A constitutional amendment to establish state-controlled police forces in Nigeria has secured approval from 28 state houses of assembly, surpassing the required two-thirds threshold and clearing the final legislative hurdle before reaching the desk of President Bola Tinubu for his assent.<\/p>\n
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The historic reform will dismantle decades of centralised security architecture, allowing individual state governments to form, recruit, and manage their own local law enforcement agencies to tackle widespread insecurity across the country.<\/p>\n
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Nigeria previously operated localizsed law enforcement under regional and native authority policing prior to military rule, before centralisation was imposed under a unified command structure following the 1966 military coup. Reporting on the legislative steps ahead, correspondent in Nigeria, Jonathan James Lyangohn, noted that the bill is now entering its final stage.<\/p>\n
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“One can safely say it is about to have its last hurdle, which is essentially getting a formal communication transmitted to the president,” Lyangohn explained. “Unlike standard bills that require multiple readings, this can now be transmitted directly for presidential assent, considering it has passed through the respective state houses of assembly. Once the president signs it, it becomes law.”<\/p>\n
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Lyangohn also highlighted that economic disparities will dictate how quickly individual states adapt to the new framework, with wealthier regions positioned to move fastest.<\/p>\n
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“Wealthy states like Lagos and Rivers will effectively hit the ground running, given the existing security outfits they already fund,” Lyangohn said. “For poorer states, the law envisages that until they have their own state police in place, the central federal police will continue to take charge of policing.”<\/p>\n
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Addressing long-standing concerns over potential political abuse by state Governors, Lyangohn pointed out that the amendment builds in legal boundaries and institutional oversight.<\/p>\n
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“Governors will not be able to solely appoint a state police commissioner; appointments must be made based on recommendations from the Police Service Commission,” Lyangohn added. “While some initial abuse may be inevitable, legal challenges and court cases will ultimately strengthen the system. With Nigeria’s police ratio sitting around one officer for every 800 citizens, far below international standards, there is an overwhelming consensus that decentralised intelligence gathering is desperately needed.”<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":45373,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-49965","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"28 Nigerian states back decentralised police amendment to replace unified command structure","published_date":"2026-11-04 14:10:15","news_description":"28 Nigerian states back decentralised police amendment to replace unified command structure","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49967,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49965\/revisions\/49967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=49965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}