Last Thursday, (9th July 2026) Arise TV hosted a Dialogue on building national consensus for state police and national security. Commendably prompt. It was a much needed literacy promotion about the principles of state/community/decentralized policing as distinct from the existing centralized National Police Force (NPF). Arise Dialogue provided a good platform for reaffirmations and even some rethinking of positions by key state actors. The vast majority of the panelists are state legislators and governors.
The conclusions of the Dialogue would enrich the process audaciously initiated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who on June 24, 2026, transmitted the historic executive bill aimed at moving policing to the Concurrent Legislative List and establishing a dual federal-state policing structure through the proposed State Police Bill (Constitution Alteration Bill). Key points in the platform are Safeguards Against Political Abuse, Technological Integration through smart security infrastructure and the Principles of Local Government Autonomy and Funding.
The Platform also revives the debate about how to improve our approaches to inevitable reforms. Gradual, inclusive and consensual reform dispositions benefit from the inputs of all stakeholders, resulting in collective ownership and support. The continuing police reform, like the recently concluded tax reform, properly diverges from the shock therapy approach that heralded Fuel Subsidy Removal and Foreign Exchange Unification.
Yet, as a participant-observer at the Dialogue, I bear witness to an elitist top-down consensus building towards an emergent “Nigeria-security/state”. And why not? More than ever, the imagination of policy makers and citizens alike is captivated by the quantity as well as the quality control of the national policing structure, given the legacy of insurgencies, robberies and banditry. With hundreds of abductions yearly, many of the victims being schoolchildren and rural working community citizens, the latest being the rescued students and teachers of Oyo state after 56 days in captivity, the need to protect citizens from internal and external security threats cannot be overemphasized.
Not withstanding discordant views about the Constitution, everybody is at home with Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended): that the “security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. And that is the real point! The Arise Dialogue threw up a bagful of policy ideas, almost repetitively, on policing but almost nothing on the welfare and development component of Section 14(2)(b).
Are we for a developmental state or a police state? “Nigeria is not a debating club. The promise of independence in 1960 was to reverse a century of British colonial under-development. Security is a critical success factor for a Nigeria in development, but it is the means; the end is growth and Development as a precondition for the eradication of poverty and crime. The founding fathers were unambiguous on this. Once the Union Jack was lowered, they went on to launch in earnest a succession of Development Plans: the First (1962–1968), the Second (1970–1974), the Third (1975–1980) and Fourth (1981–1985). The Second was a revolution. It presented five core national objectives, which were later enshrined in both the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions, aimed at post-Civil War reconstruction and balanced rural-urban development: “A united, strong, and self-reliant nation. A dynamic and great economy. A society that is just. A society of equals. A land of all citizens bright and full opportunities. A democratic and free society.” These added up to a compulsory mantra for undergraduates of Economics and the social sciences in the fast developing Nigeria of the 70s and 80s. Within this legacy inherited, the 1999 Constitution stresses security and welfare. Two Core Constitutional Provisions matter. First, all powers of government come from the people, and the protection of the lives and property of citizens as well as the provision of basic needs remains the primary duty of the state. Secondly, on Social and Economic Welfare, Chapter II directs the state to ensure adequate livelihood and employment, just and humane working conditions, adequate medical and health facilities and equal pay for equal work. The only thing that was audible from the discussants was the fashionable buzzwords “kinetic and non-kinetic” uttered by some of them. As for the socio-economic factors of mass youth unemployment, poverty and new illiteracy that fuel criminality of varying hues, almost all of them were mute. We have to name the factors that fuel insecurity, and show what we have done to tame them.
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The Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, said he has bought 500 vehicles for the police since he was sworn in on May 29, 2023. He is certainly ready for state police, having spent so much already on the Federal police. But then security is all about vehicles for policemen who suffer wage income poverty and a pension crisis after service. High levels of poverty (exceeding 70 percent), widespread illiteracy and a lack of economic opportunities for young people render rural populations far more susceptible to recruitment by criminal gangs than a dearth of police vehicles. The star of the Dialogue was the veteran statesman-activist, BUKAR USMAN, who gave out 400 copies of his published “Case of Local Police”. Usman is strong on nostalgia for post-colonial ‘community policing at its best: simple, inexpensive and yet effective’. But his case suffers from the same limitation: security discourse without Development context. You cannot be romantic about crime-free Northern Nigeria under Premier AHMADU BELLO (1954–1966) without contextualizing the development agenda he championed: rapid modernization through industrialization, regional self-reliance and educational advancement. His education policy tackled mass illiteracy with secular and integrated Koranic schools. He founded Ahmadu Bello University Zaria and Kaduna Polytechnic to produce indigenous professionals and established the Northern Nigeria Development Commission and the Bank of the North to industrialize the region and empower local entrepreneurs. All of this produced mass, decent, full employment that kept young people out of criminality. Security, local or regional, is one of the prerequisites for the development agenda. Let’s do it the right way.”
The recent security challenges once again underline the importance of the Development Agenda. Factories are not the only spaces where insurgents and criminals can take refuge in ungoverned areas. There is no question that Nigeria is under-policed. But more worrying is Nigeria’s economic under-performance, with growth rates lagging behind population growth and increasing graft and land-grab rates. The tide of crime associated with unemployed and unemployable youth cannot be stemmed by hundreds of thousands of state and federal policemen. Take the light arms out of the hands of children at play and put them to work on farms and in factories. Governor Dauda Lawal should reactivate the cotton farms and Zamfara textile mills that once employed thousands of youths directly and indirectly and kept them off crime. “Zamfara has a comparative advantage in the cotton value chain, through farming, ginning, spinning, weaving and sewing, vital for boosting economic growth and creating jobs in agricultural regions.
