By Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, Esq
The debate over the establishment of State Police has persisted for years and has assumed renewed significance as Nigeria inches towards a more decentralised policing architecture.
Read also: Akume Calls for Renewed Commitment to Nigerian Project as FG Marks 66th Independence Anniversary
The argument for State Police is compelling: policing is, by its very nature, more effective when those charged with maintaining security understand the communities, people, terrain and peculiar security challenges within which they operate.
But there is another side to this debate which deserves far greater attention. The greatest danger may not necessarily come from the Governors themselves. It may come from those who operate in the shadows of government, political power brokers, financiers, associates and influential individuals who consider themselves sufficiently close to the Government to be beyond scrutiny, accountability or restraint.
And therein lies the real cause for concern. The uncomfortable question is not merely: Can a Governor abuse State Police? The more disturbing question is: What happens when persons who wield enormous influence over a State Government acquire informal access to, or influence over, a security structure established with public resources?
That is where the architecture of State Police could become dangerously vulnerable.
Anambra State offers a useful illustration. The State has established the Homeland Security framework under the Anambra State Homeland Security Law 2025, with Agụnechemba and Operation Udo Ga-Achị designed to complement conventional security agencies. The official conception is undoubtedly security-driven and directed towards combating criminality and protecting communities.
But a noble law can produce disturbing consequences when its instruments are diverted from their statutory purpose.
My concern, therefore, is not directed at the legitimate objective of strengthening security. It is about what happens when a publicly funded security apparatus is converted into a private instrument for settling scores, intimidating perceived opponents, pursuing vendettas or accomplishing assignments which the ordinary machinery of law enforcement would not undertake.
A security operative who acts on the instruction of a private individual rather than within the confines of law is no longer merely performing a security function. He becomes an instrument of private power wearing the uniform of public authority.
And that is precisely where the danger lies.
A Governor may be occupied with the enormous responsibilities of governing a State. He may reasonably expect that the security architecture established under his administration will operate within the law and under appropriate supervision. Yet, if influential individuals around government begin to exercise informal command over such structures, the constitutional and legal safeguards surrounding the exercise of coercive power can become dangerously blurred.
Read also: Tinubu, Mandela and Rawlings: How History May Judge a Controversial Political Journey
The public may then be confronted with a peculiar phenomenon: government security without governmental accountability. That would be a frightening contradiction.
Indeed, what could be more absurd than a situation in which a citizen cannot tell whether a security operative is acting pursuant to lawful governmental authority or merely responding to the wishes of an individual who happens to have the right telephone number?
The danger is not theoretical. There have already been public concerns about abuses involving state-backed security structures in Anambra, including allegations of unlawful arrests, brutality and the use of security operatives in circumstances connected with private disputes.
If Nigeria eventually establishes State Police, the safeguards must go beyond merely preventing Governors from deploying the police against political opponents. The law must also anticipate the subtler danger of powerful individuals operating within the orbit of government and attempting to convert public security institutions into private instruments of influence.
And, most importantly, no individual, however wealthy, politically influential or close to government, should possess an unofficial security command. Public security must remain public. A security uniform must never become a badge of private authority. A government vehicle must never become a mobile instrument of personal vendetta.
Otherwise, we may wake up one morning to discover that the State Police we created to bring security closer to the people has merely brought the machinery of coercion closer to the powerful. That would be a tragic irony.
The greatest test of State Police will therefore not be how efficiently it can arrest a criminal. It will be how faithfully it can resist the instruction of a powerful person when that instruction is unlawful.
For if security personnel become more frightened of the influential individual behind them than of the law before them, then we have not decentralised policing, we have merely decentralised impunity.
And that, surely, is not the State Police Nigerians are asking for.
More specifically, I have serious concerns about what may be happening in parts of my own Anambra State, including my home community of Oraifite. I shall, in subsequent editions, examine these concerns more closely and place the issues before the public conscience, not to undermine legitimate security operations, but to insist that every security institution created with public authority and public resources must remain subject to the law. Because ultimately, the real measure of a security institution is not the fear it can inspire, but the confidence it can command.
And any security architecture that protects the powerful while frightening the powerless has already lost the very essence of public security.
Read also: NASS Commission Appoints Edith Ajah Deputy-Clerk, Senate
Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, Esq and KSC Dunu-Ezeugosinachi, is lawyer to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)