A New Daily Prime investigation into the constitutional limits and loopholes of a Nigerian governor’s security powers.
On the morning of Friday, May 15, 2026, gunmen descended on three schools in the Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State and left with 39 students and several teachers in tow. The schools, which were Baptist Nursery and Primary School in Yawota, Community Grammar School, and L.A. Primary School in Esiele, were attacked in a coordinated fashion, plunging one of Nigeria’s most politically active southwestern states into grief, outrage, and a question that has since consumed public discourse: What exactly can a governor do?
As families wept and protests erupted in Ibadan, Governor Seyi Makinde faced cameras and crowds with a message that frustrated many: the security architecture of Nigeria, he suggested, tied his hands. It was a claim that ignited a fierce debate about governors’ security powers in Nigeria and whether elected chief executives are hiding behind the constitution or genuinely constrained by it.
The answer, as it turns out, is both.
What actually happened in Oriire
The facts are harrowing. According to reports confirmed by the Oyo State Government, gunmen abducted at least 39 pupils and multiple teachers in coordinated attacks on three schools. One teacher, Adesiyan Adegboye, was killed during the raid. A mathematics teacher, Michael Oyedokun, was later murdered in captivity, a development that ignited a fresh wave of outrage and protests across the state.
A joint rescue operation involving soldiers, police, and local vigilante groups was launched but was violently disrupted when rescuers encountered improvised explosive devices planted by the attackers, leaving several security personnel wounded. As of the time of this report, the victims, including at least one toddler, remain in captivity, more than two weeks after the abduction. President Bola Tinubu condemned the attack as “barbaric” and promised federal cooperation, but no breakthrough has been announced.
The crisis has since drawn international media attention, triggered protests by teachers’ unions, and prompted the opposition APC to call on Makinde to resign.
Read also: State police key to preventing future school abductions — Omokri
The constitutional reality of the governor’s security powers
To understand the governor’s position, one must look at the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, specifically Sections 214 and 215.
Section 214 is blunt: there shall be only one police force for Nigeria, the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) and no state may establish its own. The police, constitutionally, is a federal institution, administered by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) under the authority of the President.
Section 215(4), however, carves out a limited space for governors’ security powers. It states that a governor “may give to the Commissioner of Police of that state such lawful directions with respect to the maintenance and securing of public safety and public order within the state.” On paper, this sounds like meaningful authority.
But there is a catch buried in the same provision: the Commissioner of Police may, before obeying any such direction, “request that the matter be referred to the President or such minister of the government of the federation as the President may authorise.” In plain terms, a Commissioner of Police can legally ignore a governor’s security directives and escalate to Abuja.
This is not a technicality. It is the constitutional core of the debate. Governors’ security powers, as currently constituted, are advisory at best and overridable at worst.
Chief Security Officer: Title without teeth?
Every Nigerian governor is inaugurated with the ceremonial title of Chief Security Officer (CSO) of their state. The title is referenced in official communications, protocol documents, and political speeches. Yet nowhere in the 1999 Constitution is the phrase “Chief Security Officer of a State” defined in operational terms.
Legal analysts have long noted this paradox. A governor bears political responsibility for security within his state; citizens, courts, and opposition parties will hold him accountable for every kidnapping, every killing, every failed rescue, yet the institutional levers of law enforcement answer to Abuja, not to Government House in Ibadan.
The governor’s security powers are further circumscribed by the fact that policing sits on Nigeria’s Exclusive Legislative List, meaning it is purely a federal matter. The police contingent deployed in Oyo State is, legally speaking, not an instrument of the state government. It is a federal agency that happens to be stationed within the state’s boundaries.
What, then, can a governor actually do?
Read also: Gbajabiamila, Ribadu lead presidential delegation to Ogbomoso over abducted pupils, teachers
What Makinde can and should do
The constitution’s limitations are real, but legal and security experts argue they do not justify paralysis. Governor Makinde and other state chief executives retain several levers of governor’s security powers that go beyond waiting for Abuja to act.
State Security Trust Funds: Several states have established security trust funds, pools of money used to equip and incentivise federal security agencies operating within their jurisdiction. Lagos, Rivers, and Kano have used this mechanism to dramatically improve local security responses. Oyo can do the same.
Amotekun Corps: In 2020, the six Yoruba states including Oyo, jointly established Operation Amotekun, a regional security outfit. As a state-backed but non-police security agency, Amotekun operates in a legal grey zone but has constitutional cover as a civilian auxiliary force. The governor has full command of this outfit.
Intelligence Sharing and Vigilante Networks: Governors can fund, coordinate, and deploy local vigilante groups and hunter associations as Oyo has done to assist federal forces in bush-combing operations.
Emergency Declarations: Under Section 305 of the Constitution, a governor can formally request that the President declare a state of emergency in a state, which would unlock emergency federal security resources.
Former Nigerian Journalists Union president Lanre Ogundipe captured the prevailing sentiment sharply: “The citizens of Oyo State are not interested in a contest of excuses between constitutional provisions and political office holders. At moments such as this, what is required is not lamentation, but leadership.”
A system built for failure
The Oyo kidnapping crisis is not an isolated event. It is the latest symptom of a federal security architecture that was designed for a different era and has not been adequately reformed. Mass kidnappings have become a brutal feature of Nigerian life, with criminal gangs exploiting weak enforcement and porous territorial borders to terrorise schools, highways, and rural communities.
The debate around governors’ security powers has intensified calls for constitutional reform. Many state houses of assembly, legal scholars, and civil society organisations have repeatedly urged the National Assembly to amend Sections 214–216 to allow states to establish their own police forces, a proposal that the federal police establishment has consistently resisted.
Until that reform happens, Nigerian governors will continue to occupy the uncomfortable position of being politically accountable for security outcomes they do not fully control. They are, as one analyst memorably put it, “Chiefs of a Security Council with no army.”
Excuse or reality?
Governor Makinde’s invocation of constitutional limitations is not entirely wrong; the structural constraints on governors’ security powers in Nigeria are real, documented, and long overdue for reform. But citing them as a reason for helplessness, rather than as a challenge to be worked around, is where leadership fails.
The 39 students still missing from Oriire deserve more than a constitution lesson. They deserve every legal tool, every funded vigilante network, every presidential phone call, and every state-level resource their governor can mobilise within and at the edges of a constitution that, admittedly, was not designed to give him enough.
The constitution is not a wall. In the hands of a determined leader, it is a floor to build from.
