Tag: Ladipo Adamolekun

It is noteworthy that Professor Ladipo Adamolekun’s latest book, Reflections on Governance and Development in Nigeria, was launched last Thursday, April 23, 2025, not before a motley crowd of politicians and businessmen, but only before a select group of academics from various disciplines and journalists from major newspapers. It was not a traditional Nigerian book launch, where a copy would sell for a billion times its cost and maybe two billion times its worth. No Chairperson. No Royal Father of the Day. No moneybag book launcher. Instead, it was a festival of ideas about how to make Nigeria better, which is the central theme of Adamolekun’s book. To further celebrate the uniqueness of the launching ceremony, everyone in attendance got two copes of the book free of charge!

The need for the devolution of political and financial powers to subnational governments dominated the discussion at the book launch (for my pre-launch review, see Adamolekun reflects on governance, development The Nation, April 23,2025). This happened because there was unanimous consent that Nigeria needs a devolved federation as recommended by Professor Adamolekun.

There are several oddities about the Nigerian federation today. First, the political status of local councils is unclear in the Constitution, unlike the case of Brazil, where the Constitution explicitly names municipalities as part of the federal union, granting them political autonomy and equal status with states and the Federal District. In that case, municipalities are not merely subdivisions of states but rather independent entities. The lack of clarity in the Nigerian case underlies the criticism of the federal government and the Supreme Court for bypassing states in granting financial autonomy to local councils, even while they are still integral parts of the states to which they belong. State governors’ unhappiness with the direct financial link between the central government and the local councils within their jurisdictions is understandable.

The truth is that there are only two named levels of power in every other federation. These are the central government and the federating units, named variously as states (United States and India), provinces or territories (Canada), cantons (Switzerland), or emirates (United Arab Emirates). This leads to another oddity about the Nigerian federation—the lopsidedness in the political and financial powers of the central government, so powerful that state governors and heads of federal educational institutions look up to the central government for sustenance. The dependence on the central government partly accounts for the inability of states and federal institutions to generate enough funds internally. The result is that many states cannot nurture their own residents to self-fulfillment, leading to separatist agitations.

Another oddity is the centralization of the police force, which has compromised the security situation in the country. On the one hand, the police central command cannot effectively monitor the forces assigned to different states. On the other hand, states have no direct control over the police assigned to them. Politicians and others who can afford it exploit this gap by hiring police officers as bodyguards. In other federations, such as the United States, there is no such thing as a central police force, although there is relative uniformity in the guidelines underpinning police training across states.

These oddities were explored in Adamolekun’s book and his presentation during the book launch. His recommendation is unmistakable: “Only devolution can unleash the forces for consolidating democracy and achieving accelerated socioeconomic progress in Nigeria. The alternative to devolution will likely be the death of the federation”. Hence his political credo for Nigeria is “Devolve or Die”.

After the entire audience agreed that a devolved federation would serve Nigeria better, the first question that followed was: Why has devolution been impossible to achieve, even after two national conferences and numerous attempts at constitutional review? The answer to this question hovers around politics and political will. We know that those who view the central government as their industry may be reluctant to support a devolved federation in which the power of the central government is reduced. What they don’t remember is that they fared much better when they were administered as a region. Besides, they have become so engrossed in the present that they fail to remember what was and what can be after devolution of powers and fiscal federalism.

The question remains as to what form the federating units would take. Professor Adamolekun elaborated on his answer in his presentation: There should be six federating units, based on the existing six geopolitical zones. He also suggested that functions and resources should be shared between the central government and the federating units in ways similar to the shared formula in the 1963 constitution. Specifically, he recommended a 35:65 formula for the reallocation of powers and resources between the central government and the subnational governments.

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Professor Adamolekun also raised a critical question about two institutions recently established by the Federal Government, which he thinks are antithetical to devolution. One is the establishment of Development Commissions, one for each zone, and the other is the creation of a Ministry of Regional Development (a renaming of the Ministry of Niger Delta Development). However, if the existing zones are adopted as federating units, then the Development Commissions could become coordinating units for the various development activities across the zone. At such a time, the Ministry of Regional Development would become redundant.

A critical issue raised during the discussion was the neglect of Chapter II of the Constitution, which specifies the duties and responsibilities of government; the duties and responsibilities of the press; and the duties and responsibilities of the citizens. A close reading of the chapter shows clearly that none of the neither the government nor the press not the citizens have lived to the expectations of the Constitution. To be sure, we do not have a perfect Constitution. No state really has. The problem with us is that we have lived far shot of the ideals of the one we have, imperfect as it may be.

This again takes us back to the lopsidedness in the allocation of duties and resources between the central government and the federating units. The truth is that the present Constitution concentrates too much power and resources in the central government. It is difficult to achieve effective governance in a multilingual, multiethnic, and multi-religious federation like ours in the present setup. It is also difficult to keep in check such an amorphous federal government, which has spread its tentacles across the country. A devolved federation will avoid such a problem by bringing people with similar orientations or shared backgrounds together, thereby allowing those at the margins to get nearer to the centre of action at a level close to them.

The key lesson of the book launch was clear: The earlier Nigeria became a truly devolved federation, the better for the country and its people.

This is only a forerunner of a 239-page book by Professor Ladipo Adamolekun, NNOM, titled, Reflections on Governance and Development in Nigeria, published in April 2025, by Caligata Publishing Company Limited, Ibadan. The book will be launched tomorrow, Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Akure, Ondo State. A more detailed review will follow the book launch later.

