Nigerian Federalism: Continuing Quest for Stability and Nation-Building explores the nature of and the debate over a number of recurrent issues, such as the “origins of Nigerian federalism, the number of state units in the federal system, fiscal issues, political parties, distributional issues, and intergovernmental relations” in Nigerian federalism since the establishment of protofederalism under the Richards Constitution, 1946 seventy years ago. In exploring the issues, the book seeks to answer the question, “what accounts for the persistence of Nigerian federalism, despite the serious discontents that the debate throws up now and again?” The book offers a reinterpretation, which argues that the demand for true federalism, which anchors the major trend in the age-long debate on the structure of Nigerian federalism, is ahistorical and therefore static. The book uniquely emphasises the need to periodise the practice of Nigerian federalism into four major phases. Based on the periodisation, two cardinal propositions emerge from the various chapters of the book. First, in spite of separatist and centrifugal threats to its existence, Nigerian federalism has typically never sought to eliminate diversity, but to manage it. In this sense, the construction of Nigeria’s federal system from its earliest beginnings shows clearly that it is both a creature of diversity and an understanding that diversity will remain ingrained in its DNA. Secondly, Nigeria’s federal practice has not sought to mirror any model of “true federalism”, be it in the United States, Canada or elsewhere. Instead, Nigeria’s federal system has been a homegrown, if unstable modulation between foedus and separatus, a constantly negotiated terrain among centripetal and centrifugal forces and between centralisation and decentralisation. Consequently, a historical, periodised understanding of Nigerian federalism is inevitably essential. It is this historical and theoretical-methodological approach to explaining and understanding Nigerian federalism that gives the book its unique character. The book is for the general reader as well as for students, including researchers of Nigerian federalism and of Nigerian constitutional and political development, policymakers, and political parties.

Twenty essays by four generations of Nigerian scholars are included in this volume, the first to examine the historical, political, economic and comparative dimensions of attempts by the military to restructure the Nigerian federation. Evidence is accumulated in support of the book's central thesis that autocratic rule is antipathetic to the sustenance of genuine federal practice, and that federal restructuring initiated under the tight control of repressive governments cannot but lead to a situation in which federalism is assaulted, if not dismantled. It is argued that, in such a context, the vending of a federal doctrine becomes more or less an exercise in the propagation of false consciousness in the service of power - portraying a picture of divided power to hide the reality of undivided power.

Nigeria as a federal Republic is made up of thirty six States. Although, the practice of federalism has been called into question by critics who believed that the federal government is imposing her free-will over the component states with disregard to their sovereignty despite the framers intent in providing the country with a constitution that promulgated shared responsibilities to each levels of government that are embedded with power sharing, revenue allocation, maintenance of public order, and fiscal federalism. However, the attitude and involvement of ruling political powers with ties to the Central or State Governments influences policies decision making which may be contradictory to the system of Nigeria Federalism. This book focused on the historical philosophy of Nigeria and her problems, prospects of the Nigerian federalism, the politics of ethnicity and diversity as a framework of the British Colonialists and the Framers visions for a Unified Federalized State. The military model of governance was largely ignored in this book to strictly focus its intent on the democratic intergovernmental federalism in Nigeria as intended by the framers in drafting a true democracy for Nigeria. Nigerian Federalism is a system of government that is democratic to its core. The framers believed that leadership is always the way forward and in drafting the constitution they placed the impact and quality of leadership (integrity, honesty, commitment, and competency) as the criterion for a strong and innovative Nation.