We often hear two kinds of groupthink that are treated either as God’s word or as an evil term, never anything in between. Experience has shown that Nigerians have a habit of birthing popular narratives that become buzzwords, contagious and amplified by the media until they dress up as silver bullets: perfect, ideal, the only path to salvation. Once such an idea acquires a life of its own, even critical scrutiny struggles to break it. The public resists doubt out of emotion, out of unwritten assumptions, out of the need for something that feels like it answers the pain of the moment, even if only subjectively. That is the psychology Irving Janis called “groupthink” in 1972: the tendency of cohesive groups to prioritize consensus over realistic appraisal, to silence dissent, and to convince themselves that their chosen solution is beyond failure. When that happens, policy becomes theology.
Whenever government fails to meet expectations, the silver bullet is always the same: change the cabinet. The media plants it, the crowd repeats it, and soon everyone sounds the same. The only reason government is failing, we are told, is because ministers have stayed too long. Any alternative perspective is shouted down, and “change the ministers” becomes God’s word, the only possible path forward, even though history shows it can create new crises or heighten discontent when those who hoped to benefit are left out. We have seen the same ritual with service chiefs. Each time insecurity persists, pressure mounts to replace them, even though many of those chiefs arrive with applause, remarkable CVs, and public expectations raised to the sky. Yet changing them has rarely produced drastic improvement. The pattern is clear: we keep treating personnel changes as magic, while the structure that produces the failure remains untouched.
Some of these “God’s words” or “evil words” have become national anthems: “worse democratic government is better than the best military rule,” “power must shift to the South,” “restructuring,” “remove fuel subsidy,” “local government autonomy,” “new breed leadership,” and now “state police.” When the military ruled, the assumption was that democracy would automatically set Nigeria on the path of peace and progress. I doubt that. Look at the level of insecurity, political tension, crises, declining welfare, almost a consensus now that things are worse than before. When northerners dominated leadership, especially the military, the blame was quietly shifted to the region, and that assumption helped midwife Obasanjo in 1999. But public discontent did not end. The third-term agenda, real or imagined, and the fierce resistance to it confirmed that even perceived achievements cannot make a leader overstay his welcome.
Then the rhetoric shifted again: let the “new breed,” the younger people, lead. The old generation was blamed for stagnation. That gave us Musa Yar’Adua, relatively young and an academic, followed by Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, the first PhD holder and also relatively young. Yet the structural problems stayed. Restructuring has been sold as the magic wand to transform Nigeria, and for a time almost every problem was pinned on fuel subsidy. The masses were convinced it never solved anything, so when President Bola Tinubu announced subsidy removal on May 29, 2023, many celebrated it as a major achievement. Soon they realized time had not been the same, they now felt like they were living in another world. Counter-narratives existed, but the media amplified the “subsidy cabal” story while ignoring complexities, a classic case of what communication scholar Noam Chomsky described as “manufacturing consent” through selective framing.
I remember when Niger State experimented with local government autonomy and scrapped the joint account. It looked like God’s word at first by inviting celebration, hysteria. Then reality set in: many local governments lacked the capacity to pay workers without the joint account. The nuance was ignored. We concluded the joint account was evil, without asking what problem it was actually solving, much like we did with fuel subsidy. That is the danger of treating reforms as absolute. As sociologist Zygmunt Bauman warned, modern societies love “quick fixes” because they soothe anxiety, but quick fixes often discard the baby with the bathwater.
Now the new God’s word is state police, the only way out whenever insecurity aggravates. The rhetoric rises when emotions are at their peak, and to oppose it feels like a lack of empathy. Government finds it convenient to put state police on the table because it presents hope, a fresh thing that citizens can believe will automatically solve the problem. But discerning minds worry. Most solutions born from emotion and meant to soothe it end up compounding the problem. Our democracy, power shift, generational shift, subsidy removal, local autonomy, none of them automatically solved our problems despite being viewed as magic wands. We also believed in the messianic power of figures like Buhari and Obi, as if they were God-sent and could fix everything even if the National Assembly, judiciary, civil service, and everything else remained the same. At the end, excuses were made for Buhari: he needed the system, the tiers, the support of the majority to govern effectively. Structure, not saints, governs outcomes.
At this critical juncture, state police may no longer be an option but a necessity. Time is ripe, tension is high, and citizens need to see something new, something fresh, even if only to boost morale and inspire hope. But we must admit it will not be a bed of roses, just like other God’s words. Every leader fears that a rival police force with different commands, different loyalties, and political differences will reduce their power. The president also stands to gain, because he will no longer bear full responsibility for breakdowns in law and order when state police are under the command of federating units. Yet the trouble is with the states, which leave much to be desired in almost everything compared to the federal government, even though the center is not free from challenges.
The federal government may be guilty of abusing the judiciary, security agents, and electoral umpires to consolidate power. But increasing the chance of abuse by multiplying political actors at different levels could be dangerous and explosive. The level of abuse at the center has not been as reckless, audacious, or obvious as what we see in many states, where local government elections under state electoral commissions are rare, state assemblies and high courts act as rubber stamps, and governors behave like semi-gods who hardly lose cases. Abuse at the local level has reduced councils to puppets, their finances and decisions shaped by a desperate quest to appease their idol.
With rising suspicion, ethnic profiling, and stereotypes, locals and perceived enemies each push convenient conspiracy theories to cast themselves as victims rather than aggressors contributing to reprisal attacks. State governors with police forces could be swayed by proximity and prevailing sentiment, creating an optics problem that aggravates crises. Even within a state there are tribes and political differences that can heighten tension. The center is already a subject of mistrust because of identity differences; state police could worsen those fault lines. More weapons will be in circulation. Accusations that federal police sell or hire arms to criminals, or become criminals themselves, have not stopped. Laxity at the state level could compound that problem.
Security under the national government, plus a single currency, helps preserve the federation. With secession threats, discontent, ethnic profiling, and every group claiming to be the victim, creating pockets of armed security commands could be the fastest way to create a country within a country. That was the lesson of the First Republic when regional police forces were abused without checks and balances. Political scientist Samuel Huntington, in Political Order in Changing Societies argued that institutions must match the level of political development; premature decentralization of coercive power can fracture fragile states. If state police is adopted, it must address legitimate concerns about abuse, misuse, rivalry, and lack of checks and balances, or it will repeat the ghosts of 1966.
Happy Democracy Day!
Bagudu can be reached via bagudumohammed15197@gmail.com or 07034943575.
