Federalism and Equity: The Panacea for Restructuring in Nigeria

Abstract

While federalism is associated with collaboration of diverse integral units within a sovereign state to enhance proper governance that would aid development, it is equally essential to say that it has resulted to unprecedented crisis within member states due to distrust, suspicion, rivalry, oppression, arising from equity gap created by the central government. Perhaps, federalism has worked successfully in countries like India, the United States, Brazil, Germany and Mexicoover the years. The emergence of federalism as a political ideology arose from the surge of regional nationalism and the swift move from political leaders to create equal level grounds for subunits to secure autonomy and balance of power while maintaining collaborative and accommodative intergovernmental relations within the entire federation. However, the challenges pose by resource allocation, power sharing, boundary dispute and ethnic rivalry, secessionism, quota system, federal character, and population census, arising from lack of national interest from member states have eroded its relevance as an ideology in Nigeria where equity gap is prevalent. The aim of this study is to examine federal experiment in Nigeria and how the equity model can be utilized to restructure the nation. Scholars of federalism, however, have generally ignored a particularly significant and persistent problem of inequity. The view of the researcher converges around the dysfunction of the Nigerian federation, its remediation by a return to ideal federalism. The methodology applied is based on empirical exposition of equity theory as a catalyst for the practicability of federalism in Nigeria.