By Okoi Obono-Obla
The news that 24 State Houses of Assembly have now approved the Constitution Alteration Bill for the establishment of State Police is not just another political headline. It is a constitutional watershed.
For over two decades since the return to democratic rule, Nigerians have watched the security architecture of the country collapse under the weight of banditry, terrorism, kidnapping and violent crime, while the Constitution insisted on only one police force for over 230 million people. With this approval, that rigidity has finally cracked.
The states reported to have approved so far – Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Kaduna, Kebbi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara – constitute exactly the two-thirds required by law.
The Section 9 Threshold
Under Section 9(2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), no provision of the Constitution can be altered unless the proposal is supported by not less than two-thirds majority of all members of the National Assembly and approved by resolution of the Houses of Assembly of not less than two-thirds of all the States.
Two-thirds of 36 states is 24. That is the magic number. Once it is attained, the National Assembly is constitutionally empowered to transmit the Bill to the President for assent under Section 9(3).
This is the point we have now reached. The hardest part of constitutional amendment in Nigeria has always been the states. The National Assembly can muster two-thirds, but getting 24 state legislatures – often divided by party, ethnicity and interest – to agree on one issue is historically difficult. That it has happened on State Police tells us how dire the security consensus has become.
What Has Been Achieved – and What Has Not
It is important for the public not to misconstrue what this means.
It does NOT mean State Police has been created. It does NOT mean Governors can now go and recruit constables.
What it means is that the Bill has satisfied the constitutional condition precedent to become law. It is now ripe for Presidential assent. Once assented to and gazetted as a Constitution (Alteration) Act, the 1999 Constitution will stand altered.
The real legal surgery will be in three places: Section 214(1) which establishes only one Nigeria Police Force; Section 215 which vests command in the Inspector-General; and Item 45 of the Exclusive Legislative List which makes “Police” an exclusively federal matter.
The alteration will move policing to the Concurrent List and permit both a Federal Police Service and State Police Services.
What Remains
Three steps remain before a citizen in Ogoja, Gusau or Oyo will see a State Police officer:
First, authentication and transmission to the President for assent. Second, the enabling National Policing Act which will provide for standards, recruitment, firearms control, and federal oversight to prevent abuse. Third, State legislation to establish each State Police Service Commission and provide funding.
Until those are done, any outfit operating as “State Police” remains unconstitutional.
Why This Moment Belongs to Tinubu
For the past two decades since the return to democratic civil rule, and with the continued deterioration of national security and extreme violent crimes such as banditry and terrorism, there has been a clamour for the decentralization of the Police Service, which was centralized in 1966 after the military took over the political governance of the country through the Unification Decree.
But as is true with economic reforms, where President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took the gauntlet after successive governments timidly buried their heads in the sand like the ostrich, it is only President Bola Ahmed Tinubu who has audaciously decided to make it happen.
While successive administrations from Obasanjo to Buhari set up committees, organized national conferences and debated the idea, none mustered the political capital and will to push it through the rigorous Section 9 amendment process until now.
Credit must therefore go to President Tinubu for this bold constitutional reform that will finally give the country a dual policing system in tandem with its heterogeneity, federalism and pluralism.
This amendment, when fully operationalized, represents the most profound restructuring of Nigerian federalism since 1968. For the first time, the Federal Government will no longer have a monopoly on coercive power. Security responsibility will finally align with political responsibility.
The task ahead is to ensure the enabling laws provide strong safeguards – an independent Service Commission, a clear ban on use for politics and elections, federal standards for human rights, and fiscal safeguards for poorer states – so that this reform delivers security, not new tyranny.
- The Constitution is finally listening to Nigeria.
