Challenges of Nigeria’s federalism in comparison with the United States of America

Abstract

This paper investigates the challenges of Nigeria’s federalism in comparison with that of the United States of America. Federalism to both Nations can explicitly be referred to as the devolution of powers from the center to the component units. While federalism can be traced back to the pre-independent Nigeria of 1914, it is more pronounced by Governor General Bourdillon in 1939 when the three provinces were created. Meanwhile, the United States of America is among the oldest federalism in the world. For the purpose of this study, the two Federations were compared alongside each other by adopting the secondary sources of data. The paper explicitly shows that both Nations seemingly have a lot of fascinating resemblance in terms of their core and peripheral representations. Each country with its peculiarity, but the semblance of indigene-settler dichotomy is a common problem to both Nations. For Nigeria, the indigene-settler dichotomy is a highly volatile issue, just like the black American-white/native American segregation that threatens national integration and unity of the United States of America, and both factors affect the operation of federalism and the attainment of national cohesion in multi-ethnic Countries. Constitutionally, both Countries gave an explicit explanation on who is a citizen and what makes one a citizen, but no further classifications of “indigeneity.” Discriminatory treatments are consistently meted out to “non-indigenes,” where they often denied certain privileges that ought to be accessible to all citizens. Given the above submissions, there is no doubt that these crises are deeply rooted in historical and socio-political underpinnings and are probably the most sensitive subject in both nations' public life and contributed to a circle of violence that often distorts National security. As such, if not resolved, it can threaten the very social fabric of both countries.