Given President Bola Tinubu’s current disposition to the long-standing issue on the desirability of State Police in the country, the Nation is no doubt on the threshold of a new dawn, as the National Assembly is set to vote on the State Police Constitution Alteration Bill.
Although, stakeholders across the political, security and civil society divides remain acerbically divided over the issue of state police, supporters insist that Nigeria’s current centralised policing structure is outdated and incapable of responding to the country’s complex security threats.
It is believed the new regime if implemented would bring law enforcement closer to communities, enabling faster response, better intelligence gathering and improved trust between citizens and security forces.
Advocates also point to the overstretched Nigeria Police which is battling insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, and rural violence nationwide.
Decentralisation, they argue, will allow the federal police to focus on terrorism and interstate crime while state commands tackle neighbourhood and local threats.
Many governors and legislators believe decentralised policing could significantly reduce rural attacks, strengthen community policing and generate thousands of jobs for young people across the states.
Besides, adopting state police aligns Nigeria with other federal systems like the United States, India and Germany, where layered policing structures are considered more efficient and responsive.
One of the strongest concerns is the fear that state governors could weaponise state police forces to intimidate political opponents, suppress dissent, or influence elections especially in states with tense political histories.
However, there is the question whether such abuses are not prevalent in the current federal status.
While many point at funding as another major worry as several states already struggle to meet basic obligations such as salary payments, that must be written off as just sheer concerns. If the Federal Government can sustain the Nigeria police Force, NPF, the same resources could be spread across the states to augment their cost, thus allaying fears of any financial helplessness.
We hold that, if the United States of America whose democracy we replicate has the tendency of holding on to states police, Nigeria also can push through with same even if it is started with initial flip-flops.
Opponents warn that state-controlled police could marginalise minority groups within states, fuelling resentment and potentially worsening local conflicts.
In any case, there must be regulatory functions to curtail abuses.
The concerns about the possibility of corruption and abuses being replicated at the state level, especially if accountability structures are weak should not stand the way as the existing structure has at no time been insulated from sundry abuses
What is imperative for an air-tight system is to ensure that there are adequate checks to mitigate abusive scenarios.
We had advocated for a community-driven police structure with a central police taking a supervisory role alongside other contingent oversights that could be put in place.
Only recently, the 19 Northern state governors, the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, and the nation’s top security chiefs agreed on the urgency in creating State Police, especially for the fact that the region has been pervaded by unprecedented insecurity concerns.
A communiqué issued at the end of their two-day summit was blunt: the North is facing a security collapse that could “undermine the very existence” of the region. Their twin demands—immediate establishment of State Police and a six-month ban on mining—struck headlines nationwide.
One prescription centres on ending Nigeria’s “one-size-fits-all” approach by enabling states to deploy their own tailored mechanisms from fully constituted state police forces with explicit constitutional authority, to legally established and properly trained Community Watch Corps, as well as localised intelligence networks capable of distinguishing genuine criminal actors from normal residents.
We urge the National Assembly to take cognizance of the nation’s unique and precarious situation and start the process of establishing state police.
Nigeria’s highly centralised policing structure is “obsolete for a nation of over 200 million people”.
As a creation of the colonial hegemony, it was only intended to serve the self-centred interest of the establishment.
After several decades off the colonial hook, it is time to reform and re-strategise.
