Long Trek To State Police

Femi AKintunde-Johnson

In March 2021, in the afterglow of the hijacked #EndSARS protests, we wrote that the slogan “Police is your friend” had become a national punchline. The violence of 2020 exposed not merely rogue officers but a rotting architecture. Stories of brutality by the now-defunct SARS and its tactical cousins revealed a force many citizens feared more than armed robbers. The distrust ran deep: that the police could magically turn a complainant into an accused person; that they could kill to conceal errors; that orderly room trials were laundromats for stained reputations. It was not a flattering portrait. It was, however, painfully accurate.

 Four years later, in 2025, the theatre had changed costumes but not script. From Ibadan to Ughelli, from Port Harcourt to Lekki, from Kano to wherever the next hashtag is incubating, the pattern persists: blood, outrage, suspension, silence, repeat. Suspects paraded like hunted game; detainees warehoused without charge; profiling elevated to policy. The baton has become punctuation; the trigger, therapy. The culture of impunity has enjoyed a longer tenure than most public office holders.

 Now, in 2026, we find ourselves at a constitutional crossroads. President Bola Tinubu, breaking fast with senators at the Presidential Villa, has urged the 10th Senate to initiate amendments to enable state police. The newly sworn-in Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun’s successor, IGP Disu, has constituted a committee – chaired by Prof. Olu Ogunsakin of the National Institute for Police Studies – to propose a framework. The signal from the top is clear: decentralised policing is no longer heresy; it is headline.

 The merits of state police are neither novel nor radical. Nigeria is a federation in name but a unitary contraption in practice when it comes to policing. A single central force of over 200 million people, spread across 36 states and the FCT, is expected to understand the granular tensions of riverine communities in Bayelsa, the agrarian-farmer clashes of the Middle Belt, the banditry corridors of the North-West, and the cult underbelly of some southern cities – all from a command structure answerable primarily to Abuja. It is administratively elegant, politically convenient, and operationally absurd.

Policing, unlike soldiering, is intimate. It thrives on local knowledge, language fluency, cultural nuance, and community trust. A constable who understands the unspoken codes of his community will likely prevent a crisis before it metastasises. Intelligence is not harvested by sirens; it is whispered to familiar ears. Retired AIG Ali Amodu’s recollection of his 1981 advocacy for decentralisation – after observing the United Kingdom model – underscores a truth we have long resisted: proximity enhances policing. Even former Commissioner Lawrence Alobi’s concerns about jurisdictional clashes acknowledge that the debate is no longer whether to decentralise, but how.

The demerits, of course, are not imaginary. Critics fear that state governors – already powerful – would convert state police into partisan militias. Nigeria’s political culture is not exactly Scandinavian. We have seen how local government structures are bullied into submission; how state electoral commissions produce results that would embarrass fiction writers. A governor with control of a coercive apparatus may be tempted to silence opposition, harass journalists, or intimidate voters. The spectre of 2027 looms large: will state police secure ballots or shepherd incumbents?

There is also the danger of uneven capacity. Wealthier states could fund well-trained, well-equipped forces, while poorer states The current presidency may be uniquely positioned to attempt this surgery. President Tinubu, a veteran of federalist rhetoric since his days as Lagos governor, has long championed restructuring in various forms. Politically, he commands a ruling coalition with significant legislative presence. Providentially, the security crisis – banditry, kidnapping, communal violence, and the global ripple effects of Middle East tensions – has created urgency. When IGP Disu warns that conflicts between the US, Israel and Iran may reverberate among sectarian groups within Nigeria, he is acknowledging that security is no longer purely local or purely federal; it is layered and volatile.

If state police is designed as partnership rather than rivalry, the future of centralised policing need not be extinction. The federal force can evolve into a coordinating, standard-setting, and specialised agency – handling interstate crimes, terrorism, cybercrime, and national intelligence – while state forces manage community policing, neighbourhood patrols, and rapid local response. Think of it as a security ecosystem rather than a zero-sum contest.

The implications for 2027 are double-edged. Properly structured, state police could enhance election security through local familiarity and faster response. Improperly guarded, they could become instruments of suppression. The antidote lies in architecture: independent state police service commissions; transparent recruitment insulated from partisan interference; federal oversight limited to standards and rights compliance; clear inter-state protocols; and enforceable penalties for abuse. Above all, accountability must be judicial, not merely administrative. Suspension with salary is not justice; it is sabbatical.

Nigeria stands at an inflection point. We can persist with a centralised model that has produced too many hashtags and too few convictions, or we can risk a carefully engineered decentralisation that acknowledges our federal reality. State police is not a magic wand. It will not, by mere proclamation, transform uniforms into saints. But it offers a structural recalibration long overdue.

The long trek to state police is not simply about security; it is about trust. A nation where citizens fear the knock on the door cannot prosper. If we are serious about reversing the sorry trajectory of our security superstructure, then constitutional courage must replace rhetorical reform. Otherwise, we shall continue our tragic choreography: blood, outrage, suspension, silence, repeat.

And the slogan? Perhaps, one day, “Police is your friend” will no longer sound like satire. But that day will not arrive by central decree. It will require a federation brave enough to police itself – locally, lawfully, and without licence for tyranny.