By Segun Dipe

For the umpteenth time, we state unequivocally that there’s the need for the establishment of a State Police to keep security close to the people.

Not in theory. Not on paper. But in the village at midnight, on the road at dusk, in the market when trouble breaks out. That is where security is tested. And that is where our current model keeps failing us.

For too long we have tried to police a nation of over 220 million people from one centre. The men and women of the Nigeria Police Force have given their all, but one force cannot be everywhere at once. The officer battling oil theft in the Niger Delta cannot also be responding to banditry in Zamfara, cult clashes in Rivers, and kidnapping on a road in Ekiti. Distance delays response. And in matters of security, delay costs lives.

This is why the initiative by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to birth State Police is timely and necessary. It is not about duplicating the federal police. It is about decentralizing safety so that help does not have to travel 400 kilometers before it arrives.

State Police puts security where it belongs: in the hands of people who know the terrain. Recruits from the community, who speak the language, who know the footpaths and the flashpoints. When the man in uniform is your neighbor’s son, trust returns. When intelligence is local, criminals lose the shadows they hide in. Response becomes faster because the distance between threat and help has been closed.

Beyond speed, State Police is about true federalism. No serious federation runs policing from only one desk in the capital. America has state troopers. India has state police. Canada has provincial forces. Nigeria must grow in the same direction. Governors must have the tools to protect farms, schools, markets, and highways within their states, within clear constitutional and legal guardrails.

It is also about opportunity. Security is jobs. Recruiting, training, and equipping State Police will engage thousands of young Nigerians. It will put resources to work in the states. And it will free the Federal Police to concentrate on what only they can do — terrorism, inter-state crime, and the protection of national assets.

We know the fears. People ask: what if a governor misuses it? That is precisely why President Tinubu’s proposal is being built with safeguards. Independent State Police Service Commissions. Oversight by state legislatures. Clear separation of duties. Joint operation protocols with federal agencies. We are not asking for a blank cheque. We are asking for a system with accountability at every level.

And so the conversation has shifted. The killings, the kidnappings, the abandoned farms, the fear on our roads have answered the first question for us.

It is no longer _if_ Nigeria needs State Police. The question now is _when_. When do we pass the laws? When do we begin recruitment? When do our communities start seeing officers who understand them, patrolling their streets?

President Tinubu has set the process in motion. Consultations are ongoing. The political will is there. What remains is for us as a nation to finish what we have started.

State Police is not a threat to our unity. It is the foundation of it. A country where every community feels safe is a country where every community can grow, farm, trade, and send children to school without fear.

To be or not to be is settled. State Police must be.
Not someday in the future. Soon. For our mothers, for our children, and for the peace that Nigeria deserves.

_Segun Dipe writes as a Public Affairs analyst_