ABSTRACT
Nigeria, as the only well-established federation in Africa, has attracted an abundance of academic study. Its historical development has been traced in many works, such as Mackintosh (1966) and Panter-Brick (1978). The late K. Ezera (1961) wrote a classic study of colonial and independence developments and J. S. Coleman (1958) is the acknowledged authority for the pre-independence period. E. O. Awa (1964) also produced an authoritative study of the operation of Nigerian Federal Government, while legal aspects of Nigeria’s federal balance have been exhaustively analysed by B. O. Nwabueze (1983). The financial aspects have been dealt with by Adedeji (1969) and more recently by S. E. Oyovbaire (1985). It is the purpose of this chapter to develop at a deeper level the themes introduced in an earlier work by this author (Dent, 1989) in order to show the unique characteristics of Nigerian federalism and the place it occupies in the global pattern of federal systems. This chapter takes up four themes: the problem of partitioning; the effects of the doctrine of federal character; cooperative federalism; and the attempt to create an autonomous third arm of federalism in elected local government councils and directly elected local government chairmen.
