State police: Nigeria’s dangerous experiment with force
Nigeria’s security crisis has become the strongest argument for state police. Across the country, communities face banditry, terrorism, kidnapping and violent crime while the security architecture struggles to respond. From the forests of Zamfara to the villages of Borno; the creeks of Niger Delta; the suburban quarters of the Southwest; the commerce centers of the […]
Nigeria’s security crisis has become the strongest argument for state police. Across the country, communities face banditry, terrorism, kidnapping and violent crime while the security architecture struggles to respond.
From the forests of Zamfara to the villages of Borno; the creeks of Niger Delta; the suburban quarters of the Southwest; the commerce centers of the Southeast; and the highways of the North-West, Nigerians have repeatedly confronted a painful reality: the state exists on paper, but often arrives too late in practice.
The National Assembly’s passage of constitutional amendment proposals on state police is being presented as a historic correction. But beyond the constitutional amendment lies a deeper question: who controls the instruments of force in a fragile democracy?
The debate is not simply about policing. It is about power. The central question is whether Nigeria can decentralise coercive authority without creating new weapons for political repression.
Supporters of state police argue that Nigeria’s size and complexity make centralised policing ineffective. With roughly 371,800 officers serving more than 200 million people, the force remains overstretched and disconnected from communities, forcing many rural areas to rely on vigilantes and informal security groups.
But Nigeria’s problem is not only a shortage of police officers. It is a crisis of institutions.
A system where accountability is weak, political interference is common and public trust has collapsed cannot be repaired simply by creating more layers of authority. Without reform, state police risks becoming a decentralised version of the same old failures.
Nigeria’s policing history explains why the debate remains so dangerous. During colonial rule, policing was largely decentralised through Native Authority police. These institutions provided local intelligence but were also instruments of colonial control and elite authority.
But decades later, centralisation has produced its own failures. The federal police system has struggled with weak logistics, inadequate manpower and poor intelligence capacity, while professional standards remain far below global expectations.
Nigeria is, therefore, trapped between two fears: a centralised police that is too distant to protect citizens, and a decentralised one that may become too close to political power.
The greatest danger in state police is not the idea itself, but the possibility that governors could transform security institutions into instruments of political control. Many state governments have struggled to provide basic social services, raising questions about whether they can responsibly finance and armed security structures. The World Bank has warned that Nigeria’s public spending on health and education remains far below international standards, with states carrying major responsibility for these sectors while failing to invest at levels required to meet basic needs. A political class that has neglected classrooms and hospitals cannot be trusted with greater control over the machinery of coercion. The danger is that state police may become less a tool of public security and more an extension of executive power.
If a federal police system already faces accusations of executive influence, what happens when armed officers answer directly to state political authorities?
During elections, state police could become instruments for intimidation. During protests, they could become tools for suppressing dissent. During political conflicts, citizens may begin seeing police uniforms as symbols of party control rather than public protection.
The memory of #EndSARS remains a warning. Years of allegations against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad—including extortion, unlawful detention and abuse—created a deep collapse of trust between citizens and security agencies.
The danger, however, does not end with governors.
If citizens, opposition groups and rival political elites begin believing that state police has become a weapon of political domination, the consequences could be far more destabilising.
A democratic state survives because it maintains a legitimate monopoly over force. When that legitimacy collapses, power does not disappear. It naturally fragments.
Nigeria’s political environment is already highly competitive. Elections are often treated as battles for survival rather than democratic contests. In such an atmosphere, a state police structure captured by one political faction could create incentives for others to build their own security networks. What begins as “protection” can quickly become private armies.
The nightmare scenario is a country where governors control official police commands while wealthy politicians, business elites and powerful actors finance parallel armed groups.
Nigeria would move from a crisis of under-policing into a crisis of competing centers of force—where security depends not on citizenship, but on political influence and wealth.
Africa and the wider developing world offer important warnings. Countries that have attempted security decentralisation show that bringing policing closer to communities does not automatically create democratic policing.
The lesson is simple: institutions matter more than structures. Where oversight is weak, decentralisation can simply move abuse from the centre to the periphery.
Kenya’s experience after the 2010 Constitution offers an important lesson. The reforms created a new framework for policing, including institutions designed to improve accountability, professional standards and civilian oversight. The goal was to move away from a security system historically criticised for political influence and abuse.
Yet constitutional reform alone did not eliminate the deeper problems. Concerns about police conduct, excessive use of force and political interference continued to surface. Kenya demonstrated that changing the legal structure of policing does not automatically change the political culture surrounding security institutions.
The experience of Colombia is instructive. Decades of weak state presence, political conflict and competing armed actors allowed alternative power structures to emerge. Guerrillas, paramilitaries and criminal networks competed for territorial control, leaving civilians trapped in prolonged violence. Colombia shows the danger of security institutions losing legitimacy and monopoly over force.
Nigeria must avoid creating conditions where political competition produces rival armed power centres. Policing cannot be separated from democracy; courts and justice institutions must restrain abuse. But where state judiciaries seemingly lack independence, state police naturally risks creating a dangerous imbalance: expanding coercive power while weakening accountability
Nigeria’s insecurity requires urgent action. But urgency should not become an excuse for reckless institutional design. Before implementing state police, Nigeria must build the safeguards that make policing accountable. There must be clear constitutional limits on political interference.
The independent state police service commission proposed in the amendment should have representation from political parties, civil organisations, labour unions, traditional leaders, religious leaders, judiciary and academic staff unions. It must have powers to discipline police officers without recourse to the governor.
The issue is not simply creating more police officers. It is deciding what kind of state Nigeria wants to build. A democracy cannot survive by distributing weapons without distributing accountability.
Until Nigeria creates institutions strong enough to restrain power, decentralising force may not strengthen democracy.
It may simply decentralise the crisis.
Umar is a staff of Nuhu Bamali Polytecnic, Zaria
Email: [email protected]