A prominent Nigerian lawyer urged the federal government on Monday to build constitutional safeguards into a planned state police system, cautioning that handing the new forces to state governors without checks could turn them into instruments of political control.
Olisa Agbakoba, a former head of the Nigerian Bar Association, made the appeal in a letter to a top federal official, after lawmakers last week passed legislation amending the constitution to allow states to set up their own police forces alongside the national force.
Agbakoba said earlier attempts to decentralize power in Nigeria, including state electoral bodies and local governments, were eventually brought under the sway of state executives because they lacked firm constitutional protection. He said the same risk applies to policing if reforms go ahead without similar safeguards.
To guard against that outcome, he proposed a three-way process for naming and removing state police chiefs, involving a federal oversight body that would recommend candidates, governors who would make the appointment, and state legislatures that would confirm it, so that no single office holds unchecked authority over the force.
Agbakoba pointed to South Africa’s constitution as a model worth following, arguing that bodies safeguarding democracy there are shielded from interference by guaranteeing their funding, the tenure of their leaders, and oversight by elected lawmakers rather than the executive branch. He said similar protections should extend beyond policing to Nigeria’s election authority, anti-corruption agencies, central bank and judicial oversight body.
He also called for additional government functions, such as driver’s licensing, prison administration and business registration, to be shifted to state and local authorities to ease the burden on federal agencies.
The proposed constitutional changes, which still require approval from a majority of Nigeria’s 36 state assemblies to take effect, would create a dual system combining a renamed Federal Police Service with new state-level forces.
