Problems of Ethnicity in Nigeria Federal System of Government (Term Paper Sample)

Problems of Ethnicity in Nigeria Federal System of Government
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Problems of Ethnicity in Nigeria Federal System of Government
A complex connection of centrifugal and centripetal political forces characterizes the associations of the Nigerian system's confederating ethnic components, resulting in never-ending trends of discontent and internal conflicts. Nigeria's federalism envisaged a perfect balance in political governance and resource distribution at its initial formation. Unfortunately, this dream has never come true. Instead, evolving systems of the federal arrangement have resulted in bouts of politico-economic marginalization and economic expropriation with the challenges of corruption, poverty, unemployment, and insecurity persisting in the country. The current system has overly consolidated the central government's administrative and resource distribution powers. Part of the society remains contented with this state of affairs, demanding even increased consolidation of powers. Conversely, others contend against this trend, demanding an even distribution for an equal society. The origins of these problems lie in the over-centralization of the states’ politico-economic powers and imbalanced territorial structures, with potential solutions existing in genuine political and economic decentralization.
The most prominent challenge of the Nigerian Federal system of governance is the over-centralization of politico-economic powers resulting in marginalization and economic expropriation. Despite devolved states, Nigeria's Federal Government has retained authority over key political and economic decisions (Akinrinde et al., 2020). Over time, the benefits devolved systems gain from natural resources have also been reduced progressively to leave the communities with minimal or no significant gains. Uchendu (2021)'s analysis noted the case of reduced mining rents and royalties to devolved states since 1950. In 1950, the federal government allowed 100 percent revenue allocation of the royalties to the states. Several changes over time lowered the limits to 50%, 45%, 20%, 1.5%, and 3% in 1960, 1970, 1975, 1982, and 1992 respectively. Osha (2021) explained that