Data reinforces the urgency. Different surveys show that the Nigeria Police Force ranks among the least trusted institutions in the country. Trust is a currency without which policing cannot function. The officer-to-citizen ratio in Nigeria is far below the United Nations recommendation, and even the officers available are overstretched by deployments that ignore community ties and local expertise. Average police response times in rural areas are devastatingly slow. Communities, feeling abandoned, increasingly rely on self-help security arrangements. The consequences are predictable: rising vigilantism, proliferation of arms, and a widening gap between citizens and state institutions.
To complement redeployment and indigenous policing, it is imperative to provide proper incentives for Nigerian police officers. Many of the systemic problems associated with corruption, extortion, and misconduct are linked to inadequate remuneration, poor welfare, lack of career progression, and unsafe working conditions.
Officers who are motivated, fairly compensated, and recognised for their service are far less likely to engage in criminal behaviour. Investing in salaries, housing, medical care, pensions, and career development is not a luxury; it is a critical strategy to align officers’ personal interests with public safety. Proper incentives create a culture of professionalism, loyalty, and commitment to community protection, reinforcing the goals of indigenous policing.
Community policing rooted in indigenous participation offers a pathway out of this crisis by rebuilding the legitimacy of the police. When officers are members of the community, intelligence flows freely. People report crimes without fear. Officers pursue criminals with deeper commitment because the victims are not strangers. Crime prevention becomes communal, not confrontational. Trust grows slowly, but it grows surely. And trust, once rebuilt, becomes a force multiplier stronger than any weapon or patrol vehicle.
Operationalising indigenous community policing requires more than recruitment. It demands a phased, strategic, and well-funded plan. The first step is a personnel audit to determine current deployment patterns, skills, and cultural alignments. Recruitment must be transparent, competitive, and merit-based, ensuring that indignity does not replace competence but enhances it.
Training must be modern, emphasising psychology, conflict resolution, intelligence gathering, ethics, technology use, and human rights. Officers should rotate within local governments rather than across states, preventing over-familiarity that may lead to local capture while preserving cultural continuity. Senior officers from outside the state can remain in supervisory or neutral oversight roles to balance interests and reduce risks of ethnic bias.
Funding is critical. Community policing should be financed through a hybrid model involving federal allocations, state contributions, and grants from development partners who have long supported security-sector reforms.
The cost implications include training, recruitment, community liaison units, technology deployment, monitoring systems, and continuous capacity-building. While the costs may be substantial, the cost of insecurity, including lost investments, destroyed livelihoods, displaced populations, and stunted development, is far greater.
Legal reforms are also essential. The Police Act may require amendments to define community policing structures, indigenous deployment requirements, oversight councils, and channels for grievance redress.
Each state should establish Community Policing Boards comprising traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society groups, youth representatives, women’s associations, and security officials. These boards would oversee recruitment integrity, performance monitoring, and dispute mediation. Digital monitoring tools, such as body cameras, dashboard logs, and performance dashboards, can reduce abuses and enhance transparency.
There are legitimate concerns about the risks of indigenous policing. Critics fear that local officers may be biased, captured by local elites, or influenced by ethnic loyalties. These risks are real but manageable.
Strong oversight, clear disciplinary mechanisms, rotation within local governments, and supervision by neutral external officers can guard against abuse.
With proper checks, indigenous policing becomes not a threat but a stabilising force. The alternative, continuing with a system that is culturally blind, distrusted, and structurally prone to abuse, is far more dangerous.
The emotional case for indigenous community policing is as powerful as the policy logic. People feel safest when those protecting them understand their history, fears, symbols, quarrels, and customs. Security is not just the presence of armed officers; it is the presence of familiar guardians who carry the trust of the community they serve. Trust cannot be imported. It must be grown. And it grows from shared identity, shared language, shared experience, and shared destiny.
Nigeria stands at a crossroads. The old model has failed, and the consequences spill daily onto our roads, markets, farms, and homes. We live in a country where security has become a prayer point, a negotiation, and a gamble. Yet it does not have to be this way. The path toward a safer Nigeria lies in building a police system that is not only present in communities but belongs to them. A system where officers see the people they serve not as strangers, but as extensions of their own families. A system where security becomes a collective project rooted in trust and mutual responsibility.
The promise of indigenous community policing is simple but profound. When local officers serve local communities, intelligence sharpens, response times shorten, crimes decline, and trust flourishes. Security ceases to be a distant promise and becomes a lived reality. This is the Nigeria we can build, one community, one officer, and one trusted relationship at a time.
At the same time, it is critical that the President’s directive on withdrawing police officers attached to VIPs be implemented fully and transparently. Past orders on this matter were never enforced effectively, and the opportunity for meaningful redeployment was lost. For the safety of all Nigerians, this directive must be realised without compromise.
Prof. Uba is economist, policy expert and security consultant with over 25 years of experience in governance, public financial management and international development.
