By Samson Obande, Lafia\

Public affairs analyst and teacher Malam Abdurasheed Bunu has faulted the Nigerian Senate’s approval of the State Police Bill on Wednesday, June 24, 2026, describing it as a misplacement of priority by the Federal Government.

In an article made available to Kwararafa Times on Thursday, Bunu argued that Nigeria is repeating the same error it made with local government autonomy: creating new structures instead of fixing existing ones.

President Bola Tinubu had sent an executive bill to the Senate seeking legislation for state police, reigniting the debate on decentralizing security as a solution to nationwide violence. But Bunu questions whether the move will deliver results.

Citing the Supreme Court judgment of July 2024 that mandated direct funding to LG accounts, Bunu noted that one year later most local governments still cannot access their money. State Ministries of Local Government continue to control LG finances through governors.

“If LGs are truly autonomous and independent, why do state Ministries of Local Government still exist? What are their roles and responsibilities? Do autonomous LGs need a gatekeeper called ‘Ministry of Local Government’?” he asked.

Rather than address manpower gaps in the military and paramilitary, secure ungoverned spaces, and improve police welfare, the government is recruiting 1,000 Forest Guards while pushing for state police, he said.

With about 370,000 police officers for over 220 million Nigerians — roughly 1 officer to 600 citizens against the UN recommendation of 1 per 450 — Nigeria is under-policed, not just structurally deficient.

“These are the same governors who should tackle the real drivers of insecurity: poverty, out-of-school children, lack of rural healthcare, and poor electricity, yet Nigeria now wants to entrust them with state police?”

Bunu’s core concern is trust. If governors have ignored a Supreme Court order on LG funds, can they be trusted with guns and arrest powers? While financial misuse delays development, politically controlled state police could threaten democracy.

“We have seen how state security outfits are used for politics. Legalizing it as ‘state police’ does not cure misuse. It rewards it,” he wrote, stressing that the problem lies in a constitutional system that concentrates excessive power in governors’ hands.

While acknowledging the Nigeria Police Force’s failures in welfare, corruption, and response time, Bunu rejected breaking federal command. He proposed recruiting citizens into the Nigeria Police Force and posting them to their LGAs, while keeping training, intelligence, arms, and command federal.

“Security threats do not respect state borders. Bandits move from Zamfara to Katsina. Kidnappers cross from Niger to Kaduna. You need one command structure for intelligence and rapid response, not 36 commanders with 36 budgets.”

Bunu concluded that Nigeria’s challenge is not the absence of structures but lack of discipline in running them. “Until governors obey the Supreme Court on LG money, arming them with police is not reform. It is handing the same hands that tied LGs down a uniform and a gun.”

He urged the government to fix recruitment, improve welfare, and post local officers under federal command as a safer alternative to repeating the LG autonomy mistake in uniform.