You cannot decentralise insecurity by creating state police forces and then fail to pay, equip or protect the officers expected to confront armed criminals. Kwara State exposes the danger of building a security structure on paper while neglecting the people who must make it work.
Nigeria’s debate over state police has always revolved around one central question: can a country as large and diverse as Nigeria adequately protect its communities through a security system controlled predominantly from Abuja?
But the latest complaints from forest guards in Kwara State raise a more uncomfortable question: what is the point of bringing policing closer to the people if the government responsible for that policing cannot provide the personnel with their basic needs?
According to reports published on October 20, forest guards deployed to vulnerable communities in Kwara have complained of unpaid allowances and inadequate weapons, despite being assigned to dangerous areas where armed criminal groups operate. Some reportedly said they had been deployed since December 2025 without receiving their outstanding allowances. Their accounts have not been independently verified in full, and the state government should be given an opportunity to respond. <Cite refs={["turn848293search0","turn848293search2"]} />
These are not minor administrative complaints. They go to the heart of whether Nigeria understands what effective policing requires.
A government cannot simply recruit men, send them into forests where kidnappers and bandits operate, and declare that it has strengthened security. Recruitment is only the beginning. Policing requires regular pay, intelligence, training, communications, transport, medical support, appropriate equipment and a dependable system of reinforcement.
Without those foundations, a security initiative risks becoming a deployment exercise in which the government announces progress while frontline personnel absorb the danger.
That is precisely the warning Nigeria should take from Kwara.
The ₦180 million question: what are the government's priorities?
The controversy has intensified because of Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq’s reported ₦180 million donation package announced during the centenary celebration of Az-Zumratul Adabiyyah School of Arabic and Islamic Studies in Ilorin on October 11.
Reports say the package comprised ₦50 million for Ansarul Islam Society from AbdulRazaq in his capacity as the Sardauna of Ilorin, another ₦50 million on behalf of his family, ₦50 million from the Kwara State Government to Muhammed Kamaldeen University, and ₦30 million in scholarships for 30 students. The figures therefore include personal and family contributions, not merely state-government expenditure. <Cite refs={["turn848293search0","turn848293search12"]} />
Supporting education, including religious education, is not inherently wrong. Islamic institutions have a place in Nigerian society, just as Christian, traditional and secular institutions do. Nor should a private donation automatically be treated as money that could legally have been spent on government security operations.
The criticism must be more precise than that.
The legitimate question is whether the state government has fulfilled its financial and operational obligations to the forest guards it deployed. If the guards’ allegations are accurate, why have their outstanding allowances and essential equipment not been addressed? What budgetary provisions were made for their deployment? Who is responsible for ensuring they receive what they were promised?
A government’s priorities are revealed not only by the ceremonies it attends or the donations it announces, but also by whether it meets its obligations to public servants and security personnel.
If the state can mobilise resources for various public and private commitments, residents are entitled to demand transparency about the resources committed to protecting their lives.
The point is not that religious education should receive no support. It is that security personnel should not be left exposed while their employer fails to meet basic responsibilities.
This is the weakness in Nigeria’s security model
For years, Nigerians have watched a familiar pattern unfold. When insecurity becomes unbearable, governments announce new initiatives, recruit additional personnel, launch security committees, distribute vehicles or promise tougher operations.
But the existence of a security programme is not proof that it is operationally effective.
A force is only as capable as its personnel, equipment, intelligence and command structure. A forest guard who has not been paid, lacks adequate weapons or cannot communicate reliably with reinforcements is not simply an underpaid employee. That person may be the weakest link in the security system protecting an entire community.
Forest guards have a particular role. They can provide local knowledge, identify unfamiliar movements, monitor forest corridors and help conventional security agencies respond to threats in difficult terrain. Their familiarity with surrounding communities can be an intelligence advantage that a distant command structure may struggle to reproduce.
But local knowledge cannot stop bullets. Courage cannot replace training. Patriotism cannot purchase food or fuel.
And a government cannot reasonably expect personnel to remain indefinitely in dangerous locations while depending on residents—who may themselves be impoverished or displaced—to help feed them.
Earlier reports in August 2026 also described forest guards in Kwara and Enugu abandoning or threatening to leave some posts over unpaid salaries, inadequate feeding and insufficient weapons. Those accounts suggest that the latest complaints may reflect a continuing problem rather than an isolated administrative delay. <Cite refs={["turn848293search5","turn848293search9"]} />
If these allegations are established, the consequences extend beyond the guards themselves. Poorly supported personnel may withdraw from vulnerable locations, intelligence networks may weaken, and communities may lose the protection they were promised.
The government must therefore investigate the complaints urgently and publish a clear account of what is owed, what has been paid and what support is available to deployed personnel.
State police will not magically fix Nigeria’s insecurity
This is where Kwara’s experience becomes especially relevant to the national debate over state police.
Supporters of state policing argue that security is more effective when decision-making is closer to the communities being protected. A state government has a better opportunity to understand local geography, community relationships, emerging threats and the specific security challenges facing its rural areas.
In principle, a properly structured state police service could improve response times, local intelligence gathering and accountability. It could reduce the distance between a community experiencing a threat and the authority responsible for responding.
But decentralisation is not a substitute for competent government.
If a state cannot reliably pay and equip its existing forest guards, what guarantees that it will properly fund a much larger police service?
That is not an argument against state police. It is an argument for taking state police seriously enough to insist on the financial and institutional foundations required to make it work.
