1. Federalism and the Quest for National Integration and Development in Nigeria
J. ‘Kayode Fayemi
PROTOCOLS
Distinguished members of the Learned profession, I am highly honoured to address your present
gathering, and I am of the conviction that there is no better theme that affords one the opportunity to
speak to some of the critical issues that have shaped and are affecting the nature of the union that
we have forged in our country, Nigeria, at the moment, than the notion of Federalism and how this
relates to our collective quest and determination for national integration and development. While
our country is essentially a plural one, with an aggregation of over 250 ethno-linguistic groups that
have been put at different figures (Kirk Green, 1964; Atta, 1987; Otite 1990; Suberu, 1993) within a
single space, it is certainly one of the most ethnically diverse nations in the world, and the challenge
of the past five decades of our corporate co-existence within a political, social, and economic rubric
defined as ‘Nigeria’ has been how to find and promote accommodation for these diverse groups or
nationalities in a manner that is just, equitable, and enhances peace in a sustainable way.
Certainly, nowhere are the limits of the democratic project in Nigeria more apparent than in the
question of appropriate institutional arrangement for the political accommodation and management
of social diversities and religious difference. By its very nature, the working of democratic politics
radically alters the existing social boundaries and divisions, often accentuating hitherto dormant
identities and conflicts in a supposedly united entity. The consequences of the relationship between
the two have not only posed a challenge to those who seek to understand these dynamics, it has also
placed a question mark on the very viability of Nigeria’s democratic enterprise.
As you are aware, the institutional arrangement that has been adopted by our precursors for
managing the plurality and diversity of the Nigerian experience has been through the federal option,
which though has the conceptual potentials and capacity to hold the different groups and interests in
the country together in a fashion that could be deemed as acceptable, its expression in Nigeria in the
past couple of decades has evolved a distorted political architecture that many groups have risen in
war against. Hence, several groups and actors across sections of the country no longer claim to be
seeking accommodation within ‘Federalism’ as an arrangement, but within ‘True Federalism’
(Akinyemi, 2011), considered as a quintessential form. And, what this trusses up relates to how to
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2. attain the time-honoured affirmation of our political progenitor, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, on the
necessity of transforming Nigeria from being a “mere geographical expression” into a “cultural
expression.”
The Notion of Federalism
A plethora of pundits have engaged with the notion of federalism, and what binds their numerous
efforts at delineating it is the recognition that federalism constitutes a framework for managing
diversity and ensuring harmony within essentially plural and heterogeneous societies. It is
fundamentally about acknowledging a multiplicity of differences in ethnic, sociological, economic,
religious, and educational outlook and manifestation, etc, within a system, in a mode that guarantees
coherence and equilibrium. As a system of government, it is predicated upon the appropriate
sharing of power between a central authority and constituent political units; and as K.C Wheare
observed, it signifies a situation in which, constitutionally, central and regional governments “are
not subordinate to one another, but coordinate with each other.” Thus, in its classical formulation,
federalism signals a separation of powers anchored on the Constitution, which negates the existence
of a Master-Slave relationship, as the composition of association is anticipated to be voluntary and
enabling of mutual respect among the constituent units.
Due to its fundamental purpose of facilitating the apportioning of power across diverse groups,
federalism strives to accommodate and manage diversity, and is considered an ‘institutional
solution to the disruptive tendencies of intra-societal ethnic pluralism’ (Long, 1991) that is capable
of mediating potential and actual conflicts evolving from heterogeneity within a defined space
(Akpata, 2000). It is regarded as enhancing unity, while preserving diversity, and allowing the
constituent units in a country to develop according to their own pace, within the purview of their
material and human resources. More so, it is described as a process of seeking unity, without
resorting to uniformity; hence federalism is conceived of as the antithesis of a unitary system, which
would ensure the prevalence of harmony across sundry groups and interests. It is within this
purview that one can also relate to formulation of a ‘federal republic’ by Baron de Montesquieu,
who considered this as “a society of societies”, which would guarantee collective security,
coexisting with the decentralisation of power.
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3. However, it must be noted, at this point, that political realities determine the nature of the sharing of
power across the spheres of government, and this shapes the nature and character of the variant of
federalism that is adopted in a particular country, making it fairly difficult to have a universal
definition of federalism. And, this tendency has made a host of thinkers on the subject to consider
federalism as a political ideology (Burgess, 1993a and 1993b; Chapman, 1993; Smith, 1995), and
the expression of this is what leads to the materialization of a federation. As such, when federalism
is considered as the articulation of a group of interests, the federation is the means by which this is
accomplished.
