Twenty-seven years into unbroken democracy, Nigeria’s federal structure remains our best tool for managing diversity and delivering development. But federalism is neither a contest between Abuja and the sub-nationals, nor is it a zero-sum competition for relevance. It is a covenant, an agreement to work together – keep some powers and grant some others to the central government for proper coordination.
The principle of federalism, as articulated by constitutional scholars like A.V. Dicey and K.C. Wheare, rests on three pillars: devolution of powers, supremacy of the constitution, and non-centralisation.
In Nigeria, this division of power plays out through the Exclusive, Concurrent and Residual Lists. Defence, immigration, currency and foreign policy, among others, reside with the centre while education, health, land and local roads lie with states and Local Government Councils.
Many will argue that Nigeria is over-centralised, that the centre in Abuja has excessive powers. This may be difficult to disprove. Yet, devolution of power is not division of purpose. When the centre and sub-nationals work at cross-purposes, citizens pay the price. When they collaborate and align, real development can occur. Alignment does not mean surrender of autonomy. It is the exercise of joint responsibility so that the roads can be well paved, schools can be built and stocked with learning materials, and society generally can be better.
The days when a state government would not touch a project by the central government because of different party affiliation – as was the case in some states during the Second Republic – should be gone for good.
The significance of collaboration, strategic partnership and alignment between the centre and states came into sharp focus last week during the Renewed Hope Ambassadors’ National Media Tour of Legacy Projects undertaken by the Federal and State Governments in the South East. The tour, which took the team to Ebonyi, Enugu and Abia States, was instructive, particularly with respect to the gains of centre-states collaboration and alignment.
Three of the many landmark projects the team inspected during the South East tour illustrate the importance of strategic partnership between the centre and the sub-nationals.
In Enugu State, for instance, the President Bola Tinubu administration, under the Renewed Hope Agenda on road infrastructure, embarked on a 23-span flyover bridge project at Eke Obinagu Junction along the ever-busy Enugu-Abakaliki Expressway to eliminate traffic gridlock at the junction. That ongoing project with a 345-metre bridge length and 1.05 kilometres (dual service road) cost N25.3billion. To complement and align with the Tinubu government on the project, Enugu State is dualising the 21.5-kilometre part of the Enugu-Abakaliki Highway and constructing five bridges.
It is also instructive to note that the flyover bridge project by the Tinubu administration and the dualization of the same Abakaliki-Enugu highway were the triggers for Ebonyi State Governor Francis Nwifuru’s decision to construct the Ezillo-Ezzaegu road. This construction takes off from the Abakaliki-Enugu dual carriageway in Ishielu Local Government and has opened up four rural communities.
In Abia State, a slightly different but no less remarkable story of alignment abounds. The 50-kilometre Umuahia-Ohafia road cutting through Bende is a Federal Government Road. While the Tinubu administration was constructing the road, Abia State Governor Alex Otti decisively intervened by providing an imposing bridge across the Asaga area in Ohafia to strengthen the road further. The new bridge replaces the old Omenuko Bridge, where, in 1985, popular Reverend Uma Ukpai (who passed away on October 6, 2025, at age 80) lost two of his children and a cousin. They were travelling to attend a Christian crusade but accidentally drove into the river abutting the bridge.
It also emerged during the tour that President Tinubu has graciously approved the concessioning of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport, the first of its kind to be so concessioned. Incidentally, the concessioning documents were signed in Abuja by the Minister of Aviation, Mr Festus Keyamo, and the concessionaire on the day we went round the already-abandoned international wing of the Enugu airport. The presidential gesture is aimed at reviving the international wing of the airport built by former Minister of Aviation Stella Oduah during the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan. The imposing edifice has literally been moribund since then.
We inspected many projects in the three states mentioned earlier. Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu has been very intentional with the projects he is putting in place under a broad vision, where one project logically connects to another to create a modern, efficient and prosperous Enugu.
The team inspected the 40-kilometre Owo-Ubahu-Amankanu-Umualor-Ikem dual carriageway, a virgin road created by cutting through forested areas; the New Enugu City, a 10,000-hectare smart city conceived to decongest Enugu metropolis with a dual carriage road infrastructure already in place; the modern Enugu International Hospital; tractor assembly and service plant; Smart Green School GTC Campus I; and the Command and Control Centre where movement and security within the entire Enugu city and its forests are monitored via AI-embedded cameras to nip crime in the bud.
Governor Nwifuru has turned the entire Ebonyi State into a huge construction yard with ongoing projects like the iconic Vanco Junction Flyover/Tunnel Bridge, ICT University, Oferekpe in Izzi LGA, the Aeronautic and Aerospace University in Ezza South LGA, Amanze Housing Estate, the 24-kilometre Umuogudu Oshia-NIGERCEM road, and the International Trade Centre that has been redeveloped into a 182-bed international hotel, among others.
Abia State is no different in terms of the infrastructure and legacy projects. Among the projects inspected in the State were the strategic 67.6-kilometre Umuahia–Uzuakoli–Akara–Ohafia Road, a major transportation corridor linking several communities across the state; Ohafia–Umuahia Federal Road; the newly-commissioned Nnenna Oti Bus Terminal in Umuahia, a modern transportation hub designed to transform public transportation in Abia State; and the Renewed Hope Housing Estate in Umuahia, a flagship Federal Housing Authority project comprising 1,200 housing units. That initiative represents one of the largest housing development schemes under President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Housing Programme. The Abia State Government provided the land and paid compensation to affected landowners, while the Federal Housing Authority is undertaking the construction.
What all the highlighted projects have shown is the fact that Nigerians do not experience “federalism.” They experience roads, hospitals, schools and markets. A federal highway that stops at a state border, or a Primary Health Centre without drugs, helps no one. The Universal Basic Education Act requires states to provide counterpart funding. Where states align or provide matching funds, classrooms appear. Where they don’t, federal allocations lie unused.
Terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and climate displacement do not respect state boundaries. The Nigerian Armed Forces can degrade terrorist command centres, but sustainable peace requires state intelligence, community policing and local reintegration programmes like Operation Safe Corridor. No one level of government can secure Nigeria alone.
Even on the economy, the investors will see “Nigeria,” not “Rivers or Lagos State.” Conflicting taxes, permits and regulations raise the cost of doing business. That is why the Tinubu government has reformed the tax system, collapsing the multiple taxes and eliminating several outdated ones.
That is why alignment through PEBEC and state Ease of Doing Business reforms has helped push non-oil exports to $12.8 billion, a 21% increase.
Misalignment produces duplication, abandoned projects, court battles and “us-versus-them” politics. It turns policy into confusion and budgets into waste.
In a federal system, the distance between policy and people is closed by coordination –or widened by its absence.
Federalism does not ask Abuja to do everything, nor does it ask states to do nothing. It asks each tier to do what it does best – together.
*Rahman is Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on Media & Special Duties.
