A CRITICAL REVIEW OF KEY VEXED ISSUES IN NIGERIA MODEL OF FEDERALISM

Abstract

The Nigeria Federal Structure has provision for sharing formula in three key areas: territory, economics and politics, but are strongly linked through the struggles between the country’s various ethnic groups and over the enormous oil resources in the Niger Delta. The federal system, which was inherited from colonial times, has in the last almost 50 years increased from 3 states to 36 states. This has been crucial for the development of sharing formula in Nigeria. Federal Character principle was introduced to ensure that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or few ethnic or other sectional groups in government elective or appointment positions. The third type of power-sharing is related to distribution of revenues, mainly linked to oil revenues. There has been much debate about how the resources are distributed. The oil producing states argue that they should get a larger share of the resources extracted in their region, while the more populous states, especially in the North, argue that the resources should be distributed based on the principle of need. Despite the fact that Nigeria has developed its sharing formula over decades, one discovers the increasing conflict amongst the components, content and context of the process. There are several factors that play a role here. First, even though the states in the Niger Delta receive more revenues per capita from the Federal Account than any of the other regions in Nigeria, much of these revenues do not reach the people who suffer from the oil extraction through environmental damages, poverty and unemployment. Second, the Federal Character, and the state creation processes, have increased power among some ethnic groups at the expense of others, who feel marginalized. The third, are the problems related with high levels of corruption. These issues have created large trust and legitimacy problems for the Federal Structure among the marginalized groups. This paper suggests fair considerations in the content and context of the sharing formula. Qualitative Research Method served as a tool of this review analysis. Primary, secondary and relevant tertiary documents were reviewed. The paper highlighted some near future dangers of the present operating system.