Between Police and Developmental State
issa aremu
Last Thursday (9th July 2026) Arise TV hosted a Dialogue on building national consensus for state police and national security. Commendably timely. It undoubtedly promoted the much needed literacy about the imperatives of state/community/decentralized policing as distinct from the current assumed centralized National Police Force (NPF). At times like this, Arise Dialogue offered a worthy platform for reaffirmations and even some rethinking of positions by key state actors. Almost all panelists are state governors and legislators. The conclusions of the Dialogue would enrich the rapidly advancing process audaciously initiated by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. On June 24, 2026, he transmitted the historic executive bill aimed at moving policing to the Concurrent Legislative List and establishing a dual federal-state policing structure via the proposed State Police Bill (Constitution Alteration Bill). Critical takeaways from Arise platform include Safeguards Against Political Abuse, Technological Integration through smart security infrastructure and imperatives of Local Government Autonomy and Funding.
The Platform further reopens the healthy debate about how to improve on our approaches to inevitable reforms. The Dialogue reveals that gradual, inclusive and consensual dispositions to reforms could benefit from the inputs by all stakeholders resulting in their collective ownership and support. The on-going police security sector reform just as the just concluded tax reform rightly departs from the shock therapy approach that heralded Fuel Subsidy Removal and the Foreign Exchange Unification.
