As he commenced the filling of his Joint Admissions and Matriculation Examination (JAMB) form, preparatory to the pursuit of his university education, his father asked him which course he intended studying. When he responded that he desired the pursuit of law, his dad expressed the view that the profession could land him an eternal destiny in hell. His explanation that he intended to practice law only as a stepping stone to proceeding to the bench as a judge did not make matters better, as his father cited judges who claimed their hands ‘were tied’ before pronouncing weighty political judgements!
“After a long argument, I agreed with my dad and, without bathing a breath, changed the course choice from Law to Political Science, to avoid hellfire, according to my dad! Vice-Chancellor, sir, that was how I became a student of Political Science and pressed on until I attained the zenith of my career, even though such an argument from an unlettered father could not dissuade my youngest son from reading Law. Thus, there are Political Scientists who came about or rather into Political Science, by accident, and I am one of them!”
This ‘accidental political scientist’ who is now one of the leading scholars in the discipline in Nigeria is none other than Professor Emmanuel Olugbade Ojo, who delivered the Inaugural Lecture from the Department of Political Science, University of Ilorin, on 16th October, 2025. The specialist in federalism, comparative politics and area studies, with a specific focus on Nigeria, enigmatically titled the lecture “The Worship of an Unknown Deity”.
In his words, “Meanwhile, my first love has always been federalism, to which I devoted my doctoral thesis, with a conclusion that, much as we have adopted federalism, with its classical foundation laid as far back as 1954, by the Lyttleton Constitution, Nigeria keeps on groping in the dark by worshipping an unknown deity”. There is no doubt that the adoption of a federal structure well adapted to the plural character of the Nigerian society as well as the proper institutionalisation of federalist practices compatible with federal culture and ethos has been a central problem of constitutional governance in post-colonial Nigeria.
This is most likely why Professor Ojo likens the adaptation of the federal solution to governance and administration in Nigeria for the better part of the post-independence period as akin to ‘groping in the dark’ and the ‘worship of an unknown deity’. The lecturer clinically depicts federalism as a constitutional arrangement and governance structure that combines partial shared government with self-government by constituent sub-national units. He captures the contours of the federal structure of Nigerian society when he notes that the polity is deeply divided, plural and segmented and comprises over 450 ethnic groups.
The intensity of contention and conflict within Nigeria’s federal polity is made more acute, he avers, by the fact that, almost by definition, the component ethnic groups compete for the control and distribution of the scarce strategic resources of the society. In Professor Ojo’s analysis, it becomes clear that the idea that there is an ideal-type form of federalism to which every federal polity must conform to qualify as federal is a mistaken notion. It is this kind of perspective that informs the call in some quarters for Nigeria’s adherence by Nigeria to ‘true federalism ‘, thereby creating the impression that there is a uniform design that characterizes all federations.
He conceptualises federalism as a continually evolving political reality and federal policy as a process rather than a specific design or pattern of competencies or jurisdiction. In particular, he depicts federalism in America as offering a continuous interaction of conflicts, consensus and resources. Even then, Professor Ojo is clear, and unambiguous in his articulation of what a minimally meaningful, concrete and acceptable federal practice in Nigeria should be. According to him, “In a federation, the component units are the states or regions, where the centre is saddled with fewer responsibilities that could possibly be discharged as effectively as the component units; then it needs to shed some weights and transfer resources to the states for them to take on those responsibilities efficiently, more so having taken charge of solid mineral resources in their respective domains”.
The lecturer attributes the travails of federalism in Nigeria to the reality that the polity is the embodiment of an entity with a federal constitution to some extent but non-federal practice in all ramifications because, in his view, the average Nigerian “completely lacks the federal spirit to drive the system”. The absence of the federal spirit is evident, he explains, in such factors as weak or soft state with limited enforcement of rules or laws; the elevation of consideration of money, kinship sentiment and favour of superiors over duly stipulated procedures and processed as well as over-centralisation, which is antithetical to the essential canons of federalism.
Another central reason why the search for positive and constructive federal practice is comparable to the worship of an unknown deity in Nigeria is what the lecturer describes as the problematic nature of citizenship in Nigeria, which undermines the efficacy of the country’s federal architecture. He contends emphatically that the concept of indegenship in several instances contradicts and devalues the quality and texture of citizenship in the supposedly federal polity. In this regard, he cites as an example the undisguised discrimination against non-indigenes in federal tertiary institutions.
He observes tellingly that children of non-indigene civil servants resident in other states pay higher school fees for their children in state-owned tertiary institutions “because they are tagged non-indigenes in spite of the fact that they pay their taxes and other levies to their states of domicile”. In the same vein, he asserts that it is difficult to find a person of southern extraction serving as a Vice-Chancellor in any University in the far North and vice versa. Thus, Professor Ola submits that “A system like Nigeria where the state cannot effectively tackle the problem of citizenship negates the tenets of federalism. Laski’s view is indeed apt here. He states that: “A must give to men their dues as men before it can demand, at least with justice, their loyalty.”
Other flawed elements of federal practice in Nigeria that constitute travails to functional constitutionalism, as identified by the lecturer, include the warped dynamics of fiscal federalism, religious biases, tensions and conflicts, as well as recurrent frictions and fractures among ethnic groups due largely to a defective national outlook. The lecturer interrogates exhaustively the demands for restructuring in Nigeria exhaustively, clearly delineating different strands of the debate, including the six geographical or administrative zones serving as federating units with full control of their natural resources; the present 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) serving as the foundation of the federal system; suggested moves in the direction of confederalism or the advocacy for secession by disaffected components of the Federation.
In his words, “Restructuring, therefore, represents a continuous correction, adjustment and reconfiguration process by which the federal system works and reworks its instrumentalities; this is to guarantee success and efficiencies of federalism. Osaghae infers that the federal instrumentalities of governance are expected to respond to ‘changing dynamics, demands and stimuli, which change in consonance with changed imperatives.”
Professor Ojo posits that “Meanwhile, the purest, ‘ideal-typical’ way to escape the conceptual pull from federalism on the one side and confederalism on the other is to vest the power to alter the federal system in a third, separate entity so that any relation of hierarchy between different policy levels is avoided”.
He avers that “In other words, we claim that a tripartite structure offers the best institutional translation of the idea of federalism… Nevertheless, in practical reality, tripartite federalism is recognition of three distinct tiers of government, namely: federal, state, and local governments. Any federal arrangement that does this will definitely enjoy three major advantages, viz (1) minority groups enjoying better recognition, (ii) the system becomes more efficient, and (iii) it promotes democracy, most especially at the grassroots level. The tripartite federal model, therefore, appears to be the most suitable for Nigeria’s level of development and desire for fast development…The current state of administrative inertia in virtually all the local government areas in the country is uncalled for.”