By Precious Mark
Nigerian Governors have insisted that the successful implementation of state policing hinges entirely on a comprehensive overhaul of the national revenue allocation formula and the creation of legally protected funding streams.
The leaders made these known on Thursday at the Arise News town hall event on State Policing in Abuja.
Speaking,Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, set the tone for the fiscal debate by pointing out that moving policing from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List would place an unsustainable financial burden on sub-national governments under the current revenue-sharing structure.
“State policing should not be viewed in isolation. It must be understood within the context of the unfinished business of building a sustainable federal security and justice system.”
“However, one critical point missing from this entire conversation is the increasing devolution of functions from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent List, without corresponding and drastic revisions to the revenue allocation formula. The Federal Government still retains 53% of federation revenue, while states get 26%,” Soludo argued.
Supporting this position, the Senate Majority Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, warned that without a solid financial bedrock, the entire decentralization drive could collapse.
“If the state police is not well funded, it may as well be a highway to nowhere.”
“All we are trying to achieve with this constitutional amendment is to move this duty from the Exclusive Legislative List to the Concurrent Legislative List,” the lawmaker explained.
Offering a structural solution to the funding challenge, Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, advocated for absolute financial independence for local forces, suggesting that state police budgets must bypass executive control.
“The importance of funding the state police system effectively cannot be overemphasized. And having a State Police Service Commission that has a first-line charge on the Consolidated Revenue Fund is in order. Many other institutions in the states, such as the judiciary and the legislature, have a first-line charge,” Mbah stated.
“The key thing is providing enough funding to be able to sustain the state policing system. Therefore, when you talk about funding, you can see that the states are already carrying quite a huge burden because they are investing in technology,” the Governor added.
On his part, Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, however, raised concerns about the economic disparities among states, noting that a uniform approach might not work given the unequal capacity of states to generate internal cash.
“I believe that issues of revenue and fiscal mobilization have to be addressed; how do we fund the state police? We heard different contributions and suggestions that it must be funded by a mixture of IGR funding and FAAC funding to various states.”
“But we all know that different states have different capabilities to generate IGR, so these issues have to be addressed so that we can ensure that every state adequately provides for their state police,” Abiodun said.
Similarly, a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Nnena Elendu-Ukeje, also questioned the sheer scale of wealth required to run modern security systems, referencing recent massive independent interventions by northern executives.
“We’re looking at funding. The national police has had a problem with funding, and with the states, everyone is talking about the funding gaps. I read that the northern governors have come up with a 1 billion naira monthly intervention for security.”
“So, how much money do the states have to build the kind of security systems needed to deal with the security challenges we have? Do we have a strong state financial base?” the former lawmaker queried.