Insecurity: Senate Leader Bamidele confirms drafting of state police law to curb violence in Nigeria
The Leader of the Senate, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, has announced that the National Assembly is currently drafting legal frameworks to pave the way for the establishment of state police across Nigeria.
This legislative move is one of several proposed measures aimed at addressing the escalating insecurity threatening national stability.
Bamidele made the disclosure in a statement released on Sunday in Abuja through his Directorate of Media and Public Affairs, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The Senate leader emphasized that the security challenges across Nigeria require urgent and practical reforms, including decentralizing policing to allow states to play more active roles in maintaining internal security.
“The Authority of the National Assembly is in the process of developing legal frameworks for the establishment of state police as one of the measures to address insecurity in the country,” Bamidele said.
He called on security agencies to adopt a unified front in tracking and apprehending the masterminds and sponsors of terrorism and criminal activities nationwide. The Senate Leader also urged political actors who exploit Nigeria’s challenges for partisan gains to desist and instead embrace collective nation-building.
Bamidele also decried the harmful narratives propagated by some political and sectional leaders, stating that, “No country develops as a result of one section rising up against another. Such actors are no longer playing opposition politics but simply taking advantage of the country’s internal conditions in pursuit of their own parochial political outcomes.”
On Legislative Commitment
He further said that Nigeria is our ultimate project, and as a parliament, we are committed to the actualisation of this project.
“This is evident in all the legislative initiatives we are pushing since the birth of the 10th National Assembly. And our goal is to build a federation that will be noted for peace, progress, and prosperity anywhere in the world.”
He called on leaders from all backgrounds—religious, political, and ethnic—to refrain from making inflammatory remarks that could jeopardize national unity and instead focus on defeating the common enemies of insecurity, poverty, and disunity.
What you should know
The move to establish state police is not new. A bill aimed at creating state police was initially introduced by former Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu (PDP, Enugu) during the Eighth Senate.
The bill proposed the creation of a dual policing structure, including the Federal Police, the State Police, the National Police Service Commission, the National Police Council, and the State Police Service Commissions. However, the bill did not pass at the time.
