A constitutional amendment creating state police is only half the job done, President Bola Tinubu says, which is why he has already inaugurated a seven member Presidential Working Group tasked with writing the National Policing Bill, the legislation meant to actually put dual policing into practice once the amendment clears.
Represented by Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila at the panel’s inauguration at the State House, Tinubu explained the division of labour plainly: the Constitution Alteration Bill, which the National Assembly recently passed to establish a Federal Police Service alongside 36 State Police Services, builds the framework, but leaves the actual operationalising work to a separate bill. Gbajabiamila chairs the group, with the Attorney General of the Federation, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, the National Security Adviser, the Inspector General of Police and the Chairman of the NGF Committee on State Police rounding out the membership, backed by a secretariat for administrative support.
Tinubu said the coming bill will need to cover minimum policing standards, a certification process for state readiness, coordination between federal and state forces, accountability mechanisms, human rights safeguards and the fiscal conditions attached to running a state force, and instructed the group to produce a technically sound, implementation ready draft as soon as the constitutional process wraps up rather than waiting to start the work afterward. We must not wait until the constitutional process is concluded before beginning this important assignment, he said.
Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, speaking for the Nigeria Governors Forum, pledged that all 36 governors would move quickly once the bill reaches their state assemblies, describing state police as a direct answer to Nigerians’ long standing demand to take policing off the Exclusive Legislative List and bring it closer to communities, an approach he said regional outfits like Amotekun in the South West have already proven works. He estimated that if each state fields roughly 6,000 personnel, the reform would add nearly 200,000 officers nationwide on top of the existing federal force, and praised Tinubu for starting implementation planning before the constitutional process even finished.
Attorney General Lateef Fagbemi called the timing appropriate given Nigeria’s current security challenges, urging governors to push the constitutional amendment through their state assemblies quickly since the responsibility is a shared one. Nigerian Bar Association President Afam Osigwe backed the state police push too, arguing that a single national police force can hardly cover a country the size of Nigeria effectively, but cautioned that the right legal safeguards are essential to prevent abuse, saying the framework must guarantee accountability so state police forces don’t become instruments of oppression, and pledged the association’s support in helping the committee draft legislation that strengthens security without compromising citizens’ rights.
