The missing layer in Nigeria’s state police debate

First half of the article

THE National Assembly has taken significant steps toward the creation of state police. The House of Representatives has passed the constitutional amendment bill, while the Senate has advanced it through second reading and referred it for public hearings and further scrutiny. Governors, through the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, have also expressed support, arguing that security institutions should be closer to local communities. Supporters view the proposal as a response to worsening insecurity, while critics warn about funding challenges, political abuse, and the need for broader constitutional restructuring.

Amid the debates over command structures, oversight mechanisms, funding arrangements, and safeguards against abuse, one question remains largely absent from the national conversation: Where will the intelligence that makes policing effective come from? Policing begins with information. The effectiveness of any security architecture depends as much on intelligence as on manpower. The Oriire abduction illustrates the point. Weeks after the attack, attention remains focused on rescue efforts and the challenges posed by the forests surrounding the Old Oyo National Park. Yet the crisis raises a deeper question: how can armed groups operate across large territories without earlier warning signs reaching security authorities?

I have previously expressed reservations about State Police itself. In my essay of December 5, 2025, Regional Policing Anchored on Regional Development, I argued that Nigeria’s centralized security architecture had become detached from local realities and that the country would be better served by regionally coordinated policing structures linked to emerging regional development commissions. Nigeria’s thirty-six states were not designed as self-sustaining federating units. Many remain heavily dependent on federal allocations and lack the institutional capacity associated with subnational governments in many global federal republics. The security crisis creates pressure for urgent solutions, yet urgency should not be confused with sound constitutional design. My preference remains a system of regional cooperative policing anchored on regional development structures. The Southwest’s Amotekun and the Northeast’s Civilian Joint Task Force already demonstrate its practicality.

The forests connecting Oyo, Kwara, Niger, Kogi, Kaduna, Kebbi, Zamfara, and other states illustrate the challenge. Terrorists, bandits, kidnappers, and arms traffickers do not stop at state borders. Security architectures designed around isolated state jurisdictions may struggle against threats that are regional in character. Nigeria should also learn from its constitutional history. The late Professor Ben Nwabueze spent much of his later life warning that excessive centralization had produced outcomes very different from those originally intended. He described aspects of the Nigerian constitutional arrangement as a contradiction of genuine federalism and cautioned against the pursuit of “absolute national unity” at the expense of functional federal institutions.

That caution remains relevant today. State police may become part of the solution to insecurity, but there is also a risk that the country could rush into a structural arrangement whose unintended consequences only become apparent later. In trying to solve one problem, Nigeria must be careful not to create another. If one of the principal architects of Nigeria’s constitutional order spent decades attempting to correct what he later regarded as a structural mistake, today’s leaders should exercise similar caution before embracing reforms that future generations may come to regret. Whether Nigeria adopts State Police, Regional Police, or some combination of the two, a more fundamental issue remains. No policing model can succeed without effective intelligence networks rooted in local communities.

The role of traditional institutions

In Oyo’s traditional system, information flows through structures linking the Alaafin, chiefs, Baales, hunters, and community leaders. The Yoruba saying “Eti Oba ni’le, eti Oba lo’ko” (the king’s ears are at home and in the farms) reflects the intelligence function of traditional institutions. Information travels through multiple layers of authority, allowing local developments to reach decision-makers long before they become formal security reports. Similar systems exist through emirates, district heads, village heads, clan authorities, and traditional councils across the country.

In many rural communities, these institutions are the first to detect unusual developments: unfamiliar arrivals, forest encampments, abandoned farms, extortion by armed groups, and suspicious movements along local routes.  Traditional rulers should not become police officers or exercise arrest powers. Their value lies in serving as intelligence nodes embedded within communities and connected through longstanding structures of trust, legitimacy, and local knowledge.

Should Local Governments perform this role? In theory, yes. In practice, decades of political and fiscal control by the state governors have eroded…

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