Former Minister of Education and founder of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG), Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili, has warned that the creation of state police, while necessary, will not resolve Nigeria’s worsening security and governance challenges unless backed by comprehensive constitutional restructuring.
In a public memorandum addressed to President Bola Tinubu, the Senate, House of Representatives, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, and the Nigerian people, Ezekwesili argued that the country’s persistent insecurity is rooted more in structural and constitutional defects than in the absence of decentralised policing .
Her intervention comes amid renewed efforts by the Federal Government to establish state police as part of measures aimed at tackling the country’s growing security challenges. While acknowledging the increasing support for state police, Ezekwesili maintained that the proposal addresses only a symptom of a much deeper national problem.
“The security crisis is real, but it is not fundamentally a policing crisis. It is the manifestation of a deeper constitutional, governance and political economy crisis that has steadily eroded state capacity, weakened accountability and undermined the effectiveness of public institutions,” she stated .
Citing recent Afrobarometer findings, she noted that 79 per cent of Nigerians regard kidnapping and abduction as serious national problems, while 63 per cent reported feeling unsafe in their homes or neighbourhoods within the past year. One in every three Nigerians personally knows someone who has been kidnapped in the last five years .
“The danger confronting Nigeria today is that the country may once again mistake a symptom for the disease itself,” Ezekwesili warned .
She pointed to the 1999 Constitution’s Exclusive Legislative List, which places 68 critical items under the sole control of the Federal Government, including policing, prisons, railways, mines and minerals, as well as arms and ammunition. “Police is merely one of sixty-eight subjects constitutionally monopolised by the Federal Government,” she noted .
According to her, decentralising policing without addressing the broader constitutional framework would amount to treating a symptom while leaving the root cause untouched. “The question therefore is not whether policing should be decentralised. It should. The deeper question is why policing alone should be decentralised while dozens of other functions remain trapped within a constitutional framework inherited from military command structures rather than democratic federal design,” she said .
The former minister traced Nigeria’s governance structure to decades of military rule, during which powers previously exercised by regions were progressively transferred to the centre and later retained in the 1999 Constitution. “What Nigerians often describe as federalism today is therefore, in many respects, a unitary system wearing federal clothing,” she declared .
She called for a citizens-led sovereign national conference and a referendum to produce a new constitution, insisting that sovereignty ultimately belongs to the Nigerian people. “State Police will be necessary. But necessity does not make it the solution to a dysfunctional Nigeria,” she declared .
“Restructuring the dysfunctional territory and system that our beloved country has become is THE BOLD CONVERSATION AND ACTION that Nigerians can no longer afford to postpone. No more tragically costly delays,” she said .
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