The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Ondo State, Kayode Ajulo SAN, has declared that the country needs state police to effectively tackle the country’s mounting security challenges.
According to reports that President Bola Tinubu recently called on the National Assembly to review existing laws to allow states to establish their own police forces as part of efforts to combat rising insecurity nationwide.
Tinubu, who declared a nationwide security emergency, said: “I call on the National Assembly to begin reviewing our laws to allow states that require state police to establish them.”
Ajulo, in a statement he personally issued on Thursday, said the current centralised policing system is no longer effective in addressing the diverse criminal activities across the federation.
He noted that Nigeria’s security challenges differ across regions—herder–farmer conflicts in the North, cultism in the South, kidnapping in the Middle Belt, and oil theft in the Niger Delta.
He said, “A centralised police force could not effectively tailor solutions to all, but the state police can.”
The state attorney-general added, “President Tinubu’s ‘innocuous insertion’ inviting National Assembly review of state police laws is no artifice; it’s an overdue gauntlet thrown to lawmakers to codify Amotekun’s virtues nationwide. It is pragmatic. It is constitutional, and it is a call to respond to a nation in distress.”
Calling on stakeholders to support the creation of state police, Ajulo cited the South West Security Network Agency, also known as Amotekun, as a successful example of decentralised policing. He said the system has drastically reduced criminal activities, particularly kidnapping, in the region.
Ajulo commended the governors of the South-West for creating the regional security outfit and urged the National Assembly to legislate proactively on state police, describing it as the most effective way to address the nation’s security problems.
He specifically lauded Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa for approving the recruitment of 500 men into the state Amotekun corps and inaugurating Amotekun’s Control Command Centre, which features drones, surveillance systems, intelligent mapping, and real-time citizen security reporting demonstrating both scalability and modernisation.
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