President Bola Tinubu on Tuesday launched a presidential working group tasked with drafting the implementing legislation for a newly authorized state policing system, a step aimed at turning a recent constitutional amendment into operational law.
The President, represented at the Presidential Villa by his chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, said the Constitution Alteration (State Police) Bill, 2026, which the National Assembly has passed, establishes a framework for a dual policing structure but does not set out the rules and mechanisms needed to make state police function in practice.
“The Constitution Amendment Bill establishes the framework for dual policing, but it does not operationalize it,” Tinubu said, according to a statement. “That work is left to the National Policing Bill.”
The working group’s mandate is to produce a technically sound, implementation-ready draft of the National Policing Bill, the Chief of Staff said.
The proposed law is expected to set minimum policing standards, certify state readiness, define federal-state coordination, set accountability and human-rights safeguards, and outline fiscal arrangements.
“We must not wait until the constitutional process is concluded before beginning this important assignment,” Tinubu added, reflecting his desire to avoid implementation delays should the amendment be ratified by the states.
Chief of Staff Gbajabiamila will chair the panel, which includes the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, the National Security Adviser (NSA), the Inspector General of Police (IGP), and the NGF committee chair on state police.
A statement by the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the President Bayo Onanuga said, a secretariat will provide administrative support.
Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun, speaking for the Governors’ forum, pledged governors’ backing for swift implementation and urged state assemblies to expedite consideration once the draft reaches them.
He described state police as a response to longstanding public calls for community-based policing and cited regional security outfits such as the South-West’s Amotekun as proof of concept.
“If each state deploys about 6,000 personnel, we will add nearly 200,000 officers to complement the existing federal police,” Abiodun said, outlining the potential scale of the reform.
Attorney-General Lateef Fagbemi described the initiative as timely amid Nigeria’s security challenges and called on governors to prioritize ratification of the constitutional amendment.
The Nigerian Bar Association’s president, Afam Osigwe, voiced support for state policing while warning that the implementing law must include safeguards to prevent abuse.
Also attending were several state attorneys-general and commissioners for justice, senior representatives of the inspector-general’s office and the national security adviser, and other government officials.
