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| Federalism in Nigeria: Evolution, Development and Practice |
Paul Saint Christopher and Osaro Obari
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Abstract:
Federalism is a political philosophy in which members of a group are bound together with a governing representative head. The term "federalism" is also used to describe a system of the government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces). The Nigerian federal structural arrangement emerged from her colonization by the former, British Colonial Master, an imposition that eventually came up with a somewhat artificial geopolitical synthesis. Nigeria was put together as a country in 1914 as necessitated by some factors such as the size, cultural and traditional diversity, language, historical particularism as well as economic and political considerations that prevailed. The amalgamation of the colony and protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria, the seed of federalism, were not sowed until 1946, by the Richard constitution. It was this constitution that first divided the country into three major regions under the auspices of "Unitary Colonial State" that was already in place. This marked it as a turning point in the history of Nigerian legislature's unity in diversity towards interaction with one another among legislative councilors in 1947. However, the adoption of federalism in Nigeria was a compromise aimed to fairly distribute authority between the states and the national government. Although, in recent times, there have been growing disagreements and agitations for the Sovereign National Conference, where diverse people come together under one umbrella to discuss common problems affecting them with the intention of finding lasting solutions to the country's problems.
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