The proposed constitutional reforms would establish state police services alongside a federal police structure. The process remains unfinished: as of October 21, 2026, the Federal Government’s Presidential Working Group had submitted the draft National Policing Bill and related amendment bills for legislative drafting review, while the constitutional amendment process was still ongoing. <Cite refs={["turn134785search2","turn134785search8"]} />
Nigeria is therefore approaching a potentially historic change in policing. It should not make that transition without confronting the lessons already visible in the performance of state-supported security initiatives.
The danger of creating police forces that exist on paper
A state police service would require far more than a recruitment exercise and a new uniform.
It would need a dependable funding arrangement, transparent recruitment, professional training, appropriate equipment, operational standards, independent complaints procedures and a clear chain of command.
It would also require the capacity to sustain these commitments during periods of declining revenue or political transition.
Without reliable funding, a state police force could become vulnerable to salary arrears, inadequate logistics and dependence on informal arrangements. Personnel might be sent into dangerous operations without adequate support, while commanders struggle to obtain the resources needed to carry out their responsibilities.
That would be particularly damaging in rural areas where police officers may have to cover large territories, travel along poor roads and respond to threats in isolated settlements.
A force that lacks reliable transport, communication systems, intelligence and reinforcement can be outmanoeuvred by armed groups that understand the terrain and choose when and where to strike.
This is why the debate must move beyond whether governors should control police services. It must address what states will be legally required to provide and how citizens can hold them accountable when they fail.
Governors must not turn state police into personal security forces
There is another important concern. State police could bring policing closer to communities, but they could also concentrate enormous coercive power in the hands of state governors.
Nigeria’s political history makes the concern legitimate. A governor who controls recruitment, appointments, promotions, deployment and discipline without effective oversight could be tempted to use the force against political opponents, protesters, journalists or rival communities.
The answer is not to preserve an inefficient centralised system forever. It is to design safeguards before the new structure becomes operational.
National minimum standards should govern training, firearms, professional conduct, use of force, records and complaints. State police personnel should be subject to independent investigations and judicial oversight. Their operational funding should be transparent, and their budgets should be scrutinised by state legislatures and public auditors.
There must also be enforceable protection against partisan, ethnic, religious or personal deployment.
The proposed reform has already attracted attention to safeguards and oversight mechanisms. But legal language is not enough. The effectiveness of those safeguards will depend on whether institutions have the authority, independence and resources to enforce them. <Cite refs={["turn134785search0","turn134785search7"]} />
Kwara offers a reminder that accountability must work in both directions: the public must be protected from abuses by security personnel, and security personnel must be protected from neglect by the authorities employing them.
The real test is whether governments can sustain the force they create
A credible state police service would require a publicly defensible financial plan.
That means calculating the actual cost of recruitment, training, salaries, pensions, vehicles, communications, facilities, ammunition, medical care, insurance, intelligence and emergency deployments. It means establishing how these costs will be financed in years when revenue falls short of expectations.
It also means publishing regular reports on staffing levels, operational spending, response times, complaints, disciplinary action and security outcomes.
The federal government should establish minimum standards, while state governments should remain accountable for meeting their financial and operational commitments. Independent audits must test whether funds allocated to security reach the personnel and communities for whom they were intended.
If a government recruits officers it cannot sustain, it should not be allowed to disguise the resulting failure with another launch ceremony or publicity campaign.
A police force is not measured by the number of officers announced at a passing-out parade. It is measured by whether officers can respond when a citizen calls for help.
Kwara should be a warning, not a reason to abandon reform
There is a temptation to use every failure of state-supported security initiatives as an argument against state police. That would be a mistake.
The problems reported in Kwara do not prove that decentralised policing cannot work. They demonstrate that local security structures can fail when the state does not adequately support them.
Indeed, local forest guards illustrate why local security capacity matters. They operate in environments where community knowledge and familiarity with the terrain can be valuable. The problem is not necessarily that they are local. The problem is whether the government has provided the conditions needed for them to work effectively.
Nigeria should learn from that distinction.
State police should be designed to correct the weaknesses of the current arrangement, not reproduce them under 36 different state governments. It should create a more responsive and accountable system, not merely transfer authority from Abuja to governors.
For Kwara, the immediate task is clear: establish the facts behind the guards’ allegations, settle verified outstanding payments, provide appropriate equipment and ensure that deployed personnel have reliable logistical and medical support. The government should also explain how it will prevent the same problem from recurring.
These are not extravagant demands. They are the minimum obligations of an employer deploying people into dangerous work on behalf of the public.
Conclusion: Nigeria needs state police, not state-sponsored neglect
Nigeria’s security crisis demands a system capable of responding to threats where they occur. A single national police structure cannot be expected to understand every village, forest corridor and local security dynamic with equal effectiveness.
That is why state police deserves serious consideration.
But decentralisation must come with responsibility. Governors who demand greater authority over policing must also accept greater scrutiny over budgets, recruitment, operational decisions and the welfare of officers.
The experience reported in Kwara is a test of that responsibility. If forest guards have genuinely been deployed without their promised allowances and adequate weapons, the state must correct the failure and explain how it happened.
No government should send personnel into danger and then treat their welfare as an afterthought.
The kind of state police Nigeria needs is not a force that merely answers to a governor. It is a professionally trained, adequately funded, locally informed and publicly accountable institution that answers to the law and exists to protect citizens.
Anything less risks decentralising the problems Nigerians already face—unpaid personnel, inadequate equipment, political interference and weak accountability.
Nigeria does not need 36 new police forces that look impressive in official photographs but struggle to protect the communities assigned to them. It needs 36 state governments prepared to demonstrate, through their budgets and their conduct, that public safety is a responsibility rather than a slogan.
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