FOUNDATIONS OF NIGERIA FEDERALISM (PRE-COLONIAL ANTECEDENTS) 2001 VOLUME 1

Since her political independence in 1960, Nigeria has experienced fundamental changes, even instability, in operating and adjusting the federal form of government inherit from British Colonial authorities. Federalism is a mechanism for managing conflict through power sharing arrangements between two types of self-determination – national and subnational. Given a structurally unbalanced Nigerian Federation inherited at independence, many Nigerian groups complained about the pattern of compromises effected as it affected them, and the advantages derivable from the system. Attempts at effecting adequate adjustment of the federal pendulum by Nigerian groups which were suspicious of one another led by the “Biafra” section of 1967-70- an example of extreme centrifugalism in the Nigeria federation. These and the current search for an ‘Enduring’ political arrangement challenged the defunct National Council on Inter-governmental Relations (NCIR) to, in line with its mission and mandate, conduct Research into the Foundations of Nigerian Federalism.