Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, has faulted the current push for state police, warning that the proposal, as presently being handled, risks turning policing power into a political weapon in the hands of state governors.
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Odinkalu, who spoke during an Arise News discussion on state police and national security, said the debate had ignored the most important purpose of policing, which he described as law enforcement.
According to him, the ongoing clamour is not truly about law enforcement or justice reform, but about giving politicians control over police power during an active election season.
“The police is a law enforcement institution. There is a difference in the Nigerian state between security and law,” Odinkalu said.
He argued that under Nigeria’s current structure, internal security is the responsibility of the State Security Service, also known as the Department of State Services, while the police are primarily responsible for law enforcement.
“The governors are not complaining that we should decentralise the DSS. They are complaining they should own the police,” he said.
Odinkalu said it was troubling that state governors who have allegedly failed to properly fund their Ministries of Justice are now showing strong interest in controlling state police.
According to him, Ministries of Justice are critical to the prosecution and conviction of criminals, yet they have not received the kind of attention governors are now giving to policing.
“These are governors who have never funded their Ministries of Justice. Now they will find money to give to police because police is used for illegal elections,” he said.
“They will not fund the Ministries of Justice, which are essential for putting away the criminals who endanger Nigerians. And nobody there is talking about the funding of Ministries of Justice.”
He challenged governors supporting state police to disclose how much they had allocated to their Ministries of Justice in the last four years.
“Ask all of these governors who have gone away: how much have they spent on their Ministries of Justice in the past four years?” he said.
Odinkalu also faulted the timing of the proposal, warning that creating or deploying state police shortly before another general election would be dangerous.
He said Nigeria was already in an election season, with political parties conducting primaries and candidates being uploaded on the Independent National Electoral Commission portal.
“We are talking about becoming the most fundamental power of the state in an election season. And we are talking about becoming the most significant power of the state without debate,” he said.
He claimed that there are currently two different versions of the state police bill before the National Assembly, one passed by the Senate and another by the House of Representatives, yet citizens have not been allowed to see or debate the proposals.
“To this point, in fact, there are two different versions of the bill going to the National Assembly; an executive bill passed by the Senate and a different one passed by the House of Representatives. No citizen has seen those bills nor participated in the viewing, as citizens are entitled to do,” he said.
The law professor said the first safeguard should be transparency, insisting that the bills must be made public before any meaningful debate can take place.
“Can we at least see the proposals? Let every citizen acquire a copy of the proposal. Put it up on a website,” he said.
According to him, after Nigerians have seen the proposals, there should be a national debate on the safeguards, structure, funding, recruitment, accountability, and transitional arrangements for any decentralised policing system.
Odinkalu said he was not opposed to decentralisation of policing in principle, but insisted that any reform must be carefully designed and should not be rushed into law because of political pressure.
He said one minimum guarantee politicians should give Nigerians is that state police will not be deployed before the conclusion of the next general election.
“Can all the politicians involved in this give us one guarantee? State police will not be deployed before the conclusion of the next election,” he said.
He warned that deploying state police during an active election cycle could revive the abuses associated with old native authority police structures, which he said were historically used to intimidate political opponents rather than protect citizens.
Odinkalu said Nigeria must first decide the kind of police system it wants to build, noting that there are different policing models, including consensual policing, coercive policing and expeditionary policing.
He argued that Nigeria inherited an expeditionary, colonial-style policing structure and must be careful not to reproduce the same coercive model at state level without safeguards.
He further warned that the discussion on state police cannot be separated from the justice system, adding that police reform without justice reform would not solve insecurity.
“You cannot be talking about reforming police outside the justice system,” he said.
Odinkalu said Nigeria’s insecurity problem is also linked to what he called the illegitimacy of electoral mandates.
According to him, when citizens believe that their votes do not count, that courts do not work for them, and that judges can be compromised, they may resort to violence and vigilantism.
“The single biggest source of insecurity in Nigeria is the illegitimacy of electoral mandates,” he said.
He also cited past experiments with state-backed security outfits and vigilante structures, warning that some of them produced serious security consequences instead of solving insecurity.
Odinkalu referred to local security models in Zamfara, Anambra and Benue States, arguing that Nigeria must examine the pathologies created by such arrangements before creating another structure that could be abused.
He added that the training infrastructure of the Nigeria Police is currently weak, saying it would be dangerous to introduce state police without strong doctrine, training institutions and enforceable national standards.
According to him, sending a police officer to a training institution is often treated as a punishment posting, an indication that training and doctrine within the police system require urgent reform.
Responding to arguments that states understand their local security challenges better than the Federal Government, Odinkalu said examples from states such as Enugu may also show that existing structures can work when there is sensible leadership and effective coordination.
He said the issue is not necessarily ownership of police institutions, but sensible accommodation, interdependence and accountability within the security and justice system.
Odinkalu urged political leaders and citizens to treat policing reform as a long-term national project that requires public participation, transitional mechanisms and a clear timetable.
He said Nigeria should admit that the insecurity crisis cannot be fixed by rushing state police before the next election, but by building a transparent reform process involving politicians, citizens, government institutions and justice sector stakeholders.
“We are going to fix this thing, but we need you to work with us to fix it. So, let’s agree this is a project for politicians and citizens, government and the people working in partnership together,” he said.
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