Nigeria’s parliament has sent a constitutional amendment bill that would establish state \u200bpolice forces to the country’s 36 state assemblies \u200cfor ratification, advancing a key security overhaul by President Bola Tinubu as he faces mounting pressure over worsening \u200binsecurity ahead of\u00a0January elections.<\/p>\n
National Assembly clerk Kamoru Ogunlana \u200bsaid the Constitution (Sixth Alteration) Bill, 2026, which \u2060contains provisions for\u00a0state police, has been cleared by \u200bfederal lawmakers and sent to Nigeria’s 36 state assemblies \u200bfor consideration.<\/p>\n
Ogunlana said the National Assembly had asked states to return their resolutions within 30 days, but added that \u200bthe timeframe was administrative and not constitutionally binding.<\/p>\n
The \u200bbill must be approved by at least two-thirds of state assemblies, \u200cor \u206024 of the 36 states, before it can become law.<\/p>\n
Supporters say state police would improve responses to local security threats by decentralising policing powers from \u200bthe federal \u200bgovernment.<\/p>\n
Other constitutional \u2060amendment proposals still awaiting final approval include local government autonomy, independent candidacy, reserved \u200blegislative seats for women and citizenship \u200bby investment.<\/p>\n
If \u2060ratified by the required number of state assemblies, it would be one of the most sweeping changes \u2060to \u200bNigeria’s security and governance framework \u200bsince the country returned to civilian rule in 1999.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria’s parliament has sent a constitutional amendment bill that would establish state \u200bpolice forces to the country’s 36 state assemblies \u200cfor ratification, advancing a key security overhaul by President Bola Tinubu as he faces mounting pressure over worsening \u200binsecurity ahead of\u00a0January elections. National Assembly clerk Kamoru Ogunlana \u200bsaid the Constitution (Sixth Alteration) Bill, 2026, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,1129,27],"tags":[196,5469,175],"class_list":["post-22034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-bola-tinubu","tag-kamoru-ogunlana","tag-nigeria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22035,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22034\/revisions\/22035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}