Federalism in Nigeria
Federalism can be said to have come to Nigeria through the act of the colonial Governor-General,
Sir Bernard Henry Bourdillon in 1939, who created a federation of three provinces out of the former
British colony of the Northern and Southern Protectorates (as formed in 1901), and put together a
Constitution that was handed over to his predecessor, Sir Arthur Richards, which became the
Richards Constitution of 1946. The provinces were administered by native-born Chiefs and clerks
through the policy of indirect rule, although these spheres of influence were made to depend on the
colonial authorities for martial law, manpower, and the management of resources. The operation of
this system was made formal with the adoption of Oliver Lyttleton’s Constitution in 1954, which
granted substantial autonomy to the existing territories, and upheld them as regions, through the
establishment of regional civil service and judicial systems.
The three regions had separate constitutions that were attached as a schedule to the Federal
Constitution (Alapiki and Odondiri, 1992), and they were consolidated at the dawn of Independence
in 1960 as a federation hinged upon the tripod of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria – the
Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa. With the power over these regions being transferred to Nigerians and
regional legislatures created, the post of the Governor-General was replaced with that of a
President, and a national bicameral parliament was formed. Further to these, a Mid-Western Region
was created out of the Western Region in 1966, and the federal capital, Lagos, was governed as an
unofficial fourth region.
The argument for a federal system as a way of managing the diversity of Nigeria and forestalling
the potentials for conflict was equally advocated by prominent nationalists such as Dr. Nnamdi
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4. Azikiwe, who later became the country’s first President between 1960 and 1966, when he
canvassed for a ‘federal commonwealth of Nigeria’ in 1945, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo in his
books Path to Nigerian Freedom (1947) and Thoughts on Nigerian Constitution (1966). Also,
Nigeria’s first Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa observed that:
I am pleased to see that we are all agreed that the federal system is, under the present
conditions, the only sure basis on which Nigeria can remain United. We must recognize our
diversity and the peculiar conditions under which the different tribal communities live…
therefore… we must do all in our power to see that this federal system is strengthened and
sustained (quoted in Elaigwu, 2000: 41-42).
The factors that led to the adoption of federalism in Nigeria are generally traced to two main
historical tendencies, with the first describing it as emanating from the confluence of internal
political forces that clamoured for a federal system as a result of the differences and diversity of
various groups, leading to the fear of the possibility of inter-group domination. This tendency that is
ascribed to the nationalist leaders is described to have been conceded to by the British colonial
masters in the effort to maintain harmony in heterogeneity. The other vein relates to the tendency
that considers federalism as an imposition by the British in order to preserve the interests and
administrative convenience of the colonial state (Alapiki and Odondiri, 1992), as the various groups
and nationalities being ‘merged’ were initially administered unitarily, hence the foisting of a federal
system was no more than a divide-and-rule strategy that was basically disruptive and divisive
(Awolowo, 1968). While another tendency regarded the British introduction of federalism as a
‘strategy for decolonisation’, serving as a means of whittling down internal divisiveness and
reducing the cost of colonial administration in the country (Ojo, 1998), it was equally considered by
others as a neo-colonial method of maintaining control of the country after Independence. However,
the intervention of time has revealed this framework as evolving and deepening “structural
imperfections ... (that have) bedevil(ed) inter-ethnic relations after independence’ (Okhaide, 1992:
544 – 545).
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5. From the foregoing, it can be deduced that federalism in Nigeria could only have stemmed from an
intersection of the various tendencies as the frothy cauldron of difference and heterogeneity could
only have made the nationalist leaders to seek recourse to the federal option in order to guarantee
self rule, while conceding to shared rule within a process of conclusive amalgamation. And, the
British would have been ingenuous enough to know that the more enduring administrative recipe
for such a heterogeneous mix of people would be a federal system, even though their own pecuniary
motivations could never be discounted at the decisive moment. As such, it can be observed that the
emergence of federalism in Nigeria was consequent upon the interplay of the desires of the
nationalist leaders and the British, whose interests created the basis for the shaping of the Nigerian
union.
