Federalism and the Agitation for Restructuring in Nigeria

Chuks C. Egugbo

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Abstract

Federalism has been noted to be a governance system best suited for a multi-ethnic country like Nigeria, because of its inherent potential to ensure autonomy to the constituent units to raise revenue to provide certain services to the people for development. The paper examined the nature of federalism in Nigeria, which has necessitated the call for the restructuring of the federation. Federalism in Nigeria has witnessed a lot of vicissitudes since its inception in 1954. The changes in the practice of federalism were occasioned by a lot of factors, ranging from crude oil replacing agricultural products as the mainstay of the economy, civil war, military rule, corruption and others. The paper adopted the secondary method of data collection and the data collected were analysed by the use of historical and descriptive methods. The paper found out that the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) gave too much power and revenue to the centre and this makes the constituent units, which are closer to people at the grassroots, weak. This condition has manifested in a high level of unemployment, poverty and insecurity. The paper recommended, amongst other things, the amendment of the constitution to devolve more power and revenue to the constituent units, as well as the correction of the imbalances in the federation to achieve some level of equity among the federating units.

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