Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has accused President Bola Tinubu of deliberately delaying the establishment of state policing and alleged that the President previously blocked Lagos State from participating in the South-West regional security initiative, Amotekun.
Speaking in Ibadan at a joint mega rally of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Makinde claimed the federal government is intentionally misleading Nigerians over its true willingness to decentralise security architectures amid a worsening national security crisis.
The governor argued that the Western Nigeria Security Network, known as Amotekun, was born out of shared desperation among South-West leaders when the federal government continuously denied requests to establish state police forces.
"We wanted State Police. It was because we couldn't get the State Police that we established Amotekun as a stopgap," Makinde stated, as reported by The Guardian Nigeria. "They should stop wasting Nigerians' time."
Makinde explicitly singled out Lagos State as the sole defector from the regional security consensus, pointing the finger directly at President Tinubu, who has maintained vast political influence over Lagos since serving as its governor from 1999 to 2007.
"The only state that didn't create Amotekun is Lagos State, and we know it is because their boss didn't want Amotekun," Makinde alleged. He insisted that rather than micro-managing the process through the Inspector General of Police, the federal government should empower state assemblies to pass local policing bills swiftly.
The governor's public outburst follows severe domestic pressure over a wave of violent crime and mass abductions in Oyo State. Notably, a coordinated attack by bandits in Oriire Local Government Area resulted in the kidnapping of dozens of primary and secondary school pupils alongside their teachers.
In a swift counter-response, the youth wing of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo State rejected Makinde’s narrative, accusing the governor of playing politics instead of focusing on his immediate state security responsibilities.
Oyo APC Youth Leader, Olalekan Glory, countered that Lagos State had chosen to rely on its own long-standing grassroots security arrangements rather than standard regional formats. Glory defended the presidency's pace, stating that "President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as a democrat, understands that security reform must be approached with caution, legality, and national consensus."