Senate Advances Bill to Double Police Trust Fund Allocation to 1% of Federation Revenue

The Nigerian Senate has passed a bill for second reading that would double the statutory allocation to the Police Trust Fund — from 0.5% to 1% of total revenue accruing to the Federation Account — in a push to fix chronic police underfunding.

The bill, the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (Establishment) Bill 2025, was led through debate by Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele (Ekiti Central) on Tuesday. He argued that the country’s mounting security pressures — insurgency, banditry, kidnapping, cybercrime and communal conflicts — have stretched policing capacity well beyond what current funding levels can support.

What the Bill Proposes

“The new bill seeks to establish a more robust, transparent, and accountable funding mechanism,” Bamidele said. Beyond the 1% Federation Account remittance, the proposed funding sources include development levies under relevant tax laws, government grants at all levels, international and donor support, and private sector contributions.

Bamidele argued the expanded funding base would reduce dependence on annual budget provisions — which have historically been unreliable — and sustain critical interventions: modern equipment procurement, digital surveillance deployment, forensic tools, police facility rehabilitation, and training programs.

The Constitutional Concerns

Not all senators were fully on board. Some raised constitutional questions about the bill’s funding mechanism and its implications for how Federation Account revenue is distributed among the three tiers of government. The bill now heads to committee for further scrutiny before it can be passed into law.

The Police Trust Fund was established under President Buhari to give the Nigeria Police Force a dedicated funding stream outside annual budgets. In practice, releases have been inconsistent. The new bill tries to address that by broadening the sources and tightening the governance framework.

Sources: BusinessDay, Channels Television, Punch