Former Nigerian Ambassador, Godknows Igali, has delivered a blistering indictment of Nigeria‘s over-centralised system, warning that the country cannot achieve genuine development or secure its unity unless it dismantles the excessive concentration of political and economic power in Abuja.
Igali, speaking at a national dialogue staged by the Concerned Citizens Assembly, on the future of Nigeria, said the country’s founding fathers deliberately chose federalism because they understood that Nigeria’s enormous diversity could only thrive when its constituent parts had sufficient autonomy, resources and incentives to develop.
But, he argued, decades of military intervention progressively hollowed out that arrangement, leaving states increasingly dependent on the Federal Government and weakening the productive competition that once drove development across the regions.
“We must correct the damage of 1966,” Igali declared.
His message was blunt: Nigeria does not necessarily need to break apart; it needs to stop being run as though everything must pass through Abuja.
‘We destroyed what was working’
Igali recalled the era of regional government when the Western, Northern and Eastern regions competed to develop agriculture, education, industries and infrastructure from resources generated within their territories.
He said that system created powerful incentives for productivity because governments could not simply sit back and wait for monthly allocations from the centre.
“Where are the pyramids?” he asked, recalling the agricultural production that once characterised parts of Northern Nigeria.
For Igali, the disappearance of such symbols of productivity is evidence of a deeper structural problem.
He argued that Nigeria moved from a system that rewarded production to one that increasingly rewards access to federal revenue.
The result, he said, is a federation in which too many states are preoccupied with sharing money rather than creating wealth.
‘Nobody should wait for Abuja every month.’
Igali warned that the monthly allocation culture has weakened accountability and the incentive for states and local governments to develop sustainable economic bases.
“When everybody is waiting for national finance, people are not producing,” he said in substance, arguing that Nigeria must restore the connection between what governments generate and what they spend.
He challenged the states to identify their comparative advantages and rebuild productive economies around them.
According to him, federalism should not mean 36 governments competing for a share of money generated largely from the centre.
Rather, it should mean different parts of Nigeria developing their economies while contributing to the strength of the federation.
1966: The turning point
The former ambassador placed much of the blame for Nigeria’s present structural crisis on the military’s intervention in politics.
He argued that the military’s centralisation of authority fundamentally altered the federal balance negotiated by the founding fathers.
According to him, the answer is not to pretend that the current structure is working perfectly but to reopen the national conversation and examine how power, resources and responsibilities should be distributed.
“The 1979 Constitution tried to correct it. The 1999 Constitution has tried to correct it. Let the dialogue continue,” he said.
Igali backs state police
Igali also challenged the reluctance to decentralise policing, arguing that Nigeria must stop pretending that a single command structure can adequately manage the security realities of a country as vast and diverse as Nigeria.
He cited federal systems such as the United States, Germany, Switzerland and India, where policing and other responsibilities are distributed across different levels of government.
He maintained that Nigeria was not too primitive or divided to operate a decentralised security system.
“We are not that barbaric that we are going to kill each other,” he said, arguing that properly designed institutions and safeguards could make sub-national policing work.
‘Don’t dissolve Nigeria—make it work’
Igali also sought to dispel fears that restructuring automatically means dismantling Nigeria.
He said the debate should not begin with the question of whether the 36 states must disappear.
Rather, Nigerians should ask a more fundamental question: what structure will make the country work?
He pointed to countries with radically different federal arrangements, including Switzerland, Germany, India and the United States, to demonstrate that there is no single model of federalism.
The task, he said, is for Nigerians to determine the arrangement that best suits their own realities.
Local governments must become productive
The diplomat further demanded a rethink of the role of local governments.
He argued that councils should not exist merely to pay salaries and administer government programmes handed down from above.
Instead, they should become engines of grassroots development, providing infrastructure and basic services while participating meaningfully in local economic activity.
He urged Nigerians to examine successful local government systems around the world and adapt what works to the Nigerian environment.
‘Our differences should unite us’
Igali rejected the growing tendency to weaponise ethnicity, religion and regional identity in national politics.
He argued that Nigeria’s diversity should provide the foundation for dialogue rather than division.
“We must not separate ourselves under ethnicity. We must not separate ourselves under religion. Those lines should be a basis for discussion,” he said.
He insisted that the country’s founding fathers faced equally serious differences but chose negotiation over disintegration.
According to him, their example remains relevant to Nigeria today.
‘The people must talk’
Igali also challenged the idea that constitutional reform should be left entirely to politicians.
While acknowledging the role of the National Assembly, he insisted that Nigerians themselves must remain central to the debate.
“The people must talk. National Assembly can be there, but the people must talk,” he said.
He therefore commended the organisers for creating a platform where citizens and leaders from different parts of the country could debate the future of the federation.
‘This is the country we have’
Despite his hard-hitting criticism, Igali ended on a deeply patriotic note.
He said restructuring should not be interpreted as an attack on Nigeria but as an attempt to rescue its promise.
“Some of us, by choice, don’t have our own country, and this is the country we have. It is the country of our parents, it is the country of our children, and we will continue to work hard for the future of this country,” he said.
For Igali, the choice before Nigeria is therefore stark: continue with a system that concentrates too much power and resources at the centre, or return to the principles of genuine federalism, productivity and negotiated coexistence that once gave the country’s regions the incentive to build.
His warning was unmistakable: Nigeria’s unity cannot be sustained by centralisation alone; it must be earned through a federation in which every part of the country has a reason to believe, produce and prosper.
