The National Assembly has moved the proposed creation of state police to its next constitutional stage, transmitting the amendment bill to the 36 State Houses of Assembly for consideration and approval. The Clerk to the National Assembly, Kamoru Ogunlana, announced the transmission on Wednesday, 16 September 2026, in a statement he signed.
According to Ogunlana, the bill, formally the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (Sixth Alteration) Bill, 2026, was forwarded to the states in line with Section 9 of the Constitution. He asked the assemblies to consider it according to their own legislative procedures and to report their resolutions to the National Assembly within 30 days, while clarifying that the 30 day period is an administrative request rather than a constitutional deadline.
The arithmetic now facing the states is fixed. Section 9 requires that at least two thirds of the 36 assemblies, meaning 24, approve a constitutional alteration before it can proceed. If 24 or more concur, the bill returns to the National Assembly for final action and onward transmission to President Bola Tinubu for assent. If fewer than 24 approve, the amendment fails at this stage.
There is a point of difference in how the transmission has been described. Some accounts, including an itemised explainer published by Leadership, state that only the State Police Bill was sent to the states, on the ground that it is the sole alteration bill already passed by both chambers. The statement issued by the Clerk and reported across other outlets referred more broadly to the Sixth Alteration Bill, 2026, which is the vehicle carrying the state police proposal. What is not in dispute is that state policing is the substantive matter now before the assemblies.
The wider constitutional review contains many more proposals that have not reached the states. These include financial autonomy for local governments, independent candidacy, an Electoral Offences Commission, special legislative seats for women and various judicial reforms. Those proposals remain at earlier stages in the National Assembly and cannot be sent to the assemblies until they complete passage in both chambers.
The legislative record shows how the state police measure advanced. The bill originated as an executive proposal from President Tinubu received by the Senate on 23 June 2026 and passed for third reading the following day, 24 June. The House of Representatives passed the same executive version on 23 July, setting aside an earlier House draft to align with it.
If ratified, the amendment would replace Nigeria’s single centralised police structure with a two tier system. It provides for a Federal Police Service alongside State Police Services, with each state force responsible for policing within its own borders.
The bill draws clear lines around jurisdiction. A State Police Service would generally not exercise powers outside its state except where authorised by an Act of the National Assembly, while the Federal Police Service would retain responsibility for national security matters such as terrorism, cybercrime, inter state crimes, arms trafficking and international crime syndicates. The Federal Police Service would be headed by an Inspector General appointed by the President on the advice of the National Police Council and confirmed by the Senate.
The proposal also sets out how the centre may intervene in a state force. It empowers the President to take temporary operational control of a State Police Service in defined circumstances, including an actual or imminent breakdown of public order that the state police cannot or will not contain, serious operational incapacity, or evidence of systematic rights violations, partisan intimidation or ethnic, religious or sectional persecution.
Those powers come with procedural conditions. Any intervention must be authorised in writing, stating the grounds, the affected territory and the expected duration, and the affected governor, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, the National Police Council and the National Assembly must be notified within 48 hours.
State police has been debated in Nigeria for years, driven by insecurity that the existing centralised structure has struggled to contain, from banditry in the North West to kidnapping and communal violence across several zones. Supporters, including the Presidency, argue that decentralised policing would bring security closer to communities and improve local response. Critics have warned that state forces could be captured for political ends by governors, a concern the bill’s intervention clauses appear intended to address.
The immediate question is how the states respond. As of the transmission, the presiding officers of the assemblies indicated that they were awaiting formal copies of the bill before beginning their processes, according to the Conference of Speakers. Whether the required 24 states concur, and how quickly, will determine if one of the most consequential security reforms proposed since 1999 advances or stalls.