Liberal and conservative analysts believe that the police institution is a natural and inevitable part of modern societies for preventing and controlling crime, maintaining law and order, and rectifying other social malfunctions. However, the public police forces that emerged during the colonial era were not indigenous to the societies of Nigeria. Instead, like many colonial institutions they were bureaucratic transplants from the metropolis to colonial social formation and did not take account of the unique cultural and structural properties of colonial society. They were introduced to control and subjugate the colonized rather than to protect them. Thus, policing in colonial Nigeria should be regarded as one of the State interventions designed to create an obedient and suitable citizenry and to promote the conditions necessary for the efficient extraction of economic surplus. Between 1860 and 1914 militaristic policing dominated. In addition, the government subsequently used militaristic approaches to deal with political and economic crises. Notes and 41 references.