Nigeria’s ongoing struggle with national cohesion, security, and economic stagnation is fundamentally rooted in a flawed, over-centralised governance structure that operates as a unitary system disguised as federalism. Speaking on The Conversation, veteran Journalist and political Commentator Lekan Sote, alongside Legal Practitioner and Political Analyst Bosun Osifowora, argued that Nigeria’s current constitutional framework strips federating units of their autonomy and resources, serving the interests of a central ruling elite while impoverishing the grassroots.
Traceable to British colonial administrative convenience and solidified by successive military regimes, the concentration of fiscal and legislative authority in Abuja continues to cripple state and local government initiatives. Sote highlighted that Nigeria’s original regional arrangement enabled sub-national entities to control their natural wealth and allocate revenues equitably. However, post-independence military decrees systematically stripped states of their economic lifelines by loading mineral resources, mining, and critical fiscal levers onto an exhaustive Exclusive Legislative List. The result, he noted, is a rentier arrangement where states are reduced to monthly allocation mendicants unable to build foundational industrial economies.
From a legal and administrative standpoint, Osifowora contended that while the 1999 Constitution contains severe structural defects inherited from military decrees, the political elite’s selective compliance and self-serving enforcement exacerbate the country’s dysfunction. He argued that the excessive concentration of sixty-eight items on the Exclusive Legislative List renders sub-national units completely toothless in critical areas such as law enforcement. Citing a personal case involving a cross-border financial fraud investigation in Lagos, Osifowora illustrated how requiring federal approval from Abuja for basic local policing operations hampers justice delivery, underscoring an urgent need for state and decentralised policing tailored to local intelligence.
The dialogue also addressed the paralysis of grassroots development under Nigeria’s nominal three-tier structure. Despite theoretical provisions for local government autonomy, the panelists noted that state governors routinely subvert council independence, turning local administrations into bureaucratic shadows. Drawing comparisons with the United States’ decentralized electoral, banking, and media ecosystems, Sote stressed that genuine federal systems empower communities to manage their resources, judicial affairs, and elections without central interference. He cautioned that without genuine economic and administrative decentralisation, national productivity will continue to flounder under monopolistic federal institutions.
The analysts concluded that comprehensive constitutional restructuring is no longer an abstract political talking point, but an existential imperative. Real progress requires relinquishing central control over vital sectors including internal security, resource exploration, and municipal administration to allow regional competition and organic industrial development. Both speakers warned that unless the country boldly dismantles its overbearing unitary superstructure in favour of genuine fiscal federalism, widespread poverty, institutional decay, and insecurity will remain entrenched.
