Appraising Nigeria’s Inchoate Federalism

Abstract

The nascent federalism in Nigeria is examined in this paper. To the extent that the constitutional powers of the government are centralized makes Nigeria’s federalism inchoate. The majority of the  governmental  powers are found in the exclusive lists and are exercised by the federal government. This makes the government system unitary. The federating units, which are the states, have powers over the few concurrent lists' items. For years, the Nigerian state has been plagued by issues such as conflicts  between many ethnic groups, the establishment of new states, resource management, revenue distribution, calls for a state police force, and a host of others due to the monopolization of governmental authority. The paper concludes that if additional constitutional powers from the exclusive lists is given to the states, Nigeria's inchoate federalism may become history.