NO SERIOUS Nigerian disputes the frightening deterioration of security across the country. Terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, organised crime and communal violence have exposed the limitations of the present policing architecture. Understandably, many have embraced state police as the silver bullet capable of rescuing a nation under siege.
But history warns that desperate societies often mistake speed for wisdom.
There is an old maxim that to err is human. In nation-building, however, the greater error is to create institutions whose unintended consequences become more dangerous than the problems they were established to solve. In our understandable anxiety to escape today’s insecurity, we must be careful not to manufacture tomorrow’s tyranny. Therefore, the growing momentum behind state police deserves sober reflection rather than emotional applause.
The theoretical arguments in favour of decentralised policing are compelling. Officers recruited from local communities know the terrain, understand the language, appreciate cultural nuances and can often gather intelligence far more effectively than officers posted from distant parts of the federation. Properly designed, state police could strengthen community policing and improve response times. These are persuasive arguments.
But constitutions are not written for ideal societies; they are written for real ones. And Nigeria’s reality is sobering.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim, long regarded as one of Nigeria’s foremost advocates of federalism, last Friday, made a remarkable admission, that although he had for years supported state police, he now fears that our present political environment makes its abuse almost inevitable. His concern is not with the principle of decentralisation itself, but with the character of those who would wield such enormous powers.
That concern deserves national attention.
Our political class has not earned the level of public trust that would justify placing armed police formations directly under their influence. The evidence is everywhere.
Governors routinely dominate state legislatures that are constitutionally expected to supervise them. Many state assemblies have become little more than departments of Government Houses. Institutions meant to provide checks and balances often function instead as instruments of executive convenience. Political defections occur under pressure. Local government autonomy remains contested. Opposition voices frequently complain of harassment. Journalists and civil society organisations periodically allege intimidation.
Institutional failure does not disappear through multiplication. If anything, like cancer, it metastasizes. Thirty-six state police organisations cannot magically become professional where existing institutions remain vulnerable to political interference. Indeed, they may simply reproduce the same weaknesses thirty-six times over.
If such abuses occur without state police, prudence demands we ask what could happen once governors exercise significant influence over constitutionally recognised armed formations. This, certainly, is not cynicism but constitutional realism.
Supporters point to safeguards included in the proposed legislation. They note that commissioners of police cannot lawfully arrest critics merely because governors dislike them, that unlawful directives may be reviewed, and that the courts retain jurisdiction over abuses. These provisions are welcome and should not be dismissed lightly.
Yet constitutions do not enforce themselves. Laws are only as effective as the institutions that interpret and implement them. History is filled with numerous tales that the greatest threat to liberty rarely come from unconstitutional actions. It often comes from constitutional powers exercised by leaders who understand precisely how to bend institutions without visibly breaking them.
Nigeria’s electoral history provides ample reason for caution.
We are steadily approaching another politically-sensitive electoral season. Elections in our country have too often been accompanied by violence, intimidation, selective law enforcement and the deployment of state resources against not just political opponents but the electorates. Introducing multiple state-controlled armed institutions into this already combustible atmosphere should not be treated as an administrative adjustment. It is a constitutional transformation whose consequences may outlive those who presently advocate it.
Power, once granted, is seldom surrendered voluntarily. Its misuse is usually regretted only after the damage has become irreversible.
There is another danger that deserves equal attention. Our insecurity today is fundamentally a crisis of institutions, not merely a shortage of armed men.
The Nigeria Police Force suffers from chronic underfunding, inadequate forensic capacity, poor intelligence coordination, low morale and severe manpower misallocation. As Professor Ibrahim notes, an astonishing proportion of police personnel remain attached to VIPs rather than performing routine policing duties. Reforming this distortion alone would release thousands of officers back into public service without creating a single new police command.
Institutional failure does not disappear through multiplication. If anything, like cancer, it metastasizes. Thirty-six state police organisations cannot magically become professional where existing institutions remain vulnerable to political interference. Indeed, they may simply reproduce the same weaknesses thirty-six times over.
This is not an argument against federalism. Nor is it a defence of the obvious inadequacies of the present policing system. It is an argument for sequencing reforms intelligently.
Strengthen judicial independence first. Guarantee genuine legislative oversight. Insulate police appointments from partisan control. Create independent civilian review commissions with prosecutorial powers. Professionalise recruitment. Improve police welfare. End the scandalous diversion of officers into private protection for the privileged. Establish credible accountability mechanisms that punish abuse swiftly and transparently.
Only then should Nigeria contemplate multiplying armed policing institutions across the federation.
The temptation in moments of national anxiety is always to embrace dramatic solutions. Wisdom, however, demands something different. It demands that we distinguish between reforms that solve problems and reforms that merely relocate them. State police may well become part of Nigeria’s constitutional future.
But the question before us is not merely whether state police are desirable. It is whether Nigeria, in its present political condition, is ready for them. The answer requires honesty rather than optimism.
Nations do not collapse only because they lack security. Sometimes they stumble because they entrust extraordinary powers to ordinary politicians before building extraordinary institutions capable of restraining them.
Before we create thirty-six new guardians of public order, we must first ensure that the guardians themselves can be guarded. Otherwise, in attempting to escape today’s insecurity, we may unknowingly construct tomorrow’s oppression.
