Nigeria’s House of Representatives has passed a constitutional amendment bill that would allow the country’s 36 states to establish and operate their own police forces alongside the federal police system. The move is being seen as one of the most significant security reforms since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999.
The bill was overwhelmingly approved by lawmakers as part of efforts to tackle rising insecurity, including terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, communal clashes, and separatist violence across different regions of the country. Supporters argue that state police would improve intelligence gathering, response times, and community-based policing.
Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, who has been a leading advocate of the proposal, said the current centralized policing structure has not adequately addressed Nigeria’s security challenges and that legislative reforms are needed to strengthen the nation’s security architecture.
The bill seeks to amend sections of the 1999 Constitution to move policing from the Exclusive Legislative List, controlled solely by the federal government, to a framework that allows both federal and state police forces to coexist.
However, the proposal is not yet law. It must still be approved by at least two-thirds of Nigeria’s 36 State Houses of Assembly before being transmitted to President Bola Tinubu for assent.
While many governors and security experts support the reform, critics have raised concerns that state governors could misuse state police for political purposes or that poorer states may struggle to fund and maintain professional police forces.
If ultimately ratified, the measure would fundamentally reshape Nigeria’s policing system by creating a decentralized security structure for the first time in the country’s democratic era
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