By Kachi Okezie, Esq.
The debate over devolved policing (often, and inaccurately, reduced to ‘state police’) is not really about policing. It is more about character. The proposed structure is decent, but what is lacking is the collective will to make it work. The way and manner the bill was rushed through the legislature without public scrutiny or citizen participation is telling.
Let me be clear from the outset: this is not an argument against devolved policing. Quite the contrary. In a true federation, devolved policing is both logical and necessary. A country as vast, diverse and complex as Nigeria should not depend solely on a centrally controlled police service directed from Abuja. States should have their own police services or constabularies: properly trained, adequately equipped, professionally managed and subject to robust constitutional oversight.
I support that position unequivocally and have consistently advocated it, including in my work as a consultant to the Senate Committee on Constitutional Review during the 10th Senate. But that is not the real issue.
The clamour for ‘state police’ has become Nigeria’s latest political fad: the familiar excitement that accompanies every new institutional proposal. It is as though we believe that creating a new structure will somehow solve old problems. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, the absence of state police is not the root cause of Nigeria’s insecurity issues. It follows, therefore, that its creation, by itself, cannot be the solution.
Our crisis has never been merely structural. It is fundamentally a crisis of leadership, integrity and constitutional discipline. What has been missing is the political will to discharge constitutional responsibilities faithfully and without compromise. What has been absent is the moral courage to do what is right because the Constitution demands it, not merely because it is politically expedient.
You can devolve guns, uniforms, patrol vehicles and command centres to all thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory. But if you fail to devolve integrity, accountability and professionalism, you have simply decentralised failure.
We already know where the rot lies. Too often, those entrusted with leadership lack either the competence or the commitment their offices demand. Or both. Some harbour divided loyalties, placing ethnicity, religion or tribal identity above the national interest. Corruption diverts weapons, fuel, equipment and operational allowances before they ever reach officers on patrol. Recruitment and promotion are distorted by nepotism rather than merit. Security responses frequently depend on who lives in a given community instead of what justice requires.
Compounding all this is a citizenry that too often mistakes social media outrage for civic engagement, demanding accountability only when a crisis is trending. Without addressing these realities, devolved policing will merely reproduce today’s dysfunction at thirty-seven different levels.
An incompetent governor can abuse a state police service just as easily as an Inspector-General can misuse a federal one. A corrupt state police commissioner can establish the same unlawful checkpoints, extort the same motorists and shield the same criminal interests. Local commands captured by ethnic or political loyalties will protect ‘their own’ whilst victimising everyone else. The uniforms may change, but the injustice will not.
If, however, we address the underlying failures, the debate over policing structures becomes far less consequential.
Institutions cannot outperform the character of those who lead and sustain them. They, ultimately, reflect the character of such people.
Train officers properly. Equip them adequately. Pay them fairly and on time. Prosecute commanders who divert operational funds or lease weapons to criminals. Imprison politicians who sponsor armed groups during elections and later rebrand them as ‘vigilantes’.
Replace quota-driven mediocrity with recruitment and promotion based solely on character and competence. Publish every security vote, every procurement contract, every operational allocation and every transfer of public funds. Allow citizens to scrutinise them.
Strengthen a judiciary that dispenses justice rather than preside over transactional justice. Build a civil service in which postings and promotions are earned, not purchased.
These reforms matter far more than the name given to the police institution. Devolved policing is entirely consistent with federalism. It is good governance. But good governance is not merely a constitutional arrangement; it is a culture. It is the daily discipline of obeying the law even when no one is watching. It is refusing to deploy the police as a private army for those in power. It is recruiting on the basis of character, competence and merit rather than family connections or political patronage. It is protecting a farmer in Zamfara with the same urgency as an oil installation in Bonny because every Nigerian life carries equal constitutional worth.
Until Nigerians demand that standard from those who govern them, we shall continue to receive the quality of governance we tolerate. Whether policing remains federal or becomes devolved, the outcome will be much the same if the values underpinning the institution remain unchanged.
So yes, to devolved policing. A hundred times, yes. But an even louder yes to the harder task: cultivating leaders of integrity, funding security transparently, enforcing professional standards without fear or favour, and nurturing a citizenry that insists upon accountability every single day.
Structures do not deliver security, standards do. So do character, integrity, accountability and active citizenship. When Nigeria embraces those values, devolved policing will succeed, not because the structure changed, but because the nation did.
That is the choice before us. And the time to make it is now.
