By: Aishatu Kabu
This week, Nigerians woke up to news that President Tinubu has sent an executive bill to the Senate for legislation on the creation of state police.
The conversation around state police as a key solution to Nigeria’s insecurity is a long-running debate that resurfaces with every spike in violence across the North, West, South, Central, and almost every part of Nigeria. But is state police the solution? Will it solve this problem?
Nigeria’s love for new structures is seriously amazing. When something fails, instead of fixing it, we create another one. That is how we moved from LG autonomy on paper to LG autonomy on paper again after the Supreme Court judgment of July 2024. One year later, most local governments still cannot touch their money because governors control them through state Ministries of Local Government.
Some people claim LGs have been autonomous since that Supreme Court judgment, especially since the FG now directs LG funds to be credited directly to LG accounts. I hear you. But if LGs are truly autonomous and independent, why do state Ministries of Local Government still exist? What are their roles and responsibilities? Do autonomous LGs need a gatekeeper called “Ministry of Local Government”? That is a topic for another day.
Now to insecurity. Instead of addressing manpower gaps in our military and paramilitary forces, sending the armed forces to guard our ungoverned spaces, and strengthening the police with more personnel and better welfare, we are recruiting 1,000 Forest Guards and saying “Give states their own police”. Nigeria has about 370,000 police officers for 220+ million people, roughly 1 officer to 600 citizens. The UN recommends 1 per 450. We are under-policed, not just poorly structured.
This is the same set of governors who act bigger than the Supreme Court by refusing to let LGs be autonomous. These are the same governors who should tackle the real drivers of insecurity: poverty, out-of-school children, lack of rural healthcare, and poor electricity, yet Nigeria now wants to entrust them with state police?
My question is simple: Did we as a country learn anything from LG autonomy?
If governors cannot respect a Supreme Court order on money, why should we trust them with guns and arrest powers? The worst money can do is delay development and deny Nigerians basic amenities, and Nigerians are already used to that. But state police and arms in governors’ hands can delay democracy itself. We have seen how state security outfits are used for politics. Legalizing it as “state police” does not cure misuse. It rewards it, creating more problems that may take years of judicial struggle to fix. Even if the courts intervene, governors can still frustrate it. The problem is not the current or past governors. The problem is the system and the constitution that gives governors excessive powers.
Yes, the federal Nigeria Police Force has failed us too. Poor welfare, corruption, and slow response are real. But breaking federal command without fixing welfare and recruitment will not cure it. It will only multiply the failure 36 times, with 36 governors in charge.
Now let us examine the rationale behind this. The argument for state police is usually “local knowledge”. Supporters say officers posted from Borno to Zamfara do not know the terrain. I agree. But the solution is not to break federal command. The solution is to recruit Borno citizens into the Nigeria Police Force and post them to Borno, down to their LGAs. Keep training, command, intelligence, and arms federal. Decentralize the officers, not the power.
Security threats do not respect state borders. Bandits move from Zamfara to Katsina. Kidnappers cross from Niger to Kaduna. You need one command structure for intelligence and rapid response, not 36 commanders with 36 budgets.
Nigeria’s problem is not lack of structure. It is lack of discipline in running the structures we already have. Until governors obey the Supreme Court on LG money, arming them with police is not reform. It is handing the same hands that tied LGs down a uniform and a gun.
We must learn. Fix recruitment. Fix welfare. Post locals to their states under federal command. That is safer than repeating the LG autonomy mistake in uniform.
Aishatu Kabu
Writes from Maiduguri
24/06/2026
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