Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, has moved to allay longstanding fears over the proposed creation of state police in Nigeria, insisting that the constitutional amendment bill contains sufficient safeguards to prevent political abuse and ensure accountability. Kalu, who also chairs the House Committee on Constitution Review, gave the assurance on Tuesday, 7 July 2026, at a reception hosted by the Ambassador of the European Union to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Amb Gautier Mignot, in Abuja, where he rallied support from European Union Heads of Mission for Nigeria's ongoing constitutional reform process.
The Deputy Speaker acknowledged that concerns about governors potentially weaponising state-controlled police formations against political opponents are legitimate, but stressed that the proposed legislation had carefully addressed these fears through constitutional checks and institutional oversight. "And to legitimate concerns about abuse, concerns we have heard, including from partners in this room – the bill responds not with assurances but with architecture. Our objective is not simply to decentralise policing; it is to constitutionalise accountability," Kalu said. "We have put guardrails in the way the state police are going to be operated. The guardrails will not allow any abuse," a statement issued by his Chief of Staff, Levinus Nwabughiogwu, quoted him as saying.
The proposed establishment of state police has remained one of the most contentious constitutional reform issues in Nigeria. Supporters argue that the country's highly centralised policing structure is no longer adequate to tackle growing insecurity, while critics fear it could be exploited by state governments for political repression. Making the case for decentralised policing, Kalu argued that Nigeria's size and population make the current arrangement increasingly unsustainable. "Nigeria is a federation of 923,768 square kilometres, home to more than 230 million people by United Nations estimates, yet it remains policed by a single, centrally commanded force, stretched far below the United Nations' recommended ratio of one police officer to every 450 citizens," he said. "No other federation of our size operates this way; from Germany to India, from Canada to Australia, the world's great federations police locally and coordinate nationally."
According to Kalu, the proposal follows a settled wisdom: a constitutional framework allowing states to establish their own police services, with defined jurisdictions, independent oversight, professional recruitment standards, and coordinated command. "I often put it simply: the officer who comes from a community knows its roads, its markets, its people, its tensions. The officer who knows the forest will police the forest," he said. The renewed push for state police comes amid sustained calls from governors, security experts and civil society groups for reforms to Nigeria's security architecture in response to rising cases of banditry, kidnapping, terrorism and communal violence across different parts of the country.
Beyond security reforms, Kalu urged the EU to continue supporting the broader constitutional amendment process, describing the exercise as one aimed at strengthening democratic governance and improving service delivery. He disclosed that the constitutional amendment bills had passed both chambers of the National Assembly and were now at the crucial stage of securing approval from at least 24 state Houses of Assembly before they can be transmitted for presidential assent. "In this decisive phase, your continued partnership through technical cooperation, comparative expertise, and the candid counsel that only trusted friends can give matters more than ever," he said. "The Office of the Deputy Speaker remains an open door to every mission in this room, and we welcome deeper parliamentary diplomacy between Nigeria and the legislatures of Europe."
The Deputy Speaker also listed other pillars of the reform agenda, including local government autonomy with guarantees of democratically elected councils and direct fiscal accountability, citizenship reforms to remove gender inequities and introduce citizenship by investment, judicial reforms to speed up appeals and strengthen judicial independence and welfare, electoral reforms, human rights protections, and fiscal reforms. He solicited the support of the EU Heads of Mission on the reforms, saying that the bills had reached their most critical stage. "What we have built together over these years, we can multiply in the years ahead. For ultimately, the measure of constitutional reform is not the number of clauses amended; it is the number of lives improved because those amendments were made," Kalu said.
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