Nigeria, July 1 -- Nigeria's march toward state police is no longer a fringe idea in constitutional debate. It is fast becoming a mainstream policy response to a security system widely seen as overstretched, centralised, and too distant from the varied threats confronting different parts of the country. From banditry in the North-West to communal violence in the Middle Belt, kidnapping in the South-East and North-Central, and urban crime across major cities, insecurity in Nigeria is intensely local in how it begins, spreads, and is experienced. The case for decentralising policing is therefore understandable, and increasingly difficult to dismiss.

Yet state police alone will not solve Nigeria's security crisis.

If anything, the reform m...