Nigeria and the travail of federalism: An Appraisal of Unending Agitation

Abstract

Sequel to the amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates in 1914, Nigeria’s minimal state has continued to witness serial and intractable agitations, political interplays and intrigues and aspirations of statesmen and nationalist turned into defensive, mutual distrust and regionalized. The social formation was at disequilibrium, hence, heightening the rate of agitations from different quarters. More worrisome is ever increasing calls for reformulation and restructuring of quasi-Nigerian federal practice characterized by centripetal forces. However, it is based on this backdrop that the study sets review composition of Nigerian federalism and logic of political restructuring and the implications of Nigerian’s perceptive on restructuring question. Methodologically, the paper appropriated documentary method and data were ostensibly generated through secondary sources of data collection and analyzed in content. The enthronement of democracy in Nigeria in 1999 was expected to usher in a period of rapid economic transformation after a prolog military dictatorship. The findings of the study had significantly revealed that federalism in Nigeria is more or less caricature federalism. Also implicated is that Nigerian state has failed to foster social engineering and nation-building, thereby enhancing agitations for restructuring. The paper recommends the need to devolve powers to other tiers of government other than concentration of power at center.