Nigeria’s security crisis has reached a point where old constitutional assumptions must give way to practical federalism. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s support for constitutional amendment to accommodate state police is therefore not merely political; it is necessary, timely, and defensible. And with the National Assembly now acting, the moment of reckoning has arrived.
The constitutional barrier and the legislative breakthrough
The constitutional difficulty has always been clear. Section 214 of the 1999 Constitution establishes the Nigeria Police Force and prohibits the creation of any other police force for the federation or any part of it. That provision was designed to prevent regional abuse, but it became a constitutional bottleneck that made state police either illegal or forced into the grey zone of informal vigilante structures without proper discipline, funding, command, training, or accountability.
On June 11, 2026, the House of Representatives passed the Sixth Alteration Bill, titled “A Bill for an Act to Alter the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 to Provide for the Establishment of State Police and for Related Matters,” during consideration at the Committee of the Whole. An overwhelming 289 lawmakers voted in support, with none voting against. The Senate subsequently passed the bill through second reading with no opposition whatsoever, and has referred it to the Special Ad-hoc Committee on Constitution Alteration chaired by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Barau Jibrin, with final Senate voting expected in July. The bill is not merely an administrative reform — it is a seismic restructuring of Nigeria’s security architecture, touching the very foundations of how law and order will be maintained in a federation long criticised for over-centralising police power in Abuja.
The architecture of the reform
Under the proposed amendment, two distinct police bodies would be constitutionally established — the Federal Police and the State Police. A transitional provision ensures that until a State Police becomes operational in any given state, the Federal Police continues all policing functions in that state.
The bill stipulates that no state police formation shall commence operations unless it is established through a law passed by the relevant State House of Assembly and certified as meeting national minimum standards prescribed by an Act of the National Assembly. (The Guardian Nigeria) This is not permissiveness — it is structured devolution. States cannot simply declare a police force into existence; they must meet nationally set thresholds before operational authority vests.
On the legislative list, the bill inserts a new paragraph 20B into the Concurrent List, authorising the National Assembly to set minimum policing standards nationally while allowing State Houses of Assembly to legislate their own forces, with the condition that no state may set standards lower than national minimums, though states may exceed them. This is a clever constitutional architecture: federal regulatory supremacy on floors, state autonomy on ceilings.
Under the amended Section 215, State Commissioners of Police would be appointed by governors on the advice of the Nigeria Police Council from among serving officers of the state police, subject to confirmation by the respective State Houses of Assembly. Governors would be empowered to issue lawful directives to State Commissioners of Police on matters relating to public safety. However, where a commissioner considers such directives unlawful or inconsistent with accepted policing standards, the matter may be referred to the Nigeria Police Council, whose decision shall be final.
The Federal Police shall not interfere with State Police operations or a State’s internal security affairs except in three limited cases: where there is a complete breakdown of law and order and the State Police is unable to respond; when the Governor requests intervention; or when a State Police is unable to function due to administrative, financial, or other problems. Any such intervention requires prior approval by the National Police Council. The Federal Capital Territory remains fully under the jurisdiction of the Federal Police.
The rationale: Numbers that indicate centralisation
A country of over 200 million people, 36 states, vast forests, porous borders, urban violence, rural banditry, kidnapping, terrorism, and communal conflicts cannot continue to rely exclusively on one centrally controlled police institution. The Nigeria Police Force’s total personnel strength of 371,800 is grossly inadequate for over 200 million people — one police officer expected to serve about 540 citizens. In the 2026 budget, even with the highest allocation in years at ₦1.3 trillion, that sum must cover operational costs, equipment, salaries, pensions, training, infrastructure, and other requirements for 36 state Commands and the FCT, 12 Zonal Commands, 1,203 Divisions, 1,893 Stations, and 2,797 Posts. These numbers do not describe under-resourcing. They describe structural impossibility.
Security is local before it becomes national. A police officer posted from Abuja may not understand the language, terrain, family networks, escape routes, forests, markets, and traditional intelligence systems of a troubled community. State police would ensure faster response to emergencies within jurisdictions, reduce pressure on the overstretched Nigeria Police Force, and strengthen Nigeria’s federal structure by making governance more efficient and responsive.
The existing legal foundation: What already exists
What is often missed in this debate is that Nigeria has already built significant legal infrastructure for police reform that state police must inherit and build upon, not bypass.
The Nigerian Police Act 2020, which repealed the colonial-era 1943 legislation, sets a modern framework for policing that aims to align police functions with constitutional guarantees and international human rights norms. The Act strengthens oversight through the Nigeria Police Council for policy advice and the Police Service Commission for recruitment, promotions, discipline, and redress. It translates Chapter IV constitutional protections into enforceable duties: the right to life, dignity, freedom from torture, and protection from cruel or degrading treatment. Use of force must be lawful, necessary, and proportional.
The Act states its objective as including entrenching a human rights culture and promoting partnership, transparency, and accountability, drawing from the Constitution’s fundamental rights provisions as well as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act to provide procedural safeguards regulating the exercise of police powers.The Act also institutionalises community policing committees at divisional, state, and national levels — a structural acknowledgment that policing must be embedded in communities rather than imposed upon them.
Further to this, Regulations signed in November 2025 and gazetted in February 2026 pursuant to the Nigeria Police Act 2020 provide a comprehensive operational guide for modern policing, introducing clearer command structures, strengthened disciplinary and oversight mechanisms, enhanced recruitment and career progression systems, and reinforced human rights and gender-responsive policing.State police legislation must be anchored in this existing regulatory scaffold, not constructed in isolation from it.
