Ex-NDLEA Boss Kwajafa Blasts State Police Plan, Calls it a ‘Recipe for Disaster’

As the Federal Government moves closer to greenlighting state police, a heavy voice from Nigeria’s security past has issued a chilling warning. Fulgere Kwajafa, a former Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and a retired high-ranking police officer, has labeled the entire plan a “disaster waiting to happen,” cautioning that Nigeria is not yet ready for such a radical shift in power.

Speaking on Saturday, the veteran security expert who is famously credited as a pioneer of the original SARS unit argued that the current political climate is too toxic for decentralized policing. According to Kwajafa, state governors are “not mature enough” to resist the temptation of turning state police into a tool for political vendettas. “The moment you give a governor his own police force, you have essentially handed him a private army to hunt down his opponents,” he remarked.

The “State of Harmony” that the Tinubu administration hopes to achieve through state policing is, in Kwajafa’s view, an expensive illusion. He highlighted the “crippling poverty” of many states, noting that governors who cannot pay the minimum wage are in no position to buy armored vehicles or fund the complex intelligence networks required to fight modern banditry.

“Who will police the police?” Kwajafa asked. “At the federal level, we have at least some oversight. But in the states, the Commissioner of Police would become a mere errand boy for the Governor. We are setting the stage for a fragmented security system where every state has its own rules, its own biases, and its own versions of human rights.”

While President Tinubu and many governors argue that state police is the only answer to the country’s localized kidnapping crisis, Kwajafa’s intervention has added fresh fuel to the national debate. He maintains that the real solution is not to create “36 little armies,” but to properly fund and modernize the existing federal police, ensuring they have the equipment and the backbone to resist political pressure.