The Presidential Working Group has announced that the National Policing Bill will be transmitted to the National Assembly within two weeks.
Femi Gbajabiamila, Chairman of the Working Group and Chief of Staff to the President, disclosed this to journalists on Thursday following a steering committee meeting held at the State House in Abuja.
“The National Policing Bill is more or less ready for transmission to the National Assembly. We will probably have one more meeting after this to cross the t’s and dot the i’s and make sure every area is covered. So, we are 90% ready,” he was quoted as saying in a statement from the presidency.
“The governors have one or two observations, and we should be ready in about a week or so.”
In a statement issued by Bayo Onanuga, the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Gbajabiamila described the legislation as “the most momentous Bill of the administration so far.”
He noted that the working group’s steering committee has conducted intensive sessions in recent weeks since initiating discussions on August 3.
Addressing potential delays by states in enacting the Sixth Constitution Alteration Bill (State Police), Gbajabiamila affirmed a broad “national consensus” among Nigerians concerning the urgency of the reforms, noting that approximately only six out of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory have currently passed the amendment.
Backstory…
The proposal gained fresh momentum in June 2026 when the National Assembly advanced a constitutional amendment to allow states to establish their own police services alongside the federal police.
President Bola Tinubu subsequently transmitted an executive-sponsored version of the amendment to the House of Representatives in July, while the Senate and House moved forward with the proposal.
However, the constitutional change still requires approval from at least 24 of the 36 state Houses of Assembly before it can proceed towards presidential assent.
Recognising that a constitutional amendment alone would not explain how state police would operate, Tinubu inaugurated a Presidential Working Group on the National Policing Bill in July, with his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, as chairman.
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