Seventy-nine percent of Nigerians consider kidnapping a serious national problem. One in three personally knows someone kidnapped in the last five years. Nearly two-thirds say they or a family member felt unsafe at home in the past year.

These numbers come from a recent Afrobarometer survey, and they explain why the Tinubu administration's renewed push for state police has gained so much traction. For millions of Nigerians, the current security architecture simply isn't working.

But in a new analysis published Thursday, journalist Obiageli Ezekwesili argues that state police is the wrong fix. The real problem, she says, is the 1999 Constitution itself.

Ezekwesili points out that Nigeria's constitution gives the federal government control over 68 items on the Exclusive Legislative List. Police is just one of them. The same list centralises authority over prisons, mines, railways, and arms and ammunition.

"The danger confronting Nigeria today is that the country may once again mistake a symptom for the disease itself," she writes.

Her argument is that Nigeria's security crisis isn't fundamentally a policing problem. It's a governance and constitutional crisis. The country operates as a highly centralised state wearing federal clothing — a legacy of decades of military rule that the 1999 Constitution largely preserved.

Ezekwesili says removing policing from the Exclusive List without addressing the wider constitutional architecture would be like treating a fever without diagnosing the infection. The Exclusive List, she argues, is where the disease resides.

The same over-centralisation that weakens security also hurts the economy and public service delivery, she notes. The constitutional structure that concentrates excessive authority, fiscal resources, and political power at the centre has steadily eroded state capacity and accountability.

This isn't a new observation. Scholars of Nigerian federalism have long documented how military governments progressively transferred functions from regions to the centre. The 1999 Constitution, drafted by the military, locked that structure in place.

Ezekwesili isn't arguing against state police. She says policing should indeed be decentralised. But she insists that doing it in isolation — without reforming the broader constitutional framework — won't solve the deeper crisis.

"The central question before Nigeria should not be whether governors ought to control police forces," she writes. "The more important question is whether the constitutional architecture governing the Nigerian federation remains fit for purpose."

Her piece lands at a moment when the state police debate has become one of the most consequential public-policy conversations in Nigeria's democratic history. The proposal has support across many political quarters, but Ezekwesili's analysis suggests the country needs to think bigger.

  • 79% of Nigerians consider kidnapping a serious national problem (Afrobarometer)
  • 33% personally know someone kidnapped in the last five years
  • 63% felt unsafe at home in the past year
  • The Exclusive Legislative List contains 68 items reserved for the federal government
  • Police is one of those 68 items
  • The 1999 Constitution preserved military-era command structures