Nigeria’s shrinking window for structural change

For decades, Nigeria has debated restructuring as though it were an ideological preference rather than a structural question. History suggests that when governance structures consistently fail to convert diversity, resources, and population into shared prosperity, reform stops being optional. It becomes inevitable.

Across political systems and eras, multi-national or highly diverse states that resisted structural adjustment eventually confronted it: either deliberately or destructively. The lesson is not that countries must break apart, but that systems that cannot adapt peacefully often do so violently.

The former Soviet Union is instructive not because it collapsed, but because it postponed reform for too long. For nearly 70 years, the central authority suppressed economic and political autonomy across its republics. When restructuring finally arrived, it did so abruptly, producing 15 independent, and in many cases antagonistic, states. Yugoslavia followed a similar path: elite paralysis foreclosed gradual reform, leaving fragmentation to occur through war. In contrast, post-war Europe learned earlier that over-centralisation was incompatible with growth. Germany, Austria, and others rebuilt prosperity by aligning political authority more closely with economic responsibility.

Nigeria is not the USSR or Yugoslavia, but the structural warning is clear: persistent misalignment between power, responsibility, and accountability rarely resolves itself through leadership change alone.

Nigeria’s current structure concentrates political authority, fiscal control, and security responsibility at the centre, while outcomes, education, healthcare, policing, infrastructure, and employment are largely delivered (or fail) at subnational levels. This mismatch is at the heart of national dysfunction.

Despite being one of the world’s most resource-endowed countries, Nigeria exhibits outcomes that defy basic economic logic. Over 60 percent of states depend almost entirely on federal allocations to survive. Youth unemployment and underemployment remain staggeringly high. Energy poverty persists in a country rich in gas, oil, coal, and solar potential. These are not accidents of leadership cycles; they are symptoms of a system where incentives are misaligned and accountability is diluted.

Nigeria’s constitution assigns an unusually long list of functions, including policing, railways, ports, power transmission, and mineral resources, to the Exclusive Legislative List. The same constitution presides over a federation in name but a unitary logic in practice. The result is a centre overwhelmed by expectations it cannot meet, and states deprived of the authority required to innovate, compete, or fail productively.

Critics of restructuring raise an important objection: decentralisation does not automatically produce good governance. Corruption, elite capture, and incompetence exist at state and local levels as well. This critique is valid and incomplete.

Restructuring does not eliminate governance failure; it relocates responsibility closer to consequences. In centralised systems, failure is socialised and obscured. In decentralised systems, failure is more visible and politically costly. States that misgovern lose investment, talent, and legitimacy faster. Those who perform attract them. Over time, this competitive pressure matters.

The more uncomfortable truth is this: Nigeria already suffers from subnational corruption without subnational power. Decentralisation does not create new human weaknesses; it merely removes the insulation that currently protects them.

No major national transformation has occurred without elite agreement on first principles. China’s market reforms, India’s post-1991 liberalisation, and Singapore’s state-building project were all anchored in elite consensus before popular dividends followed.

Nigeria lacks this foundational alignment. Political elites remain divided not merely by interests but by incompatible visions of the state. Some reject modern education outright; others champion it. Some advocate market integration; others resist it. In the absence of consensus, policy oscillates, reforms stall, and crises deepen.

This is why leadership change alone has repeatedly disappointed. Leaders operate within systems they did not design and often cannot rewire alone.

The restructuring debate is often framed dishonestly as a choice between unity and disintegration. That framing ignores history. The real choice is between managed adaptation and unmanaged rupture.

Restructuring does not mean secession. It means renegotiating the distribution of powers, resources, and responsibilities to reflect Nigeria’s social complexity and economic realities. It means allowing states greater control over policing, taxation, and development priorities, while maintaining a strong federal centre for currency, defence, and national coordination.

The alternative is not stability. It is a prolonged drift: worsening inequality, rising insecurity, fiscal exhaustion, and deepening distrust between citizens and the state.

Demography adds urgency. Nigeria’s population is young, urbanising, and increasingly impatient. Systems that cannot provide opportunity at scale eventually lose legitimacy. When legitimacy erodes, even imperfect reforms become harder to implement peacefully.

History is unkind to societies that delay structural reform until crisis removes choice. Nature abhors vacuums. So do politics and economics.

Nigeria now faces a narrowing decision window. One path involves deliberate, negotiated restructuring, grounded in data, constitutional amendment, and elite consensus. The other involves continued centralisation until fiscal and social pressures force disorderly change.

No serious observer believes the current structure can indefinitely deliver prosperity, security, or cohesion. The only open question is whether Nigeria will choose reform or have it imposed by events.

Restructuring is not a slogan. It is a governance necessity whose time has arrived. The cost of delay will be higher than the cost of action.

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