The Secretary of the Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill, Nnadubem Moghalu, has said four states have so far approved the constitutional amendment bill seeking to establish state police in Nigeria.
Mr Moghalu disclosed this on Tuesday while delivering a lecture at the second annual House of Representatives Press Corps Distinguished Parliamentary Lecture in Abuja.
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The lecture was themed, “The Imperative for State Police: Securing Communities, Strengthening Federalism.”
He said the state assemblies had begun considering the bill after the National Assembly transmitted it to them as part of the constitutional alteration process.
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According to him, Edo, Oyo, Osun and Rivers states had approved the bill as of the time he prepared his lecture.
“The National Assembly has sent the constitutional amendment bill to the State Houses of Assembly. They have begun considering and approving it. At the time of preparing this lecture, four states had approved the bill: Edo, Oyo, Osun and Rivers states,” he said.
Mr Moghalu said the constitutional process requires the approval of at least 24 of the 36 state Houses of Assembly before the amendment can proceed.
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He said the process was still ongoing, adding that the establishment of state police would require more than merely altering the Constitution.
“The distinction between the constitutional amendment and the national policing bill we are now working on is very important,” he said.
“The constitutional amendment creates the constitutional basis for a dual policing model. The National Policing Bill is intended to provide the operational framework through which that constitutional model can work in practice.”
He explained that the constitutional amendment alone could not recruit or train police officers, establish police stations or create the administrative capacity needed to investigate crimes.
“Those tasks require preparation and resources, and they require time to get things done,” he said.
Police-public ratio
Mr Moghalu said Nigeria’s policing challenges were partly linked to the number of police officers available to serve the country’s population.
He said Nigeria currently had about 380,000 police officers serving a population of more than 200 million people.
“This gives you a ratio of about one police officer to every 650 citizens. The minimum international best practice is supposed to be one to 400,” he said.
He said Nigerians should ordinarily be able to seek police assistance without needing to contact an influential person first.
“Every citizen of this country should always be able to ask the police for help without first finding somebody important to make a terrible call. That should be the ordinary expectation,” he said.
Mr Moghalu also acknowledged that the police were not solely responsible for Nigeria’s security challenges, saying the courts, other security agencies and political authorities had contributed to the country’s current security situation.
However, he said effective policing remained central to ensuring that threats were detected early, assistance reached victims and perpetrators were brought to justice.
State police and local realities
Mr Moghalu said Nigeria’s security needs varied significantly from one community to another, making local knowledge an important component of effective policing.
“Policing a dense commercial district requires different knowledge than policing a rural transport corridor,” he said.
He argued that state police could bring policing closer to communities while allowing the federal police to retain responsibility for crimes and threats that cross state boundaries.
He, however, acknowledged concerns that state police could be abused by governors or local political interests.
“A governor may put pressure on the police to treat a political opponent as an enemy of state,” he said, adding that there was also a risk of local majorities using the police against minorities.
He said those concerns must be addressed through strong institutions, clear laws, accountability mechanisms and safeguards against political interference.
“Our institutions must be designed to work, even when people who hold power are people we do not trust,” Mr Moghalu said.
He added that the country should not rely on personal assurances from current political office holders but should establish institutions capable of surviving changes in leadership.
Niger supports state police
The Niger State Governor, Umar Bago, who was represented by the APC National Vice Chairman (North-central), Muazu Rijau, also expressed support for the establishment of state police.
Mr Rijau said the level of insecurity across the country showed the need for a security architecture capable of responding to the peculiar circumstances of individual communities.
“We in Niger State and across Africa would love to see State Police become a reality in Nigeria,” he said.
He said Niger State had taken a position in support of state police, arguing that bringing policing closer to communities would improve the ability of security agencies to respond to local challenges.
“The governor’s position is that we must continue to explore practical solutions to the insecurity confronting our people. State Police is one of the proposals that deserves serious consideration as part of the broader reform of Nigeria’s security architecture,” he said.
Also speaking, the Minority Leader of the 9th House, Ndudi Elumelu, said the state police debate should be treated as both a security and governance issue.
Mr Elumelu said the debate must consider the benefits of local policing while also addressing concerns over professionalism, accountability, human rights and political interference.
“A sustainable policing framework must therefore provide effective mechanisms for oversight, accountability and redress, while ensuring adequate training, welfare, funding and professional standards for personnel,” he said.
Speaker urges media to scrutinise legislation objectively
In his goodwill message, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Abbas Tajudeen, represented by the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Akin Rotimi, urged journalists to examine legislation based on its provisions and likely consequences rather than the political circumstances surrounding it.
“Legislation should not be judged merely by the political circumstances in which it originates. Nor should public policy be assessed simply according to who proposes it, which party supports it, or which section of the country perceives itself to be in favour of it,” Mr Tajudeen said.
He urged the media to steer discussions on national development away from partisan considerations.
“Bills deserve examination of their principles, their provisions and their likely consequences,” he said.
The speaker said patriotism should not prevent citizens and journalists from critically examining government policies.
“Genuine patriotism requires the courage to ask whether a policy works, whether a law is fit for purpose and whether public resources are being deployed in the national interest,” he said.
He also urged journalists covering the National Assembly to report not only what lawmakers say but also what is at stake in the decisions being taken.
“As journalists, the public deserves reports and accounts of not only what was said, but also what is at stake,” Mr Abbas said.
He said the House expected parliamentary reporting to be accurate, fair and contextual but would not expect the press corps to become an “echo chamber for parliament”.
Earlier, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Press Corps, Gboyega Onadiran, said the choice of state police as the theme reflected the urgent security concerns facing Nigerians.
He said journalists covering the National Assembly routinely witnessed lawmakers receiving distress calls from their constituencies over terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, farmer-herder conflicts and ungoverned spaces.
He said the issue of state police had moved beyond a theoretical debate and had become a lived reality for millions of Nigerians.
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Mr Onadiran said the central questions were whether state police could protect communities without becoming a political tool of governors and how the system could strengthen federalism while maintaining professionalism, accountability and independence.
He said the corps organised the lecture to deepen public understanding of parliamentary processes and contribute to national debate on governance and security.
The state police bill seeks to create a policing system in which individual state governments have their own police forces, alongside the existing Nigeria Police Force controlled by the federal government.
The proposed model is intended to bring policing closer to communities, allowing officers to respond more quickly to local security challenges and draw on better knowledge of the communities they serve.
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