Nigeria and the Challenge of Federalism

The book identifies three key moments in Nigeria’s experience with federalism and makes the argument that a complex and socially diverse country like Nigeria can only be successfully governed by a truly federal arrangement, and not the present unitary contraption that has only delivered poverty, social unrest and the powerful centrifugal forces that are now threatening the very existence of the country itself.

The time has come, writes Ike Okonta, to convene a conference with sovereign powers to design a federal constitution for the country. The current process of amending the 1999 constitution by the National Assembly will not suffice. The document is so hopelessly flawed that only its discarding and a fresh effort at constitution-making will suffice.

Ike Okonta was, until recently, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Oxford. Currently, he is Coordinating Fellow of the New Centre for Social Research, Abuja, Nigeria. He is author of Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil (2003); When Citizens Revolt: Nigerian Elites, Big Oil and the Ogoni Struggle for Self-Determination (2008); Biafran Ghosts: The Massob Ethnic Militia and Nigeria’s Democratisation Process (2012); and The Failure of Leadership in Africa’s Development (2020).

ISBN Print: 978-1-990263-39-2
Publication Date: March 2022
Page Count: 75
Binding Type: Soft cover
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Language: English