Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has inaugurated a presidential working group to draft a National Policing Bill that will provide the legal framework for implementing state police across the country.
The move was after lawmakers approved a constitutional amendment creating a dual policing structure.
Represented by Chief of Staff Femi Gbajabiamila, Tinubu said the proposed legislation would operationalise the constitutional amendment by setting out minimum policing standards, state readiness requirements, federal-state coordination, accountability measures, human rights safeguards and fiscal conditions.
“The Constitution Amendment Bill establishes the framework for dual policing, but it does not operationalise it. That work is left to the National Policing Bill,” the president said.
Tinubu stated that the committee had been established to produce an implementation-ready draft bill for transmission to the National Assembly without waiting for the constitutional amendment process to be completed.
Gbajabiamila will chair the panel, whose members include the Attorney-General of the Federation, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, the National Security Adviser, the Inspector-General of Police and the Chairman of the Governors’ Forum Committee on State Police.
Speaking on behalf of the governors, Dapo Abiodun pledged support for the initiative and said governors would work to secure swift approval of the constitutional amendment by their state assemblies.
Abiodun said the proposed state police system would strengthen community policing and significantly increase security personnel, estimating that about 200,000 additional officers could be deployed if each state recruited around 6,000 personnel.
The Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi described the initiative as timely given Nigeria’s security challenges and urged governors to expedite ratification of the constitutional amendment.
Afam Osigwe said the Nigerian Bar Association supported the creation of state police but stressed that the legislation must include safeguards to ensure accountability and prevent abuse of power.