Nigeria’s post-1999 democratic period coincided with one of the most serious crises of state power in the country’s history, with the state appearing weak and unable to defend its authority. Islamic fundamentalist groups, ethnic extremists, gangs, separatist movements, cults, organized crime gangs, and political thugs relentlessly challenge states to duels of supremacy, forcing them into either bouts of retroactive violence or face-saving settlements. Although structural and operational factors are interrelated in this governance crisis, political actors, especially at the local level, are increasingly framing the decentralization of the Nigeria Police Force as one of the key solutions to this complex problem.
There is no doubt that the central management of the Nigeria Police Force and the uniform conceptualization of the police force in Nigeria is problematic given the diversity and complexity of the country. Recognizing this fact, every president since 1999 has undertaken some form of police reform. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s government appears poised to proceed with its most far-reaching reforms to date, the constitutional amendments needed to allow for a state-controlled police service. Although there is significant political momentum behind this proposal, important policy questions remain unresolved. Will the creation of a national police force meaningfully address Nigeria’s security crisis, or will it merely reproduce existing failures on a sub-national scale?
There is no empirical, contextual, or policy-based evidence to suggest that constitutional recognition alone can deliver the security outcomes Nigeria so desires. The effectiveness of public policy is determined primarily by the political and institutional environment in which it operates. For a political system characterized by low levels of accountability, deep-rooted ethnic and religious tensions, persistent separatist incitement, and politicization of the policy process, wouldn’t the creation of a national police pose even more serious problems in the long run?
What will stop these new police forces from being appropriated as the governor’s personal enforcement arm?
Police enforcement is more about the nature of the system than its form, but Nigeria is curiously one of the few multi-ethnic and multi-religious federal states in the world that explicitly prohibits local governments from exercising enforcement powers. Therefore, the state police’s case is persuasive. However, the challenges lie more in the operational and institutional details than in the principles. Given Nigeria’s political history, how should the proposed decentralization of police be structured to protect important constitutional guarantees, strengthen the capacity of local forces to respond to local security concerns, and reduce the potential for abuse?
Around the world, all effective and efficient police systems are built on three cross-cutting pillars: legitimacy, accountability, and professional competence. Evaluations based on multiple performance indicators suggest that the Nigeria Police Force performs poorly in all three dimensions. At best, the creation of state police addresses legitimacy issues, leaving the crisis of accountability and professional competence unresolved. The Nigeria Police Force is the ideological successor to the 1861 Colonial Consular Guard. This security force was founded on the mantra of ‘police strangers’. This is an exploitative police system designed to protect the ruling power rather than local communities. At a minimum, state-created police forces will be funded by local communities, embedded in local contexts, and have cultural affinities with the communities they serve. This would go some way to addressing the legitimacy concerns plaguing the Nigerian police. Absent deliberate institutional design, the creation and control of police authorities by the state does not automatically translate into fairer and more respectful police procedures, a more equitable distribution of police outcomes, or stricter compliance with the law and human rights.
Policing is an expensive undertaking, requiring continued investment in personnel, training, infrastructure, information systems, and operational logistics. Without these important financial inputs, decentralized systems risk only replicating current inefficiencies at the local level. Currently, only 9 of 36 states can meet their payroll obligations without relying entirely on federal funds, and only about 20 states pay the current minimum wage. So where would the money come from to fund the proposed state police force? The stark disparities in state fiscal capacity create the dangerous possibility that underfunded state police forces could become armed groups, nominally uniformed but functionally abandoned to support themselves. This could encourage extortion and pillage against the very people they are meant to protect, and could deepen insecurity and corruption as these forces auction off their coercive powers to the highest bidder. The transition to state police therefore requires not only constitutional reform, but also a fundamental reassessment of fiscal federalism to prevent the creation of 36 potentially uneven and potentially dangerously unstable police services.
Beyond the hurdle of financial viability lies the more contentious issue of operational and organizational independence. For state police to become more than just “state legislative enforcement officers” with broader jurisdiction, their leadership must be insulated from local politics. Lessons from the First Republic’s local police abuses teach us that without clear institutional safeguards, state police risk becoming instruments of political patronage rather than instruments of public safety. Independence requires, among other things, a legal framework that defines chains of responsibility, establishes professional standards, and creates oversight mechanisms, perhaps through an independent police commission, to ensure that state police serve the public rather than the political ambitions of individual governors. Knowing what we know, how many governors will actually commit to this?
Ultimately, Nigeria’s current police system is in urgent need of reform. A practical reform path lies in restructuring existing centralized systems to enable hybrid control and multi-tiered policing arrangements that accommodate both national and sub-national policing platforms. Whatever the choice, a serious policy on police reform in Nigeria must be accompanied by a clear framework for sustainable funding, monitoring systems, and accountability mechanisms to ensure that the creation of state police strengthens rather than destabilizes local security governance.
The appearance of state police may indeed be inevitable. Whether it becomes a solution or a new source of unrest will depend less on constitutional reform and more on the political will to confront Nigeria’s serious governance failures.
Tosin Osasona is a criminal justice expert and senior fellow at the Center for Public Policy Alternatives in Lagos.