Funding: The architecture of sustainability
Poorly funded state police will become armed poverty. This is not hypothetical. The Nigeria Police Trust Fund, NPTF, established by the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (Establishment) Act 2019, was created specifically to address chronic underfunding of the police. The most recent allocation of ₦124.4 billion for the NPTF — passed by the Senate in May 2025 — marks the highest allocation in the Fund’s short history, more than doubling the ₦57 billion allocated in 2023. (Placng)
Now, critically, the legislature is going further. The Senate recently passed the Police Trust Fund Act (Repeal and Re-enactment) Bill 2026, which increases the statutory allocation to the NPTF from 0.5 percent to 1 percent of revenue accruing to the Federation Account. Beyond Federation Account allocations, the proposed legislation provides for additional funding sources including development levies, government interventions, international grants, and private-sector contributions. The 2026 Act also removes the Fund’s sunset clause, making the funding stream permanent rather than provisional — a recognition that police reform and modernisation are continuous processes requiring long-term planning and investment.
For state police, this federal template must be mirrored at the state level. States must have dedicated security funds appropriated by their Houses of Assembly, audited annually, and protected from executive abuse. Federal intervention grants may assist poorer states, but such support should be tied to training standards, human rights compliance, data reporting, and operational readiness. The NPTF model, now strengthened, offers a replicable design.
Comparative models: The lessons of federalism
Nigeria does not need to invent a model from scratch. Canada and the United States offer frameworks that are instructive without being prescriptive. In Canada, policing is shared among federal, provincial, and municipal levels, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police also providing contract policing to provinces and municipalities that request it, while Ontario and Quebec maintain their own provincial police services. In the United States, federal agencies, state police, county sheriffs, and city police operate with overlapping but legally defined responsibilities. The lesson is not imitation. The lesson is that a federation can successfully operate multiple policing layers if the Constitution clearly allocates powers and creates genuine coordination mechanisms — which is precisely what the Sixth Alteration Bill is designed to achieve.
The governance design: Safeguards that must hold
The fear that governors may misuse state police is legitimate. In the First Republic, Native Authority Police forces were routinely used by political leaders to intimidate opponents, manipulate elections, and suppress dissent. That history is part of why centralised policing was written into the constitution in the first place.Abuse is not a reason to reject reform; it is a reason to design safeguards with precision.
Each state should have a State Police Service Commission responsible for recruitment, promotion, discipline, and complaints. The bill restructures the National Police Council and creates State Police Service Commissions whose membership must include representatives beyond the governor’s direct appointees. Legislation implementing this must ensure commissioners are drawn from the judiciary, civil society, traditional institutions, the bar, youth and women groups, and retired security professionals, with appointment and removal requiring legislative confirmation to prevent political capture.
State police must not be used to harass political opponents, intimidate voters, or settle private disputes. The existing framework under the Police Act 2020 — with its Complaints Response Unit, community policing committees, human rights obligations, and mandatory accountability mechanisms — provides the foundation. State enabling legislation must replicate and strengthen these structures, not create parallel systems that bypass them. There must be criminal liability for unlawful orders and federal constitutional power to intervene where a state police command becomes a threat to constitutional democracy.
An innovative institutional proposal: The policing standards tribunal
Beyond what the bill currently provides, one institutional innovation deserves serious legislative attention: a National Policing Standards Tribunal, distinct from the courts and from the Nigeria Police Council, charged with adjudicating complaints about state police deviations from nationally certified standards. It would have the power to recommend suspension of a state police force’s operational certificate — effectively returning policing to the Federal Police in that state — pending remediation. This would create a real enforcement mechanism for the concurrent list architecture, giving teeth to the minimum standards framework that the bill establishes but does not currently enforce through a dedicated independent body.
Synergy: The coordination imperative
State and federal police must share intelligence, maintain joint databases, operate joint task forces, and respect each other’s jurisdiction. The bill includes an explicit prohibition on federal authority over routine command, deployment, and personnel decisions of state police — a direct response to fears of indirect federal control — but its enforcement will require vigilant courts and robust oversight institutions. A National Policing Council comprising the President, governors, Inspector-General of Police, heads of State Police Service Commissions, and security chiefs must meet regularly to coordinate national policing policy. The revised Nigeria Police Council created by the bill is the vehicle for this; it must be given genuine convening power, not reduced to a ceremonial committee.
The road ahead
The proposal will still require approval by the Senate and endorsement by at least two-thirds of the State Houses of Assembly, and assented to by the President before it can become part of the Constitution.That is the design of the constitution — demanding consensus for structural change. The overwhelming legislative support so far suggests that consensus is reachable.
State police is not a magic wand;
(a) It will not automatically end terrorism, kidnapping, or banditry.
(b) But it will bring security closer to the people, improve intelligence, shorten response time, and make governors more directly accountable for public safety. The legal architecture — the 1999 Constitution as amended, the Police Act 2020, the revised Police Regulations of 2026, the re-enacted Police Trust Fund Act — provides a more robust scaffolding than any previous attempt at reform has had the benefit of.
President Tinubu deserves support on this constitutional reform. Nigeria cannot continue to fight 21st-century insecurity with an overcentralised policing model inherited from a different era. The challenge now is to amend wisely: create state police, preserve federal police, fund both properly, discipline both strictly, and protect citizens from both criminals and official abuse.
In a true federation, security must be national in strategy but local in execution. Nigeria’s laws now reflect that logic. The task is to make its institutions follow.
Delving Deep;
Odiana Williams-Eriata.
27th June 2026.
