The Senate has given six states until November 15 to forward their resolutions on the proposed state police bill, after 30 other states approved the amendment, exceeding the constitutionally required two-thirds majority.
The affected states are Kano, Cross River, Abia, Niger, Benue and Oyo.
The Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele (APC, Ekiti Central), disclosed this on Wednesday, saying the 30 approvals had already met the threshold needed to advance the bill to President Bola Tinubu for assent.
Bamidele explained that the constitutional amendment process involved three stages: passage by the National Assembly, approval by at least two-thirds of the State Houses of Assembly and presidential assent.
According to him, the National Assembly had fulfilled its responsibility by passing the bill and transmitting it to all 36 State Houses of Assembly for consideration and approval.
Bamidele said, “For the avoidance of doubt, three keywords are used in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, as amended. The first word is passage, the second word is approval and the third word is assent.
“The reason the writers of our Constitution, our forefathers, put all these specific words is to ensure that no part of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria can be easily amended without the buy-in of all the critical stakeholders at all levels of governance.”
He said the requirement was designed to ensure that major constitutional changes were not imposed without the participation of critical stakeholders across the federation.
The Senate Leader stressed that the 30 approvals already received were above the constitutional threshold of 24 states, describing the development as evidence of considerable support for the proposed reform among elected representatives.
“Two things that need to be emphasised here is that we needed two-thirds of the states at the very least for this to pass, and already two-thirds will be 24. So, as of yet, we already got 30 states, showing the popularity of this bill among Nigerians through the elected representatives in the State Houses of Assembly,” he said.
The 30 states that have approved the proposal are Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara.
Bamidele, however, said the National Assembly was still expecting the outstanding submissions of the remaining six states to enable it to conclude the process.
He said the intention was to give all 36 state legislatures the opportunity to formally communicate their positions on the proposed constitutional amendment, whether in support or opposition.
According to him, the Clerk to the National Assembly had written to the state assemblies on October 15, requesting their decisions within the stipulated period.
“We believe that the remaining six states will still get back to the National Assembly before next week Monday, which is the deadline,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Deputy President of the Senate and Chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, Senator Jibrin Barau (APC, Kano North), informed his colleagues that Kano State had sent its response and that the communication was expected to reach the National Assembly shortly.
The proposed amendment is part of efforts to decentralise Nigeria’s security architecture by providing a constitutional framework for individual states to establish their own police services.
The proposal remains central to the national debate on tackling insecurity and whether policing should remain under federal control.
With 30 states having approved the amendment, the proposal has crossed the required state-level threshold, leaving the outstanding formal responses and presidential assent as the next stages in the process.
