By Gift ChapiOdekina, Abuja
For decades, Section 214 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution contained one of the most consequential sentences in the country’s federal architecture: that there shall be a police force for Nigeria, and that “no other police force shall be established for the Federation or any part thereof.” That single clause has been the legal wall blocking every attempt at state policing for twenty-five years.
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The Constitution (Sixth Alteration) Bill, 2026, currently before the National Assembly, tears that wall down entirely — and in its place erects a detailed, if still incomplete, jurisdictional framework that attempts to answer the question Nigerian federalism has long avoided: who polices what, and where does one force’s authority stop and another’s begin?
The Two-Force Architecture
