no devices to track criminals in the bush, but we have devices to track critics of the government.
“Almost all the activists, half of them are in prison. But they have no device to track criminals who are kidnapping Nigerians, producing video, going online, extracting money, building a criminal economy in the bush. Nothing is happening to them.
“So this security architecture is meant to protect only criminals, so the citizens must be allowed to be armed, so that everybody will take his defense in his hands. Communities that attempted to resist bandits were raided by security forces, and the machetes in their hands were taken.
“So State Police is a political ploy just to deceive Nigerians to relax, so that criminals can destroy them, so the only good thing necessarily should be that everyone should be allowed to be armed.
“The greatest peace is in the bandits’ enclaves. Have you ever heard that they are fighting amongst themselves? No.
“This is because everybody is bearing arms, so they have the greatest peace there. It is we here that has been asked to surrender our security to the bandits. Bandits are kidnapping our women, even with retired military personnel, killing and extracting ransom from us.
“So, as I said, State Police is a good idea, but with a very bad intention, and it will not serve any purpose.
“Rather, it’s going to compound the situation, because now the critics of the government, at the state and local government levels, all of them should begin to prepare, which of the state prisons will be their homes.”
However, an Abuja-based political analyst, Jide Ojo, who also spoke with ZINGTIE on Wednesday, expressed support for the establishment of State Police.
The analyst argued that there is nothing unusual about decentralizing policing in a federal system of government.
According to him, countries that operate federal systems across the world maintain policing structures at different levels of government, including local communities.
He said, “The truth is that this State Police is long overdue because out
He said, “The truth is that this State Police is long overdue because out of the 14 countries that operate federalism, only Nigeria has been running a unilateral policing system.
“Canada, Australia, Germany, every federal republic that I know has multiple policing systems.
“So Nigeria once had multiple policing systems in the First Republic, but it was scrapped by the 1979 Constitution because of alleged abuse, but as at that time, the insecurity of Nigeria was not even anywhere close to what we currently experience.
“You may argue that we have vigilantes, we have Amotekun and all these ones, but they are very limited in scope, and their roles are not well defined, and it is about the time that we have this second layer policing system. I fully endorse this. I’ve advocated for this over the years.
“In a federal system, what needs to be done is parameters to be set within the areas that state police will operate and areas federal police will operate and that’s already earmarked in the bill that I have seen.
“The issues on how to prevent abuse have also been offered in the bills, and we must understand that we already have a state high court, we already have a state prison arising from the amendment under Buhari.
“There is already devolution of prison service from federal to state, so it’s now under concurrent, so it’s also in line with global best practices to move this security, particularly, police from exclusive.
“This is just an additional layer of efforts to tackle insecurity, because the failure of the president to act on this matter will impact negatively on his re-election bid in 2027.
“People are already complaining. The opposition is saying ‘resign because you cannot protect us,’ and when you know that Section 14, subsection 2b of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria said that security and welfare of citizens shall be the primary purpose of government.
“We have less than 400, 000 policemen, the armed forces is about 200, 000 and we have a population of over 200 million in 2026.
“But with states now having the law, the legal backing to start their own police, even if it is 10,000 or 50,000, will help to secure their own state.
“So, a state like Lagos, a state like Kano Kaduna, a state like Oyo, who are facing enormous security challenges, will decide to go and establish, and states that feel that they don’t have the resources to establish will not be forced to establish. It’s just going to afford the country an additional layer of security.
“Don’t forget that this Tinubu administration has also set up forest guards, because after the adoption in Oyo State, he approved the deployment of 1000 forest guards to Oyo State.
“Likewise, he has approved the deployment of 1000 forest guards to Katsina. So the forest guards will not be scrapped. It’s already backed by law.
“The Civil Defense will still be there, the DSS will still be there. The Nigerian Army, Nigerian Navy and all of them will still be there.”
Similarly, Borno South Senator Ali Ndume stated during an appearance on Arise News on Wednesday that Nigeria requires at least one million police personnel to adequately serve a population exceeding 200 million people.
According to him: “What prompted me to support state police 100% is the reality that the number of police officers we currently have is far from adequate.
“Nigeria’s total police strength is nothing to write home about. According to the UN benchmark, there should be between 200 and 400 police officers for every 100,000 people. Nigeria is nowhere near that standard.
“A vast country like Nigeria, if you have centralized the policing under one IGP controlled by the center, not decentralizing it, that will never be effective, and that is where we found ourselves.
“So, I don’t see anything wrong with having a decentralized police system, that is to say, the state police under the state governor, who is the chief security officer of the state.”
Also commenting on the issue, human rights lawyer Femi Falana argued that addressing unemployment remains essential, insisting that State Police alone may not resolve the country’s security challenges.
Falana made the remarks on Thursday during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“I don’t think we should criminalize politicians, and I don’t want to engage in any conspiracy theory.
“The debates have been on since we started the campaign for restructuring in the country and set out a new phenomenon.
“How do we have more police stations? How do we employ more policemen and women without considering social security? Why are we not talking of creating employment for young people? Why are we not giving assistance to Nigerians that are vulnerable, extremely poor?
“Unless you address this problem holistically, creating a state police or local government police will not address the crisis of insecurity in the country,” he said.
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