Atlantic Post

The Osun Assembly has endorsed State Police Services as Nigeria’s constitutional amendment process moves from Abuja to the 36 state legislatures. But the deeper test is not whether states want more policing powers. It is whether the new structure can prevent security power from becoming political power.

The Osun State House of Assembly has thrown its weight behind the proposed establishment of State Police Services, taking the constitutional reform debate into one of its most consequential phases.

At Tuesday’s plenary in Osogbo, lawmakers considered the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (Sixth Alteration) Bill, 2026, following its transmission by the National Assembly to state legislatures.

Speaker Adewale Egbedun read the communication from the National Assembly and explained that state Houses of Assembly were required to consider the proposed alterations and communicate their resolutions.

The endorsement means Osun has now placed itself on the side of the proposed dual policing model, under which Federal and State Police Services would operate within a constitutional framework. The decision does not create a State Police Service in Osun. It is one state-level vote in a constitutional process requiring approval from at least 24 of Nigeria’s 36 State Houses of Assembly. 

That distinction matters.

The headline is that Osun has backed State Police.

The bigger story is what happens after the votes.

Nigeria is now approaching a constitutional crossroads where the question is no longer simply whether policing should remain concentrated in Abuja. It is whether transferring policing authority to the states will produce a more responsive security system, or merely create another layer of power that Nigerians will have to learn how to hold accountable.

From Abuja to Osogbo

The National Assembly transmitted the Sixth Alteration Bill to the 36 state Houses of Assembly on September 16.

Clerk to the National Assembly Kamoru Ogunlana said the states were expected to communicate their resolutions within 30 days. He also made clear that the period was an administrative timeframe rather than a constitutional deadline. Section 9 of the Constitution requires approval from not less than two-thirds of the state Houses of Assembly for the amendment to proceed. 

For the State Police proposal, that means 24 state legislatures must approve it.

The National Assembly has already completed its part of the process. The Senate approved the State Police constitutional alteration bill in June, while the House of Representatives subsequently passed the executive version in July. The proposal was then transmitted to the states. 

Osun has therefore become one of the first state legislatures to publicly move on the proposal.

The lawmakers who spoke during the debate — Lawrence Adeoti, Taofeek Olayiwola, Adewumi Adeyemi and Jeremiah Awoyeye — supported the proposal, arguing that policing closer to communities could improve security responses at state and local government level.

Majority Leader Babajide Kofoworola subsequently moved the motion backing the amendment. Tajudeen Adeyemi seconded it.

Yet a constitutional vote is not the same thing as an operational police station.

The proposed system still requires legislation, institutions, funding, recruitment standards and oversight mechanisms before a state can actually begin operating its own police service. 

The Osun question is more complicated than the vote suggests

There is a striking irony in Osun’s endorsement.

Only weeks before the State Police vote, the Assembly Speaker himself was publicly involved in a dispute with the existing police command over alleged political interference.

In July, Egbedun alleged that Osun Commissioner of Police Ibrahim Gotan planned to “implicate and arrest” him following the detention of the Secretary to the State Government, Teslim Igbalaye. The Speaker said he had witnessed the events that preceded the arrest and accused the police leadership of intimidation. The police command did not immediately respond to the allegations. 

The dispute occurred during a period of intense political tension ahead of the August 15 Osun governorship election.

On election day, the police also said it could not confirm a separate allegation by Egbedun that armed men had laid siege to his residence. The Force spokesperson said officers sent to the location could not confirm the claim, while police separately reported the arrest of hundreds of people at another political stakeholder’s residence. 

None of those allegations, disputes or police claims by themselves establishes how a future State Police Service would behave.

They do, though, expose the precise governance problem that the constitutional amendment is attempting to solve.

Who controls the police when the police themselves become part of a political dispute?

And what happens when the person with political authority over policing is also a participant in the political contest?

Those questions are central to State Police.

The governor would gain power. But not unlimited power

Under the version of the State Police constitutional framework passed by the National Assembly, each state would be able to establish its own police service through a law passed by its House of Assembly.

The proposed State Police Service would be headed by a state Chief or Commissioner of Police appointed by the governor on the recommendation of the National Police Council and subject to confirmation by the State House of Assembly. 

That arrangement changes the balance of power dramatically.

Today, governors are commonly described as chief security officers of their states, but the constitutional command structure remains federal. Under the proposed system, states would acquire an actual police institution operating within their jurisdictions.

The attraction is obvious.

A police officer operating in Osogbo, Ilesa, Ede or Ikire could potentially have deeper knowledge of local communities, languages, roads, criminal networks and emerging threats than an officer transferred from another part of the country.

The Presidency has repeatedly presented decentralised policing as a way to improve grassroots security and intelligence.

President Bola Tinubu has said State Police is necessary to respond to Nigeria’s evolving security challenges, while Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila has stressed that the framework must be designed carefully rather than rushed. 

But decentralisation also means decentralising coercive power.

That is where the constitutional safeguards become more important than the slogan.

The bill tries to answer the governor problem

The proposed framework does not simply hand governors an unrestricted police force.

The State Police bill contains several mechanisms designed to limit political interference.

