State Policing and Security Governance in Nigeria: A Critical Examination of the Southwest Experience

The intensifying debate on the establishment of state police in Nigeria reflects deepening concerns about rising insecurity, overstretched federal policing structures, and the limitations of a centralised security governance model. Although the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is constitutionally mandated to provide internal security, its highly centralised architecture has proven inadequate for addressing Nigeria’s increasingly complex and regionally differentiated security challenges. Southwest Nigeria—comprising Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, and Ekiti States—illustrates these limitations vividly, with escalating incidents of kidnapping, cultism, highway robbery, cybercrime, and farmer–herder conflicts prompting renewed calls for decentralised policing. This article critically examines the necessity of state police through a focused case study of Southwest Nigeria, drawing on contemporary scholarship, federalism theory, and qualitative analysis of secondary data. It interrogates the structural constraints of federal policing, including manpower shortages, rigid command hierarchies, weak community engagement, and slow response to localised threats. The emergence of the Western Nigeria Security Network (Amotekun) is analysed as a significant regional innovation that has demonstrated improved intelligence gathering, enhanced response times, and strengthened community trust. Findings reveal that “the current policing architecture is structurally incapable of addressing localised security threats, particularly in diverse regions such as the Southwest,” thereby reinforcing arguments for a regulated transition toward multilevel policing. Nonetheless, concerns persist regarding political interference, human rights violations, funding disparities, and coordination challenges. The article concludes that state police is necessary for effective, responsive, and community centred security governance, but must be implemented with robust accountability frameworks, constitutional safeguards, and clearly defined jurisdictional boundaries.