Between Police And Developmental State

Last Thursday (9th July 2026) Arise TV hosted a Dialogue on building national consensus for state police and national security. Commendably timely. It promoted the much needed literacy about the imperatives of state/community/decentralized policing as distinct from the current centralized National Police Force (NPF). Arise Dialogue offered a worthy platform for reaffirmations and even some rethinking of positions by key state actors. Almost all panelists are state governors and legislators.

The conclusions of the Dialogue would enrich the process audaciously initiated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who on June 24, 2026 transmitted the historic executive bill aimed at moving policing to the Concurrent Legislative List and establishing a dual federal-state policing structure via the proposed State Police Bill (Constitution Alteration Bill). Critical takeaways from the platform include Safeguards Against Political Abuse, Technological Integration through smart security infrastructure and the imperatives of Local Government Autonomy and Funding.

The Platform further reopens the debate about how to improve our approaches to inevitable reforms. Gradual, inclusive and consensual dispositions to reform benefit from the inputs of all stakeholders, resulting in collective ownership and support. The on-going police reform, like the just concluded tax reform, rightly departs from the shock therapy approach that heralded Fuel Subsidy Removal and Foreign Exchange Unification.

However, as a participant-observer at the Dialogue, I bear witness to an elitist top-down consensus building towards an emerging “Nigeria-security/state”. And why not? More than ever, quantity as much as quality control of the national policing structure captures the imagination of policy makers and citizens alike, given the legacy of insurgencies, robberies and banditry. With hundreds of abductions yearly, a significant number of victims being schoolchildren and rural working community citizens, the most recent being the rescued students and teachers of Oyo state after 56 days in captivity, the protection of citizens from internal and external security threats cannot be overstated.

Notwithstanding discordant views about the Constitution, everybody is at home with Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended): that the “security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. And that is the real issue! The Arise Dialogue threw up a bagful of policy ideas, almost repetitively, on policing but almost nothing on the welfare and development component of Section 14(2)(b).

Are we for a developmental or a police state? Nigeria is not a debating society. The promise of independence in 1960 was to reverse a century of British colonial underdevelopment. Security is a critical success factor for a developing Nigeria, but it is the means; the end is growth and Development as a precondition for poverty and crime eradication. The founding fathers were clear on this. After lowering the Union Jack, they launched in earnest a succession of Development Plans: First (1962–1968), Second (1970–1974), Third (1975–1980) and Fourth (1981–1985). The Second was revolutionary. It introduced five core national objectives, later enshrined in both the 1979 and 1999 Constitutions, targeted at post-Civil War reconstruction and balanced rural-urban development: “A united, strong, and self-reliant nation. A great and dynamic economy. A just and egalitarian society. A land of bright and full opportunities for all citizens. A free and democratic society.” These added up to a compulsory mantra for undergraduates of Economics and the social sciences in the fast-developing Nigeria of the 70s and 80s. The 1999 Constitution emphasizes security and welfare within this inherited legacy. Two Core Constitutional Provisions matter here. First, all government powers derive from the people, and the protection of citizens’ lives and property alongside the provision of basic needs remains the fundamental duty of the state. Secondly, on Social and Economic Welfare, Chapter II directs the state to ensure adequate livelihood and employment, just and humane working conditions, adequate medical and health facilities, and equal pay for equal work. Apart from the fashionable buzzwords “kinetic and non-kinetic” from some panelists, almost all discussants were mute on the socio-economic factors of mass youth unemployment, poverty and new illiteracy that fuel criminality of varying hues. To tame the factors that fuel insecurity, we must name them, and show what we have done to address them.

The governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal, disclosed that he has bought as many as 500 vehicles for the police since his inauguration on May 29, 2023. He is certainly prepared for state police, having spent so much already on the Federal police. But that assumes security is all about vehicles for policemen who suffer wage income poverty and a pension crisis after service. High poverty rates exceeding 70 percent, widespread illiteracy, and a lack of economic opportunities for young people make rural populations far more vulnerable to recruitment by criminal gangs than any shortage of police vehicles. The star of the Dialogue was the veteran statesman-activist BUKAR USMAN, who distributed 400 copies of his published “Case of Local Police”. Usman is strong on nostalgia for post-colonial “community policing at its best: simple, inexpensive and yet effective”. But his case suffers the same limitation: security discourse devoid of Development context. You cannot be romantic about crime-free Northern Nigeria under Premier AHMADU BELLO (1954–1966) without contextualizing the development agenda he championed: rapid modernization through industrialization, regional self-reliance, and educational advancement. His education policy tackled mass illiteracy through secular and integrated Koranic schools. He founded Ahmadu Bello University Zaria and Kaduna Polytechnic to produce indigenous professionals, and established the Northern Nigeria Development Commission and the Bank of the North to industrialize the region and empower local entrepreneurs. All of this created mass, decent, full employment that kept youths out of criminality. Security, local or regional, is indispensable to achieving the development agenda. Let’s get it right.

The recent security challenges once again raise the importance of the Development Agenda. Ungoverned spaces without factories are inevitable sanctuaries for insurgents and criminals. Nigeria is undoubtedly under-policed. But much more worrisome is Nigeria’s economic under-performance, with growth rates lagging behind population growth and mounting graft and land-grab rates. Hundreds of thousands of state and Federal policemen cannot halt the tide of crimes associated with unemployed and unemployable youths. Replace the light arms in the hands of children out of school with working tools on farms and in factories. Governor Dauda Lawal should revive the cotton farms and Zamfara textile mills that once employed thousands of youths, directly and indirectly, and kept them off crime. Zamfara has a comparative advantage in the cotton value chain, through farming, ginning, spinning, weaving and sewing, vital for boosting economic growth and creating jobs in agricultural regions.