State Police

On Wednesday, August 5, 2026, I walked into the studios of Arise TV with a simple assignment: to represent the Supreme Council of Shari’ah in Nigeria in the national conversation on the creation of State Police. I came prepared to argue, to be challenged, and, where persuasion was due, to be persuaded. I did not come to be abused. I left wondering whether, in this country, the mere mention of Shari’ah disqualifies a person from being heard.

Those who watched that morning’s programme have attested, again and again, to the hostility that greets guests on that platform. I can tell them this: what the cameras show in the morning is a watered version. In the studio, where I spent my time with the panel, the contempt was undiluted. At one point Mr. Reuben Abati — a man of considerable learning, and not shy to remind us of it — belittled me as uneducated, speaking from a position of self-assumed omniscience on the new National Policing Bill, as though he alone had been to school and the rest of us were wandering in ignorance. I was a little taken aback. I had expected courtesy; I met condescension.

But I did not go to Arise TV to trade insults, and I will not use this column to do so. I went to make a case, and I will make it here, in my own words, for Nigerians to judge.

Let me state our position clearly, because it has been wilfully misrepresented: the Supreme Council of Shari’ah in Nigeria is not opposed to State Police. We are opposed to a decision of this magnitude being taken in haste, without safeguards, and without the full national consultation that a constitutional change of this consequence demands. That is not obstruction; it is responsibility. Islam places the protection of life, property and human dignity among the foremost objectives of governance — which is precisely why we take security seriously, and why we refuse to gamble with it.

The security crisis is real, and I said so without equivocation. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost; millions are displaced; agriculture and businesses lie devastated. The numbers are on record: nearly 80,000 people killed and over 34,000 abducted in six years. And the crisis is not static — it is evolving. In November last year, at least 402 people, mostly schoolchildren, were abducted across Niger, Kebbi, Kwara and Borno, including about 250 students torn from a single boarding school in Niger State. Worse, that attack marked the first entry into Nigeria of JNIM, an al-Qaeda franchise that has spent years swallowing the Sahel. I put this question to the panel: what exactly is a state police force going to do about a cross-border insurgency? A Niger State policeman cannot pursue a kidnapper into Kebbi, let alone across the border into the Niger Republic. The threat we now face is not local crime; it is a sophisticated, mobile, transnational network. That is an argument for stronger national intelligence and border coordination, not for fragmenting the one force that can still operate across the whole country.

Nor is State Police the quick fix its promoters claim. The failures of our security architecture are rooted in inadequate funding, corruption, insufficient personnel, poor welfare, weak intelligence, obsolete equipment and ineffective coordination. None of these disappears merely by transferring policing powers to the states. I asked the panel a simple question they did not answer: if governors cannot pay civil servants, cannot pay pensions, and some cannot account for their security votes, what makes anyone believe they will fund and discipline a police force? The evidence is before us. An analysis of five years of state security spending found that five out of six states lack the fiscal discipline to fund their own police, and the estimated start-up cost is about N120 billion per state. We are being asked to relocate the disease, not cure it.

Our immediate national priority, therefore, should be the comprehensive reform and strengthening of the institutions we already have — better funding, recruitment, modern technology, intelligence gathering, border security, accountability and professionalism. I will concede what the panel did not expect me to concede: reform has been promised for sixty years and delivered too little. That is exactly why we must not pretend that amending the Constitution is a substitute for doing the hard work of reform. The two must go together — and, significantly, the sponsors of the bill admit as much. Their own deputy leader of the House has said the amendment alone will not resolve all the concerns. If the proponents themselves concede that, why are they so determined to rush?

And rushed it was. Let me recount what happened in the National Assembly, because Nigerians deserve the full record. The House of Representatives passed the bill by its long title, without clause-by-clause consideration, after the electronic voting system failed and was replaced with an unverifiable voice vote. The bill passed in June was then withdrawn to fast-track an executive version transmitted by the President; that version was passed in a single sitting on July 23, and the House promptly adjourned until September. A constitutional alteration with twenty-six clauses, reshaping the security architecture of a nation of over 230 million people, was disposed of in weeks. Constitutional changes affecting national security must never be rushed. They require broad consultation, transparent public hearings and genuine consensus among all stakeholders. That is not a Shari’ah position; it is a matter of elementary constitutional hygiene.

This is why I used the opportunity to commend those distinguished legislators — including members of the minority caucus who walked out of the chamber in protest — who courageously stood their ground in defence of due process and wider consultation. In a constitutional matter, the minority is not an obstacle to democracy; it is one of its safeguards. To dismiss their objections as failing some “test of opposition democracy” is not a defence of democracy; it is a confession of impatience with it.

On the question of safeguards, I was equally direct. We caution, and we caution from experience, against any arrangement that may allow State Police to become instruments of political intimidation or discrimination. Nigeria’s religious, ethnic and political diversity demands that every citizen be assured of equal protection under the Constitution. Before any State Police structure is created, there must be strong constitutional safeguards, independent oversight institutions, transparent and merit-based recruitment, professional training standards, effective complaints mechanisms, judicial and legislative oversight, sustainable funding, and firm guarantees against abuse of power. These are not luxuries. Amotekun, our existing regional security outfit, has been credibly linked to the killing of at least eleven civilians within a matter of months. And the regional police of the First Republic, in the documented verdict of historians, were susceptible to control and influence by ruling political elites — and were indeed used, in the crises of 1962 and 1965, against political opponents. We have been here before. We know how this ends without safeguards.

Let me also address the argument that the federal police are the safer alternative. The proponents never answer this one. The federal police have been weaponised too: the abduction of Governor Chris Ngige by policemen in 2003; the teargassing of Governor Rotimi Amaechi in 2013; water cannons turned on Governor Siminalayi Fubara in Rivers State in 2023. Concentrating police power in Abuja has not prevented political abuse; it has merely made the abuse federal. So the question is not federal police versus state police. The question is: police accountable to whom, and under what oversight? That is why the Council’s demand for safeguards is not a footnote to our position. It is the entire argument.

Finally, I reminded the panel that the process is not finished. The bill now rests with the thirty-six state Houses of Assembly, where it must secure the approval of at least twenty-four before it can become law. This is the moment when consultation actually matters — and it is the moment when those who love Nigeria should insist that the legitimate concerns of citizens be heard before, not after, ratification. The President has promised an implementation bill; the Supreme Council will engage with it, scrutinise it, and hold every institution to the promises that have been made.

I did not go to Arise TV to be insulted. I went to be heard. What I received is the treatment that many Nigerians — particularly those associated with Islamic institutions — have come to expect in sections of the national media: to be belittled first, and listened to never. If Mr. Abati considers me uneducated because I did not share his theatre, so be it. But I will match my understanding of this matter against anyone’s, and I will do it with the courtesy he did not show me.

We pray that Almighty Allah grants our leaders — and, I might add, our interviewers — wisdom, sincerity and courage.