Governor Bassey Otu, Denis Odama And The Dangers Of State Police, By Bright Okuta

I have been a consistent proponent of state police, a position I have expressed publicly for years. In 2022, I wrote a piece for The Guardian titled “The Necessity of State Police,” arguing that Nigeria’s centralised policing structure had become too distant and too disconnected from the security needs of Nigerians, particularly those in local communities.

I opined that it has become practically impossible to police a country the size of Nigeria from Abuja. Security is local by nature. A police officer with no feel for a community’s geography, its criminal undercurrents and its social fault lines cannot police that community with the same instinct as one embedded in it. Nigeria’s present federal arrangement has failed too many communities for too long, and the country needs a policing architecture that genuinely answers to the people it protects.

But then, I flagged the danger lurking around the argument: that governors could turn state police into a weapon against opposition. That fear is grounded in what we have already watched political power do to federal institutions. The abduction and persecution of Denis Odama by the Cross River State Government has given that fear a recognizable human face. Odama’s case is a perfect example of how political sycophants can use the police as their bodyguards against a citizen who criticises their principal. If desperate political bootlickers can manipulate an institution that is not even under the Governor’s direct command, what happens when the police answer directly to him? What happens when a Governor has real control over the appointment and structure of a State Police Command, with Commissioners who understand that their careers, postings and professional survival may depend on staying in the political establishment’s good graces?

Imagine what that could mean when an activist begins demanding greater accountability in government spending, or when a social commentator like Odama becomes a persistent critic of the Governor. A state government intolerant of criticism could easily read either as a threat. When an election approaches, the same control could weaken opposition parties, intimidate voters in opposition strongholds and tilt the security environment in favour of the incumbent. A police force that should protect the electoral process could instead become the instrument that decides it.

This is where affection for state police curdles into something closer to horror. A Governor allergic to criticism could turn state police into a personal cudgel, the way politicians and their loyalists have already tried with the federal police. That is precisely the danger we must design against, deliberately and in advance.

Those who celebrated Governor Otu’s eventual intervention in the Odama matter should hold the applause. Why was the police deployed against a critic in the first place? If the Governor genuinely knew nothing about it, that should be alarming. It means people around him believed they could unleash the force of the state against a citizen without his knowledge. If they acted in his name, then they have abused his authority and dragged his reputation into an act of brazen impunity. Either way, the first response should have been to fire those responsible. Whether the Governor knew or was kept in the dark changes little about the damage already done to his administration’s credibility.

The National Assembly must build constitutional and legislative guardrails strong enough to restrain state governments from swallowing the institution whole: independent oversight, appointment procedures insulated from political interference, enforceable protections for critics. Who polices the police when the police report to the State House?

State police may be necessary. But without those safeguards, we would not be decentralising security; we would be decentralising the power to intimidate. Denis Odama has already taught us what that looks like, under a federal police force the Governor does not even command. We should not need another Odama to learn the lesson twice.