State Police Reform Advances as Senate Leader Reports Approval by 30 Assemblies

Nigeria’s proposed move towards state policing has reached a new legislative stage, with Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele saying at least 30 state Houses of Assembly have approved the constitutional alteration bill. The development was reported by PUNCH after his address on Thursday, 29 October, at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru, Plateau State.

Bamidele said the National Assembly had begun collating formal responses from the states. Thirty approvals would exceed the 24 needed to meet the two-thirds requirement across Nigeria’s 36 state assemblies. The reported number is his account; a complete set of certified state resolutions was not available in the material reviewed.

According to the Senate leader, lawmakers must still consider those responses, complete the remaining resolutions in both chambers and transmit the bill to President Bola Tinubu for assent. He said the National Assembly intends to finish these stages on or before December 2026. That is a legislative target, not an announced date for state police to begin operations.

The proposal would decentralise a policing system that is currently administered primarily through the Nigeria Police Force. Supporters argue that state-level institutions could improve local intelligence and shorten response times in communities facing kidnapping, killings and other violent crimes.

The competing concern is accountability: critics fear governors could use locally controlled police against political opponents. Bamidele said the intended framework would include oversight, constitutional safeguards and human-rights protections, describing the objective as community-anchored policing rather than state armies.

The important distinction is between approval of a proposal and implementation of a law. The report does not establish that the president has assented, that state forces have been created or that recruitment has begun. Funding, final operational rules and the precise safeguards remain essential details to watch.

Sources checked on 30 October 2026: PUNCH, 30 October — https://punchng.com/state-police-nassembly-collates-reports-from-30-state-assemblies/ | PUNCH, 29 October — https://punchng.com/state-police-have-moved-from-rhetoric-to-reality-senate-leader/

Image: AI-generated illustration, not a photograph of this event.