The Senate has given six state Houses of Assembly yet to approve the proposed establishment of state police until November 15 to communicate their positions, warning that failure to meet the deadline will be regarded as withholding approval.
The decision followed a briefing by the Senate Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, during Wednesday’s plenary, where he disclosed that 30 out of Nigeria’s 36 state assemblies had approved the proposed constitutional amendment.
Although the number of approvals has exceeded the constitutionally required two-thirds majority of 24 states, Senate President Godswill Akpabio urged lawmakers to allow the remaining six assemblies more time to complete the process.
Akpabio proposed November 15 as the final deadline, stressing that any state assembly that failed to respond by then would be deemed to have withheld its approval. The Senate unanimously adopted the proposal.
Earlier, Bamidele listed the 30 states that had approved the bill as Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
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The Senate Leader explained that the constitutional amendment process required the passage of the bill by the National Assembly, approval by at least two-thirds of the 36 state assemblies and presidential assent before it could become law.
He said the National Assembly had completed its part of the process, while the required number of state assemblies had also approved the proposal.
The proposed amendment seeks to alter the 1999 Constitution to allow state governments to establish and manage their own police services, in a major reform aimed at decentralising Nigeria’s policing system.
Supporters of state police argue that the arrangement would enable security agencies to respond more effectively to local threats and address persistent insecurity across the country.
With 30 state assemblies already approving the proposal, the Senate’s extension is intended to give the remaining six states an opportunity to communicate their decisions before the constitutional amendment proceeds to the next stage.