Funding concerns about decentralised policing demand we mind current leaks

Imagine Nigeria’s public security financing as a rambling, poorly audited ledger. On one side, enormous sums are recorded under vague headings – “security vote”, “miscellaneous”, and “special services” – with little trace of what they actually buy. On the other side, the outcomes column is almost blank, leaving room for persistent kidnappings, farmer-herder violence, cult clashes, and a country ranked bottom-ten in security outcomes (2023 World Internal Security & Police Index). The books do not balance.

The most common retort to decentralising the police is a fiscal one: can the states afford it? This is an earnest concern. Nigeria’s fiscal landscape is patently lopsided. There is an over 7,400% gap between the ₦815.9 billion internally generated revenue of Lagos and Taraba’s ₦10.87 billion IGR in 2023. Recent federal allocations show similar skews – oil-rich Delta and Rivers receive significantly more than many non-oil-producing states. Thirty-four states still rely on federal transfers for 71–92% of their revenue. Many already fail to reliably deliver basic services. Adding the cost of a full police service, including salaries, training, and equipment, certainly appears daunting.

The question however, is, are we fixating on the wrong column of the ledger? The first-order problem is not so much a shortage of revenue entries as it is that current expenditures are disconnected from accountable outcomes. According to the IMF, Nigeria reported spending 5.9% of its total public expenditure on public order and safety in 2013, a figure higher than that of most countries with better security outcomes (Government Finance Statistics Yearbook, 2017). The poor outcome arises from fiscal misallocations, exemplified by the notorious ‘security vote’, a black hole of accountability. A 2018 Transparency International report states that annual “security vote” spending across governments reached ₦241 billion, which is more than 70% of the entire budget of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), surpassing the combined budgets of the armed services. The question is not whether Nigerian states can fund policing, but whether they can finally budget for results.

Globally, public order and safety spending is not trifling. In the European Union, it averaged 3.5% of total government expenditure in 2023, with police services alone accounting for roughly 1.8% (Eurostat). In decentralised systems, the share varies deliberately by government tier. Sub-nationals often spend more on everyday policing because they face the most immediate demands, while central governments concentrate on specialised, high-cost functions. Decentralisation does not invent new fiscal burdens; it reallocates and disciplines existing ones.

The opportunity lies in redesigning the ledger itself. First, decentralisation through reassignment of general policing responsibilities requires some adjustments to the current revenue formula. This could entail matching policing responsibilities with commensurate revenue powers, or adjusting the current pattern of revenue distribution. Just as New York City funds its police through local property taxes, a relatively high-productivity state like Lagos should be empowered to levy transparent security charges or, better still, expand its successful Security Trust Fund model. This fund, which mobilised over ₦1.78 billion from the private sector in 2024, is an exemplary one. By design, donations go towards the procurement of equipment and training for security services operating within the state. The government claims this to be partly responsible for the four years of no bank robbery in the state. It proves that when communities see a direct link between contribution and consequence, they will invest.

Second, federal fiscal support should be seen as an intergovernmental transfer but should evolve from blunt redistribution into strategic incentives. Nigeria already uses such grants in basic education and, in some sense, ecological funds. The same logic can apply to policing in such a way that federal counterpart funding should require states to meet minimum self-financing thresholds and national standards. Interstate compacts pooling resources for shared threats (banditry corridors, coastal piracy) could qualify for larger matching grants, turning fiscal weakness into collective strength.

Third, a decentralised system should appropriately address the disparity in subnational capacity. Voluntary uptake of responsibilities creates natural redistribution. States that choose not to assume policing auspices should be taken as outsourcing the function to a refocused NPF, much as most Canadian provinces contract the Mounties, the national police. This service must be taken not as a gift, but as an inter-governmental payable – a charge on the state’s account, settled through its revenue allocation. This eliminates the ‘free-rider’ problem, or double-dipping where the federal force has to step in to address spillover due to failure of subnational police. This makes the true cost of security provision visible and fair for all.

Above all, financial stewardship must be elevated to the same level as operational command. National frameworks should make transparent budgeting, performance-linked audits, and outcome reporting prerequisites for exercising policing powers or for receiving conditional transfers. Local frameworks should embed the same discipline. Every naira spent must be recorded against real inputs and must correlate to defined outcomes – fewer abductions, faster emergency response, rising public confidence.

The system by which we currently account for security funding is a broken ledger. Billions vanish like air-erasable ink without producing the safety that citizens can feel or measure. Decentralisation has funding implications, but it equally offers an opportunity to streamline funding for accountability. By readjusting revenue powers to actual responsibilities, using transfers as incentives rather than blank cheques, and demanding rigorous accountability that links spending to outcomes, Nigeria can move towards making the numbers add up to the overall safety of citizens. (BusinessDay)