Yet, as A. Muhammad succinctly put it: “if mutual fears and suspicion of domination among
groups, (the) quest for self determination, economic prosperity, desire for unity in diversity among
other compelling factors, propelled a federation of Nigeria, to what extent then have these
imperatives been transcended many years after adopting the system? (200 )”
With the materialisation of federalism in Nigeria in the closing decades of colonial rule, the
different political tendencies that coalesced around the struggle of the people for Independence
(NCNC, NPC, AG) organised on the basis of a parliamentary system that operated through the three
main regions – the North, the West, and the East. And, powers were largely devolved around these
regions, which functioned as loosely held centres of power and decision-making, yet with a formal
entity regarded as the central government in place. The regions had control over the nature and
forms of their development and how they could explore latent and evident potentials in their
environment to maximise on the most effective ways to deliver the goods of governance to their
people.
While these administrative units had total control over and regulated issues relating to education,
agriculture, healthcare, taxation, and other significant aspects of their existence, they still subscribed
to a central Nigerian authority that held the exclusive right to make decisions pertaining to defence
and a few other select issues. The regions were in charge of the resources that they generated, could
develop at their own pace and according to the manner that they deemed fit, while contributing a
percentage of their revenue towards the keeping of the centre afloat.
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6. However, with the collapse of the First Republic and the advent of the military into governance,
these regions were dissolved into a federal structure that created States and local levels of
government in the effort to make administration easy through its command approach to the system
of control of the country. Subsequently, all the regional economies were displaced, giving rise to a
bogus central purse, from which subventions were then granted to States and the local level of
government.
While the Nigerian system under the military purportedly laid claims to being a Federal system (as
in its professed description of being the Federal Republic of Nigeria), it was essentially unitary in
form, with its version of federalism revealing a central system in which the assumed federating
units had surrendered almost all their authority to the federal government, and lifelines were granted
from the centre resulting in the constituent units abandoning their entrepreneurial acumen and
economic enterprise in favour of ‘free’ allocations from the centre, particularly consequent upon the
discovery of oil. The further creation of States – even though some have argued that it brought
governance closer to people and reduced inter-group conflicts – can be observed as a significant
factor that weakened the federal experience in Nigeria, and led to the larger concentration of power
at the centre.
The Rise of Centralisation and Unitarism
As alluded to above, federalism was formally inaugurated in Nigeria through the Lyttleton
Constitution of 1954, making the country a decentralised polity comprising three regions that were
the federating units, and which operated unique regional constitutions, civil service, police and the
judiciary. The regions had coats-of-arms and mottos that were distinct from that of the central
government, and whilst they developed according to their own logic, resources and programmes,
they equally had foreign representation and High Commissioners in the United Kingdom, etc.
However, with the incursion of the military into power, the regional police forces were proscribed
and twelve created out of the regions on the eve of the civil war in 1967, and the Murtala/Obasanjo
military regime subsequently abrogated the coats-of-arms and mottos of States, and mandated them
to take on that of the federal government.
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7. Further to this, the regime appropriated assets of States/groups of States, including print and
electronic media, etc, and strengthened the federal government at the expense of the States, thereby
laying the foundation for the intense contest of power at the federal level, and its attendant crises
over the next couple of decades.
The gradual erosion of the powers of the federating units of the country and the overt centralisation
of power at the federal level is highly evident at the present time when one considers that between
the first military intervention (1966-1979) and its second incarnation (1983-1999), Nigeria has had
three constitutions, and when the 1959 Constitution is compared with the 1999 Constitution, the
extent of the pruning down of the powers of the federating units in relation to the legislative list
becomes glaring. As Akinyemi noted:
only one item “Archives” was transferred from the 1959 exclusive legislative list to
the concurrent list of 1999. No item was transferred from the 1959 exclusive list to
the 1999 reserved list. Out of the twenty-eight items on the 1959 concurrent list,
sixteen items - which translates to roughly 57% - were lost to the 1999 exclusive list
(2001:11).
More so, the States as the newer federating units lost seven items from the reserved list of the 1959
Constitution to the exclusive legislative list of the 1999 Constitution, thus revealing how much the
“Nigerian federation has become massively centralized”, and the States have become mere satellites
of the central government (Muhammad, 200 *).
