Early in October, only four state assemblies had endorsed the state police amendment. By Friday, 24 had.
The Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill confirmed the tally on Friday, 23 October. Its chairman, Femi Gbajabiamila, who is also the President’s Chief of Staff, said 24 state assemblies had approved the constitutional amendment, meeting the two-thirds threshold required under Section 9 of the Constitution.
The headline number behind the state police amendment hides a split. Vanguard’s count puts 14 southern and 10 northern states on the winning side. Lagos, nine northern states and two other southern states are still outside it.
Lagos remains a notable absentee. Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu hailed the Senate vote in June as “epochal” and urged state assemblies to follow suit. Yet Legit.ng’s roundup lists the Lagos Assembly among three for which no public update on approval was available.
The pace of approvals also fell short of an earlier forecast. After the Senate vote, Ogun Governor Dapo Abiodun said he expected every assembly to approve the amendment on the same day. Abiodun chairs the governors’ forum committee on state police. Instead, approvals gathered pace later, while 12 assemblies remained outstanding as of Friday, 23 October.
Benue’s assembly passed the state police amendment on Tuesday 20 October. Majority Leader Peter Bemdoo Ipusu told members it would help tackle kidnapping, banditry and farmer-herder clashes. He said it would also ease the burden on the Nigeria Police Force.
The shift in the north is the quieter story. The idea died in the eighth and ninth National Assemblies. SBM Intelligence, a Lagos risk advisory firm, has noted that northern legislators led the resistance, fearing state forces would be turned on minorities. Ten northern assemblies have now backed the state police amendment.
None of that puts an officer on the street. Nnadubem Moghalu, secretary of the Working Group, has been plain about the limits of the state police amendment: “It opens the door to state police, but it does not operationalise state police.”
Constitutional approval is only one stage in the process. The next steps depend on the formal completion of the amendment procedure, including the certification of state resolutions and the presentation of the bill for presidential assent, where required. The constitutional provisions governing assent and the consequences of withholding it should be checked against the exact legislative text before publication.
Separately, the Working Group says the draft National Policing Bill and 29 consequential bills are due back from the Justice Ministry on Friday, 30 October. The group says it submitted the drafts by 19 October. The proposed legislation is intended to establish standards, certification requirements, oversight arrangements and funding provisions for the new policing framework.
Even if the state police amendment completes the constitutional process, the timetable leaves little room for implementation before the next general election. INEC’s published timetable should be checked to confirm the dates for the presidential, National Assembly and governorship elections before the article states when the polls will take place.
Charles Omole directs the Institute for Police and Security Policy Research. In July, he argued that no state could field a working service before the next general election, citing the legal and operational requirements.
On that timetable, the January vote looks set to be policed by the existing force.
The politics have not calmed. The African Democratic Congress says it is not opposed in principle. Its spokesman, Bolaji Abdullahi, has said the real worry is state forces being turned on political opponents. Atiku Abubakar’s spokesman, Paul Ibe, put it more bluntly in June: “We support state police, but not at this time.”
Supporters say the safeguards are real. Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele has said the bill bars any governor from directing a state service to target specific people, parties or groups unlawfully. It also forbids partisan, ethnic or religious use of police powers.
Money is the other fault line. Omole estimates that more than 90 per cent of police leadership opposes the reform, although the basis for that figure should be established. He has also warned that many governors treat security as a “sunk cost”. Moghalu counters that states will fund policing in line with the priority they give security.
For more than two decades, Nigeria argued over whether states should have their own police. With the state police amendment cleared, that argument is settled on paper. The harder one, about who writes the rules, who pays and who gets certified, has only just begun.
