President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has called for urgent constitutional reforms to overhaul Nigeria’s national security architecture, stating that the current framework is insufficient to address the country’s complex security challenges.
The President made this remark yesterday during a one-day legislative dialogue on the constitutional review of national security architecture, organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Constitution Review, in collaboration with the Office of the National Security Adviser
Tinubu argued for moving policing from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List, enabling states to assume greater responsibility for local security while maintaining national oversight.
Represented by the Minister of Defence, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, he emphasised the need to align Nigeria’s security framework with present-day realities, cautioning that neither full centralisation nor outright fragmentation can adequately guarantee national safety.
“The debate over state police is no longer theoretical,” the President said. “It is grounded in the daily fears and lived anxieties of Nigerians: farmers afraid to tend their fields, traders unsure of safe passage, and communities abandoned to self-help.
“This dialogue must courageously interrogate the constitutional shifts required to move policing from the Exclusive List to the Concurrent List, enabling states with capacity to assume greater responsibility for their own security while preserving national cohesion. We must learn from global best practices, adapting decentralised policing models that enhance local accountability without sacrificing national oversight,” he added.