Structural Imbalances in Nigerian Federalism
One of the critical issues bedevilling the Nigerian federation pertains to its architecture, which
makes it assume the description of an ‘asymmetrical federalism’, both in terms of its unevenness in
size and access to national resources. While several federal systems across the world maintain
certain levels of evenness in size, population, economic resources, administrative capabilities, etc,
the initial division of Nigeria into three regions, in which the Northern Region alone constituted the
size of the Western and Eastern Regions put together set off a train of imbalance that has not
changed much since. And, an instance of the disparities that this spawned in the past was evident
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8. with the creation of a central legislature by the Macpherson Constitution of 1951, in which of the
136 representatives that were elected, the Northern Region alone had 68 members (the total sum of
the two other Regions), making it possible for the Region to dominate what should ordinarily be
collective decisions or put the decisions of the parliament on hold.
In terms of territorial expanse at that point, the Northern Region was claimed to be having 77% of
the total land mass, while the Western Region had 18.4%; the Eastern Region, 8.3%; and the Mid-
Western Region, 4.2%. And, the figures given by the 1963/64 census stated that the Northern region
had 53.5% of the total population of the country; the Western Region, 18.4%; the Eastern Region,
22.3%; and the Mid-Western Region, 4.6%. Hence, from those figures, it was impossible for the
three regions in the south to control political power at the centre, leading to the fears of domination
by the North due to its purported population and land mass. Issuing from the 1963/64 census
figures, the North controlled the central parliament with 54% of the total number of elected
representatives, which was more than the combined total number of representatives from the East,
21%; the West, 19%; and the Mid-West, 4.5%.
Further down, while one of the reasons adduced for the counter-coup of July 1967 was the need to
dismantle the thickening unitarism of the Ironsi regime, the new military rulers subsequently went
against the grains of the Aburi Agreement by breaking the country into twelve states, with the North
having six of the states, and the three other regions ending up with the remaining 6 states. In
addition, the Gowon administration proceeded on a head-count in 1973 and out of the over 79
million people who were enumerated in the Census, the six states of the North accounted for over
51 million people, whilst the other six southern states had some 21 million people, indicating that
between the 1963/64 census figures and that of 1973, there had been a staggering rise in the
population of the North from 53.6% to 63.8%. And conversely, the population of the South had
dwindled from 46.4% to 36.2%. If the figure from the 1973 census, which gave the North a
population of 51 million is juxtaposed with the 1990 census figure of over 47 million, then the fact
of the manipulation of these figures is thrown into bolder relief, as the population of the North
seems to have diminished in about 20 years!
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9. In addition, the manipulation of the census figures can be gleaned when the statistics of contiguous
territories to the North are examined. In 1973, Niger Republic that was stated as land mass of
1,266,700 sq. kilometres had a population of over 5 million people and Chad with 1,259,200 sq
kilometres had over 4 million people, how could the North of Nigeria that shares boundaries with
Niger and Chad, with a territorial expanse of 679,534 then have over 51 million people? Yet, we
might all be familiar with the politics of territorial expanse as a determinant of the number of states
and local governments that are created in the country, and hence the volume of resources that are
made available to them. It is equally a known fact that out of 774 local governments listed in our
constitution, the North has 419, which is 64 local governments more than the total number of 355
listed local governments in the South. The foregoing, coupled with the fact that statistics have
shown that the North has had the advantage of having more of its people appointed into federal
offices depict some of the structural imbalances in the Nigerian federation that still survives.
Constraints to Nigerian Federalism
Although laudable in intent, the operation of federalism in Nigeria over the past six decades has
revealed deep weaknesses in the system, from the history of the composition of the federation, in
which its different units ought to have come into a union through the voluntary submission of their
sovereignty in order to attain an expanded and stronger sovereignty. This would have enhanced the
bargaining powers of the federating units as they formed an alliance, and given them a sense of
independence; however, the British yoked the divergent units and territories together for their own
administrative convenience and hardly did anything to facilitate their integration.
Equally, the character of the leadership that Nigeria has experienced since the advent of a federal
system in the country has constituted a very significant challenge that has been remarkably
formulated into the notion of “Two Publics” by Peter Ekeh, which make ethnic affiliations and
affirmation privileged over the national good. As such, some of Nigeria’s leaders/rulers have been
described as ‘nationalists by day and tribalists by night’, as they only advocated federalism in name,
but actually worked towards the accruement of advantage to their ethnic units.
