Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has renewed his call for state policing, citing the state’s experience with community-based security initiatives as evidence that policing can be more effective when security structures are closer to the people.
Sanwo-Olu said Lagos’ nearly two decades of experience with the Lagos State Security Trust Fund and the Neighbourhood Safety Corps offered practical lessons for the proposed devolution of policing powers ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The governor spoke on Thursday while delivering the seventh annual lecture of Freedom Online at the Sheraton Lagos Hotel, Ikeja. The lecture had the theme, “2027 Elections: Economy, Security and Nigeria’s Future.”
According to Sanwo-Olu, the central lesson from Lagos was that communities needed a direct relationship with the institutions responsible for keeping them safe.
“Lagos has been running a version of it for almost 20 years,” he said, referring to state policing.
He recalled that the Lagos State Security Trust Fund, established in 2007, had provided a platform through which the private sector and the state contributed to equipping the police and other security agencies operating in Lagos.
He also cited the Neighbourhood Safety Corps, which, he said, deployed personnel within the communities they served.
“The lesson of two decades is not complicated. Security works best when the people who pay for it and the people who depend on it can see, and hold to account, the people who provide it.
“That is the whole argument for state policing in a single sentence,” he added.
Sanwo-Olu said the debate over state policing should go beyond political theory, arguing that Lagos’ experience demonstrated the importance of bringing security closer to communities.
He said the effectiveness of security depended partly on residents’ ability to identify with, monitor and hold accountable those responsible for security within their communities.
The governor linked the proposal to the broader question of devolution of powers in Nigeria, noting that President Bola Tinubu, who previously governed Lagos, had also supported greater powers for sub-national governments.
“The President understands this because he governed this State,” Sanwo-Olu said.
He linked Tinubu’s position on decentralising power to the grassroots with his support for local government financial autonomy, which the Supreme Court affirmed in July 2024.
However, Sanwo-Olu acknowledged that establishing state police would require constitutional amendments and the cooperation of the National Assembly and state Houses of Assembly.
“State policing will require amendments to the Constitution, which means the National Assembly and our state Houses of Assembly,” he said.
“Whoever sits in the next Assembly, I hope they will finish the job.”
The governor’s call comes as preparations for the 2027 general elections gather pace, with security expected to be a major consideration in determining candidates’ ability to campaign and voters’ ability to participate in areas affected by insecurity.
Sanwo-Olu warned that insecurity could disrupt the electoral process by restricting political campaigns, complicating the movement of electoral personnel and materials, and discouraging voters from turning out.
“In the communities where banditry and insurgency persist, insecurity touches everything: whether candidates can campaign, whether INEC can move its materials and its people safely, whether voters will come out at all,” he said.
He urged the Independent National Electoral Commission and security agencies to begin planning for security challenges that could arise during the elections rather than waiting until close to the polls.
“INEC’s own leadership has spoken openly about the threats to this election, and the commission and the security agencies must plan for them now, not in December,” Sanwo-Olu said.
The governor also argued that security was not only about deploying armed personnel but about creating systems in which security agencies were sufficiently connected to the communities they were expected to protect.
He said Lagos’ experience with the Security Trust Fund and the Neighbourhood Safety Corps demonstrated how state and community structures could complement conventional policing.
Sanwo-Olu described state police as one of the most consequential institutional reforms Nigeria could undertake if properly structured and subjected to effective accountability.
He urged lawmakers who would emerge from the 2027 elections to complete the constitutional process required to establish state policing.
“Whoever sits in the next Assembly, I hope they will finish the job,” he said.