The Northern Senators Forum has renewed pressure on the Federal Government and state governors to fast-track the creation of state police, insisting that decentralised policing is now indispensable to confronting Nigeria’s worsening insecurity.

In a statement signed by its chairman, Senator Abdulaziz Yar’Adua, the forum linked its demand to a string of deadly attacks in Adamawa and Sokoto states, where more than 36 people, including security personnel and worshippers, were reportedly killed.

The lawmakers said suspected Boko Haram insurgents stormed Gaya community in Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa State, killing a police inspector and seven civilians. The attackers were also said to have set two houses ablaze, underscoring what the senators described as the vulnerability of rural communities and the limits of centrally controlled security forces.

In Sokoto State, the forum condemned an assault on worshippers in Ungushi village, Kebbe Local Government Area, where gunmen believed to be members of the Lakurawa group opened fire during Friday prayers. About 30 people were feared dead in that incident, which reportedly followed the killing of four soldiers in the same area earlier in the day.

Yar’Adua said the incidents highlight the urgent need to overhaul Nigeria’s security architecture by empowering states to play a direct role in law enforcement. He urged the Presidential Working Group on state police, state governors and state Houses of Assembly to give “prompt attention and concurrence” to the State Police Bill currently awaiting ratification.

According to the forum, decentralised policing would improve response time, deepen intelligence gathering at the grassroots and allow security structures to reflect local realities. The senators also called on state and local governments to invest in and formalise community vigilante groups as intelligence partners to the police and military, while stressing that such outfits must operate within a clear legal and accountability framework.

The forum warned that continued delays in passing the bill would amount to a failure of leadership in the face of mounting casualties. It urged authorities at all levels to treat security reform as an emergency rather than a political bargaining chip.

Yar’Adua extended condolences to the families of the victims and to the governments and people of Adamawa and Sokoto states, reiterating that the North cannot afford to “continue to lose innocent lives to insurgents while bureaucracy delays critical security reforms.”