This overlaps with the question of citizenship in Nigeria, as people cannot seem to operate
effectively outside their states of birth, and this primordial sense of identity in relation to a space
precludes a person from being granted equal status like another who was born or locates his/her
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10. origin in that State. This problematic character of citizenship negates an essential tenet of
federalism. And, as mentioned above, the over centralisation of power at the central level leaves
much to be desired, and it has been observed that even if all the state and local governments in
Nigeria are pulled together, they are still much weaker than federal government.
With federalism operating in both political/structural and fiscal contexts, the most critical weakness
that is evident in Nigeria’s federal arrangement pertains to concerns issuing from fiscal federalism
or ‘resource control’, which deals with the mode of expropriation and allocation of resources across
diverse groups in the country. And, this has been a core trigger of conflict in Nigeria, and one of
fundamental factors for the overwhelming agitation for the renegotiation of our union in the
country.
The Politics of Fiscal Federalism
Within the Nigerian experience, the access to political power is vital in determining the allocation
and distribution of resources, and it provides the opportunity for those who control power to
expropriate a large percentage of the wealth from the resources to their own advantage, even at the
expense of those who possess the resources. And, while this control and mode of distribution in
Nigeria have been highly contentious, they have also been underscored by numerous revenue
sharing formulas or allocation principles, which have sought to de-emphasis ‘derivation’ – in
varying degrees – as the most significant factor in resource allocation.
Over the decades, a host of governmental commissions have grappled with the task of fashioning
out a proper revenue sharing formula for Nigeria – from the Phillipson Commission of 1946, to the
Hicks-Phillipson Commission of 1951, the Chicks Commission of 1953, Raisman Commission in
1957, the Binns Commission of 1964, and the Dina Commission of 1969. Also, there have been the
Aboyade Technical Committee of 1977, the Okigbo Committee of 1980 and the Danjuma
Commission in 1988.
The vicissitudes of the derivation principle of resource allocation has pointed out by Ofeimun
(2005), who shows how it moved from 100% accruing to the resource hosts and producers in 1946,
to its reduction to 50% between 1951 and 1960, and to 45% during the Gowon regime. It fluctuated
between 20% and 25% during the Muritala Muhammed/Obasanjo administration, and went further
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11. down to 5 percent under the Shehu Shagari administration, and reduced to 1.5 % during the Buhari
regime, before rising to 3% during the time of Babangida, from where it appreciated to the present
13%. It is without doubt that access to power is the primary driver of the politics of the fiscal
federalism and the nature of the derivation principle that is adopted. Presently, one of the sorest
points of Nigeria’s federalism is the agitation of resource-bearing communities for the derivation
principle to be increased to at least 50%.
The Quest for Integration and Development
As panacea to the ground-swell of agitations and recurrent outbreak of conflict in the country, there
is the need for a National Conference, in which the various constituencies and groups in the country
would come together to renegotiate the terms of the Nigerian union, and deal decisively with all the
nagging and contentious issues that have been animating the country in a negative manner. Issuing
from this is the necessity of instituting a comprehensive constitutional reform process, in which the
responsibilities and preserves of the various levels and tiers of government will be fundamentally
reviewed. And, questions pertaining to the Federation Account, the Federal Character Principle,
State police, fiscal federalism, etc would be ultimately sorted out.
What has compounded the recent crisis and underplayed the need for dialogue has been the
influence of years of military rule in Nigeria and the exclusive, personality driven projects of
current civilian rulers. The militarisation of the national psyche also affects individuals in their daily
lives. Nigeria witnessed, especially under the last military dictatorship, intense communal conflicts
that disrupted peaceful relations in several communities. Some of the conflicts have antecedents in
old animosities, but many were resource-driven, spurred by perceptions of unequal distribution of
government resources. Incidents of aggression, impatience, and competition arise in domestic
violence and other family disputes, over petrol queues, in the conduct of motorists, and in the
behaviour of the armed forces and police in dealing with ordinary people.
The immediate causes of increased violence and crime include the high unemployment and poverty
levels. At root however is the loss of a culture of compromise and accommodation. This point
cannot be overemphasised: Nigerians lost their culture of dialogue in a period when militarisation
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12. and the primacy of force had become state policy. Nigeria needs a return of the culture of dialogue.
This may not necessarily culminate in a sovereign national conference, although some perceive this
as the only solution to the crisis of governance in the State. Any indication that government is
willing to create the conditions for dialogue in the country is bound to reduce the increasing level of
tension since many within deprived communities now believe the only language that government
understands is violence. The need therefore for a national conference as a means of lessening
tension in the country is not only desirable but necessary.
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