The State Police commissioner would not be appointed by a governor acting alone. The proposed process involves the National Police Council and confirmation by the State House of Assembly. 

The framework also creates State Police Service Commissions, strengthens oversight and provides mechanisms through which unlawful directives can be challenged.

In the amended framework reported in July, state police officers could challenge directives that breached the Constitution or national policing standards. The bill also sought greater institutional independence for police oversight bodies. 

One of the clearest signals of the concern driving the legislation came from Gbajabiamila during the development of the national policing framework.

“State police cannot mean 36 state militias,” he said, while warning that political office holders should not be able to direct the arrest of opponents or suppress lawful political activity. 

That statement goes to the heart of the constitutional dilemma.

Nigeria is not merely deciding where police officers will sit.

It is deciding how much coercive authority the federal government should retain, how much should move to the states, and how citizens should challenge abuses wherever that authority is exercised.

A second problem: money

Security reform is rarely cheap.

A State Police Service would require salaries, pensions, recruitment systems, training schools, vehicles, weapons, protective equipment, communications infrastructure, forensic facilities, intelligence systems, detention facilities and judicial support.

The cost will vary sharply from state to state.

The National Assembly has acknowledged the funding challenge. Lawmakers have discussed mechanisms intended to prevent financing from becoming a tool of political control, including proposals for more protected or direct funding arrangements. 

The amended bill reported by The Guardian provides for money standing to the credit of a State Police Service to be paid directly to the service.

That is significant.

If governors control appointment, policy direction and funding without effective checks, police independence could be weakened.

But the opposite problem is also possible.

If a state cannot finance a properly equipped police organisation, the country could end up with 36 police services operating at radically different levels of capacity.

One state could afford forensic laboratories and modern communications.

Another could struggle to buy patrol vehicles.

The result could be a fragmented security landscape in which the quality of policing depends heavily on the fiscal strength of the state in which a Nigerian happens to live.

That is why funding is not an administrative footnote.

It is a constitutional question.

Abuja is not disappearing

Another misconception is that State Police would mean the end of federal policing.

It would not.

The proposed framework retains a Federal Police Service alongside the State Police Services. Federal policing would continue to cover matters including terrorism, organised crime, cybercrime, border security and crimes with interstate or international dimensions. 

The proposed system also provides for federal intervention in exceptional circumstances.

The amended bill reported in July states that intervention could occur in situations including an actual or imminent breakdown of public order beyond the capacity of the State Police Service, a request from a governor, serious incapacity within a state police organisation, major human-rights violations or threats to national security. Such intervention would have to be temporary, proportionate and subject to defined procedures. 

The bill describes federal intervention as an “absolute measure of last resort” and provides for written presidential authorisation, notification of relevant institutions and judicial review. 

That creates another potential fault line.

When does a federal security intervention become necessary?

Who decides that a state police service has failed?

How quickly can the intervention occur during a major security crisis?

And what prevents “national security” from becoming a broad justification for central intervention?

The answers will matter as much as the constitutional language itself.

The 2027 shadow

There is also an unavoidable timing question.

Nigeria is heading towards the 2027 general elections, meaning the new policing architecture would emerge during one of the most politically sensitive periods in the country’s democratic calendar.

The State Police bill itself includes safeguards against political interference, while the wider constitutional reform programme includes proposed electoral changes.

The danger is not simply that police could be misused.

The deeper issue is public confidence.

If citizens believe a state police command is politically aligned with the government of the day, even lawful police operations could face suspicion.

That is why the experience of existing police institutions matters.

The July dispute involving the Osun Speaker is not proof that a future State Police Service would be politicised. Nor does it establish that the allegations against the police were true.

But it demonstrates how quickly policing, politics and accusations of abuse can become entangled during an election period. 

That history should make state lawmakers look beyond the headline question of whether State Police is desirable.

They also need to scrutinise who appoints police leaders, how they can be removed, who investigates complaints, who controls money, what happens when a governor gives an unlawful instruction and which institution can intervene when state authorities fail.

Osun has answered one question

The Osun Assembly has answered the immediate legislative question before it.

It supports the proposed constitutional establishment of State Police Services.

The larger questions remain unanswered.

Can the new policing model improve response times without creating parallel command confusion?

Can states fund professional police services without turning them into political patronage systems?

Can police commissioners resist unlawful political instructions?

Can citizens challenge abusive conduct without relying on the goodwill of the government they may be challenging?

Can federal intervention remain exceptional rather than becoming another route for central control?

And can Nigeria build a policing system in which accountability follows power wherever that power sits?

The National Assembly’s September transmission has changed the geography of the debate.

The argument is no longer confined to Abuja.

It is now moving through Osogbo, Ibadan, Akure, Kano, Kaduna, Enugu, Port Harcourt and the other state capitals.

At least 24 state legislatures must approve the constitutional alteration before the process can move forward. 

Osun has given its answer.

The real test for the reform will be whether the remaining legislatures treat the exercise as a simple vote on State Police or as something much bigger: a vote on how Nigeria distributes the power to arrest, investigate, detain and enforce the law.

That is the power beneath the police debate.

And once that power moves, the constitutional safeguards will have to move with it.