The National Assembly has set December 2026 as its deadline to finish the remaining legislative steps toward establishing state police, Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele has said.
Bamidele announced the timeline on Thursday after at least 30 State Houses of Assembly approved the State Police Constitution Alteration Bill, 2026. He said that satisfies the constitutional threshold for amending the 1999 Constitution.
He spoke to participants of Senior Executive Course 48 at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru, Plateau State.
“State police have moved from rhetoric to reality,” said Bamidele, who is also Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution. He noted that attempts to create state police had failed for more than 15 years.
The bill still needs action in the National Assembly before it goes to President Bola Tinubu for assent. Lawmakers will collate the reports from the state legislatures and pass a resolution by simple majority in both chambers. “We intend to conclude all these legislative stages on or before December 2026,” Bamidele said.
He said the new system would let states build policing arrangements suited to local terrain, languages and security concerns. He insisted it would not create state armies or weaken the Federal Government. According to him, it would operate with constitutional safeguards, operational standards, oversight mechanisms and human rights protections.
Bamidele also questioned how legislative performance is judged, saying the number of laws passed does not guarantee better governance. He cited laws passed by the 10th National Assembly, including the Minimum Wage (Amendment) Act, 2024, the Tax Reform Acts of 2025 and the Electoral Act, 2026. “Good laws alone do not guarantee good governance,” he said, adding that implementation, funding and monitoring are what matter.
He called for closer collaboration between NIPSS and the National Assembly to support evidence-based lawmaking.
Senators Diket Plang and Pam Dachungyang, NIPSS Director-General Professor Ayo Omotayo and Adekunle Alonge, a former president of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, attended the lecture.