The Federal Government has said the proposed National Policing Bill will contain safeguards to prevent state police from becoming instruments of personal or political abuse by governors and other office holders.
Senior Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Planning and Research, Nnadubem Moghalu, disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja, saying concerns over possible political interference had been central to the drafting of the legislation.
Moghalu, who is also Secretary of the Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill, spoke at the 2nd Annual Distinguished Parliamentarian Lecture organised by the House of Representatives Press Corps.
The lecture, held at the National Assembly Library Auditorium, was themed, “Imperative of State Police: Securing Communities, Strengthening Federalism.”
Moghalu said the proposed framework was being designed to ensure that the effectiveness of state police did not depend on the character or goodwill of individual governors.
“We are trying to build a system that is as immune to the personal foibles of individuals as possible,” he said.
He said the bill would clearly define responsibilities, establish accountability mechanisms and ensure that policing institutions had the resources and capacity required to perform their duties.
Moghalu argued that state police had become necessary because the existing centralised policing structure was overstretched.
He said Nigeria had about 380,000 police officers serving a population of more than 200 million, but about 180,000 were engaged in special protection and administrative duties, leaving roughly 200,000 officers for core policing duties.
According to him, this effectively reduced the ratio to about one active police officer for every 1,000 citizens.
Moghalu said the same workforce was expected to tackle ordinary crimes as well as terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and other major security threats.
He proposed a system in which state police would handle community-level offences, while the Federal Police would retain responsibility for crimes crossing state boundaries and offences such as human trafficking, cybercrime and those with international implications.
He stressed that the two policing structures would have to work together, with technology helping to prevent criminals from escaping justice by moving between jurisdictions.
Moghalu also warned that the reform would fail if it merely transferred the weaknesses of the existing police system to the states.
“If these reforms merely federalise the status quo, distributing familiar failures across more institutions, they will have failed,” he said.
He said the new system would also require sustained funding, improved training, equipment, better welfare and effective accountability mechanisms.
Moghalu explained that the constitutional amendment needed to establish dual policing and the National Policing Bill were separate but connected processes.
The Sixth Alteration Bill, which provides the constitutional basis for the system, has passed both chambers of the National Assembly and is before state Houses of Assembly.
He said four states — Edo, Rivers, Osun and Oyo — had approved the amendment as of Tuesday, while at least 24 state assemblies are required for the process to advance.
Once the constitutional requirement is met and presidential assent obtained, the National Policing Bill will provide the operational framework for the new policing structure.
Moghalu said the working group had received contributions from academics, think tanks, community and socio-cultural organisations, political groups and security agencies, adding that the core of the bill had been settled while further work continued.
Niger State Governor Umar Bago also backed the creation of state police, saying rising insecurity required a system capable of responding to the specific security needs of individual communities.
Bago, represented by APC National Vice Chairman, North Central, Mu’azu Bawa Rijau, said policing needed to be brought closer to the people because security challenges largely occurred within communities and cities.
House of Representatives Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, represented by the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Akin Rotimi, also called for objective public discussion of the proposed reform.
Abbas urged the media to assess legislation based on its principles, evidence and likely consequences rather than partisan considerations.
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