It is important to recall that Professor Adamolekun is an Oxford-trained expert in public administration and development and had a nearly 20-year stint at the World Bank, after meritorious service as Dean of the Faculty of Administration, University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, Nigeria. His expansive scholarship, typified by the publication of many books, monographs, and journal articles on administration and development earned him the award of the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) twenty years ago. Yet, he never slowed down. The present book is the latest testimony.

The book sets out to answer three basic questions:

•What are the major fundamentals of, and impediments to, good governance in Nigeria?

•What are the major impediments to development in Nigeria?

•How might good governance and development be achieved in Nigeria?

In his elaboration on the first two questions, Adamolekun delved into the six central issues featured prominently in the development literature, namely, (1) electoral legitimacy; (2) rule of law; (3) civil liberties (to which human rights is central); (4) accountability and transparency (including anti-corruption measures; (5) administrative competence; and (6) development-oriented leadership. These issues are discussed in relation to the Nigerian situation but also set within African and international contexts, where necessary. These issues recur in various discussions on governance and development throughout the book.

In addition, Adamolekun also raised a seventh issue, bearing in mind the peculiarities of the Nigerian federation—the issue of a devolved federation as a key macro-governance issue. This issue would later feature prominently in his recommendations discussed briefly below.

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After teasing out these issues in several chapters, he goes on to provide answers to the third question. In order to fully appreciate his recommendations, Adamolekun sets Nigeria’s performance records since 1999 against similar data in African countries, using the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance. Nigeria never reached 50% score in the years data were available, nor did it rank higher than the bottom 20 poor performers every year, except in 2018 when it was ranked in the bottom 25, despite its biggest size and highest GDP. Adamolekun’s conclusion is not surprising: “The verdict is clear and unambiguous, the quality of governance in Nigeria is poor.”

Although solutions to poor governance and development problems are embedded in several discussions throughout the book, Adamolekun brought the recommendations together in the book’s concluding chapter, titled, Path to achieving improved governance and good development performance. The recommendations are made with particular reference to Nigeria.

Unsurprisingly, the recommendations centre on improvements on the central issues in the development literature elaborated upon at the beginning of the book and foregrounded in the third paragraph of this essay. Rather than summarize the recommendations here, I leave it to readers to read them in full and make their own judgement.

Nevertheless, I find it necessary to provide my own assessment, especially since Adamolekun and I agreed that only a devolved federation could aid good governance, channel necessary development, and provide self-fulfillment to Nigerians. This convergence of opinion has different roots. Adamolekun came to this conclusion from the perspectives of administration and development and I from the perspectives of linguistics and anthropology.

We both recognize that Nigeria is a multilingual, multiethnic, and multi-religious state. Atop these primordial divisions are geographical and administrative groupings—North vs South; Zone vs Zone; State vs State; and Local Government vs Local Government, each in competition with the other.

Of course, the divisions are not neat as they are either colonial or military creations for administrative convenience. True, Muslims are concentrated in the North and Christians in the South, but they are both found in every region or state, each with its own base of traditional religion. Similarly, many ethnic groups find themselves scattered across regional, state, or even local government boundaries.

But whatever “convenience” was meant to be achieved by the geographical or administrative divisions never came to fruition, partly because of the lopsidedness in the creation of the geographical or administrative divisions. For example, Lagos and Kano have comparable populations (Lagos is even believed to be more populated), but Lagos has only 20 Local Governments, whereas Kano has 44! By the same token, Ondo has only 18 Local Governments, whereas Osun has 30; yet, both states have comparable populations.

Yet another source of lopsidedness is the over-concentration of powers and resource allocation in the central government. This has had two damning consequences for governance and development. First, the powers of the central government make it the locus of fierce competitions for political power. In the process, electoral legitimacy and the rule of law are undermined or believed to be so.

Second, the central government has been the locus of corruption since the attainment of independence. Corruption was institutionalized by military dictators and escalated since return to civilian rule in 1999. Even while corruption is also rampant in the states, protests are often directed at the federal government because of its perceived powers. Similarly, separatist agitations are directed at the central government, because it is viewed as the locus of injustice and inequity.

It is within the above contexts that a devolved federation is recommended as panacea to Nigeria’s governance and development problems. Adamolekun prescribed the following characteristics of the desirable devolved federation for Nigeria:

• the existing six geopolitical zones as federating units instead of the existing 36 states, many of which are not viable;

• the assignment of functions between the central government and the federating units, using the same principle of subsidiarity as in the 1963 Constitution;

• the allocation of resources consistent with the imperative of fiscal federalism and increased functions for sub-national governments.

I agree with Adamolekun that “A devolved federation is a necessity, not a choice,” and that “only a devolved Nigerian federation can become a well-performing state that is capable of achieving good development performance.” It is no wonder then that Adamolekun ranked it over his other recommendations.

The issue of how to get there has been a major clog, despite several attempts at moving forward on devolution. We have had two major national deliberations, the 2005 National Political Reform Conference and the 2014 National Conference. However, their far-reaching recommendations were either selectively appropriated for selfish political agenda or totally ignored.

I have always argued that, if a one-off comprehensive approach is not feasible for political reasons, a gradualist approach could be adopted to achieve the same result over time. It is within this context that the bill on state police now before the National Assembly should be expedited to combat insecurity. It may well be a first step toward a devolved security structure and the allocation of required resources for that purpose.

But make no mistake about it. A devolved federation should happen sooner than later, if good governance and development were to be achieved, including a successful outcome of ongoing economic reforms.