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On Thursday, February 15, 2024, President Bola Tinubu and the state governors agreed, in principle, to establish state police as part of the measures to check the rising wave of insecurity across the country.
During its visit to Plateau to commiserate with the state on the unremitting killings of innocent citizens on Thursday, February 1, 2024, the opposition PDP Governors’ Forum backed the strident calls for creation of state police.
We recall that at a summit on Monday, 12 September, 2022, the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) and Northern Traditional Rulers Council (NTRC) called for an amendment of the 1999 Constitution to give legal backing to state police. According to the communiqué at the end of the meeting in Abuja, “This will effectively and efficiently address the security challenges of the region.”
In a remarkable volte-face in April, 2022, a former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, canvassed for the creation of state police in order to tackle the growing insecurity in the country.
The major obstacles to the creation of state police are the provisions of the 1999 Constitution. Section 214(1) of the Constitution expressly warns that “There shall be a police force for Nigeria, which shall be known as the Nigeria Police Force, and subject to the provisions of this section no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.”
Section 215(4) of the Constitution provides as follows: “Subject to the provisions of this section, the Governor of a state or such Commissioner of the Government state as he may authorise in that behalf, may give to the Commissioner of Police of that state such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order within the state as he may consider necessary, and the Commissioner of Police shall comply with those directions or cause them to be complied with: Provided that before carrying out any such directions under the foregoing provisions of this subsection the Commissioner of Police may request that the matter be referred to the President or such minister of the Government of the Federation as may be authorised in that behalf by the President for his directions.”
It is pellucid from the above that only a constitutional amendment can lead to the formation of state police. Unfortunately, none of the 68 Constitution Amendment Bills voted on by the National Assembly in 2022 include the issue of state police, despite the worsening insecurity in the country.
State police has been on the front burner of public discourse for many years. It has generated considerable controversy. Every Nigerian president has opposed it for largely indecipherable reasons, if not entirely the desire to retain the monopoly of an instrument of force. A number of citizens are against state police because of the fear of abuse by the state governors. They argue they will deploy the security outfit against their political rivals. However, majority of Nigerians, irrespective of party leanings and all the governors, who are chief security officers of their respective states, believe it is high time state police was established.
How can one Inspector-General of Police, even if he were super human, from Abuja determine the security architecture for every village and hamlet in a vast territory with over 250 ethnic nationalities, having disparate backgrounds, languages and cultures? The general opinion is that the Owo massacre, among many others, might have been prevented or the environment made difficult for such a grisly attack if we had state police.
While we acknowledge the possible flipside of a constitutional police decentralisation, we believe the merits far outweigh any potential demerits. Besides, no state helmsman will be invested with absolute control over the police outfit. With Boko Haram terrorist attacks, banditry, kidnapping for ransom, herdsmen’s violent attacks, armed robbery and kidnapping for rituals ravaging the entire country, it is time for state police. Law enforcement officers will be exceptionally effective in combating crime when they work among their own people and in their own terrain or local environment.
Every developed society operates a multi-layer policing system. Nigeria cannot be an exception. Therefore, we welcome the House of Representatives’ bill on establishment of state police and urge the federal legislators to act with promptitude on its passage.
