Nigeria’s perennial security crisis, dramatically underscored by recent high-profile incidents like mass kidnappings and brazen attacks on soft targets, has brought the urgency and the failure of police reform efforts back into sharp focus. While the government and the National Assembly (NASS) have made significant legislative strides, passing landmark bills designed to modernize the force, the reality on the ground shows a stark disconnect between policy pronouncements and practical enforcement, leading to a profound crisis of public confidence in law enforcement.
The recent legislative changes, including the passage of the Police Institutes Establishment Bill and the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (Amendment) Bill, were hailed as historic milestones. These laws aim to address the systemic weaknesses that have plagued the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) for decades: poor training, inadequate funding, obsolete equipment, and poor welfare. The Police Institutes Act seeks to consolidate and align training curricula with global standards, emphasizing community policing, investigation, and the use of modern technology. Meanwhile, the amendment to the Police Trust Fund Act is designed to ensure consistent, transparent, and sustainable funding for police operations and welfare, moving away from erratic budget allocations.
However, the enforcement of these commendable legislative frameworks remains lethargic in the face of escalating threats. High-profile security incidents, such as the abduction of hundreds of citizens with little or no resistance from security agencies in rural areas, highlight several deep-seated issues that legislative reforms alone cannot instantly solve. Firstly, there is a fundamental resource gap. While the government aims to recruit more officers, the ratio of police to citizens remains dangerously low, particularly in sprawling, remote regions. Secondly, the issue of corruption and inefficiency persists. Reports indicate that police are often non-responsive to distress calls in vulnerable communities, and the payment of ransoms (an illegal act) has become the de facto mode of conflict resolution, suggesting an operational breakdown.
Crucially, the NPF’s operational philosophy remains largely focused on “regime security” protecting political elites and critical infrastructure in urban centres—rather than citizen security in vulnerable rural and semi-urban areas. The recent executive directive to recall police officers from VIP duties is a direct, albeit challenging, attempt to address this imbalance. Successful enforcement requires not just the physical redeployment of officers but a radical shift in institutional culture, a focus on accountability, ethical conduct, and genuine community engagement.
The concept of community-based policing, which has seen pilot initiatives in states like Enugu, represents a necessary structural departure from the centralized command structure. For these reforms to take hold, experts recommend a crucial set of institutional changes that the NPF must enforce, including: decentralized authority to regional commanders, robust performance evaluation systems, and effective strategies to overcome internal officer resistance to change. Most importantly, legislative reforms on funding and training must be met with an uncompromising political will to appoint merit-based leadership and enforce accountability across all ranks. The current cycle of violence continues to demonstrate that until the NPF can effectively enforce the very reforms designed to make it effective and accountable, the crisis of public confidence will only deepen, forcing citizens to rely increasingly on private security or informal vigilante groups. The true test of the new legislation is not its passage, but its visible, life-saving enforcement.