The National Assembly is moving towards transmitting the proposed State Police Bill to President Bola Tinubu for assent after 30 State Houses of Assembly approved the constitutional amendment required for its establishment.
However, six states — Kano, Cross River, Abia, Niger, Benue and Oyo — are yet to approve the proposed legislation, prompting the Senate to give them until November 15 to communicate their decisions.
The Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, disclosed this on Wednesday while updating lawmakers on consultations with the 36 state legislatures.
He said the number of approvals had exceeded the constitutionally required two-thirds of the state assemblies, representing 24 states.
Bamidele explained that the constitutional amendment process involved three stages: passage by the National Assembly, approval by at least two-thirds of the state assemblies and presidential assent.
According to him, the National Assembly has completed its responsibility by passing the bill and transmitting it to all 36 state legislatures for consideration.
He said the approval of 30 states represented significant progress towards completing the constitutional amendment process.
“Two important points need to be emphasised. First, we needed the approval of at least two-thirds of the states for this constitutional amendment to proceed.
“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.
Bamidele stressed that the constitutional requirements were designed to ensure that amendments to the country’s supreme law received the support of critical stakeholders across the different levels of government.
He added that the National Assembly was still expecting formal responses from the six outstanding states.
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.
With the required 24 approvals already secured, the proposal has crossed the constitutional threshold for the next stage of the amendment process.
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