Who Needs a Federal Government in Nigeria?

By Nnaoke Ufere, PhD*

Here is the social contract we, as Nigerian citizens, entered into—a constitutional promissory note embedded in the 1999 Constitution (as amended):

We, the people, agreed to obey the law, to pay our share of taxes, to contribute to the common good, and to authorize the government to act in our collective interest.

We went further: we entrusted the government with the responsibility to manage our collective wealth—oil, gas, and minerals—an endowment that belongs to all of us, not to a ruling class.

That wealth was never meant to fuel corruption or privilege. It was meant to build schools and hospitals, to light our homes and pave our roads, to secure our nation and communities, pay our pensioners, and give every citizen a fair shot at a dignified life.

In return, the government pledged to protect our rights, uphold justice, defend our sovereignty, and manage our resource wealth with transparency and integrity. It promised to build an economy that serves all, not just the powerful. It vowed to serve us, not suppress us. It also assured us that our elections would be fair, free of manipulation, and that our votes would count accurately and be reflected promptly.

At the heart of the social contract is a simple truth: no public office is held by privilege or entitlement. Every official, from the president in Abuja to the local councillor in Aba, serves by the consent of us, the people. Their duty is to act as stewards of public trust, not as masters to rule over our lives.

That was the sacred social contract enshrined at the core of our constitution.

But every one of those promises has been broken. The government did not just fail to deliver its end of the bargain, it turned its back on the very people it swore to serve.

Yet we, the majority of Nigerians, have consistently upheld our end of the social contract. We obey the law, even when it is unevenly enforced or biased against us. We pay our taxes even when those taxes are squandered or stolen. We remain patriotic, even when the government fails to protect our rights or uphold our dignity. We vote, even when our votes are ignored, manipulated, or not counted. And we serve gallantly in the military, risking our lives to defend a country that gives us almost nothing in return.

1. In 2024 alone, we paid an estimated ₦19 trillion in taxes, excluding oil-related taxes as reported by the Federal Inland Revenue Service. We were taxed on income, on the businesses we built, on imported goods, on every product and service we consumed. And that figure does not even include the countless levies, fees, and charges imposed by federal, state, and local governments—costs that keep rising even as public services crumble around us.
2. In 2024, we generated ₦51 trillion from crude oil and gas, our collective natural resource endowment and our shared inheritance, yet only ₦10 trillion was remitted to the federal accounts by NNPC, according to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission. These resources belong to all Nigerians, as guaranteed by the Constitution, not to the government for unchecked use.
3. On top of this, according to data published by NiDCOM, our fellow citizens in the diaspora sent home over $21 billion (₦31.5 trillion) in remittances, supporting millions of families and propping up an economy that the government continues to mismanage without accountability.
4. And yet, the federal government borrowed even more on our behalf. Total public debt soared to nearly ₦145 trillion by the end of 2024, according to the Debt Management Office. In that year alone, the government borrowed ₦47 trillion. All of this debt is ours to repay. It is a mortgage placed on our future.

With this level of funding from taxes, oil revenues, remittances, and loans, one would expect the government to fulfill its end of the social contract. It did not. It has not.

Nowhere is this betrayal more evident than in the basic services we were forced to provide for ourselves. 

1. Electricity: In 2024 alone, we spent ₦33 trillion of our own money to generate electricity using generators and solar panels, according to data by the Energy Commission of Nigeria. After decades of broken promises, we built our own power solutions. We are our own Ministry of Power.
2. Water: We spent over ₦150 billion drilling boreholes, installing pumps, and covering maintenance costs in 2024 (UNICEF, African Mind Journal). With government systems failing, we became our own water board.
3. Security: We paid ₦2.3 trillion in ransom in 2024, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey, a figure that exceeds the federal defense budget but has been contested by some experts. This excludes the billions spent on private guards, vigilantes, and security equipment. We are our own security agency.
4. Bribery:  We were extorted between ₦200 billion and ₦360 billion in bribes by local police at traffic checkpoints and during everyday encounters in 2024 alone. (NBS, Afrobarometer Survey). We are our own EFCC.
5. Education: In 2024, Nigerians in the diaspora contributed an estimated ₦1.6 trillion (5% of remittances) to support their alma maters, community and religious schools with buildings, materials, and staff (African Mind Journal Diaspora Survey). This excludes local contributions. Meanwhile, we spent ₦1.26 trillion sending our children abroad for university, according to CBN and UNESCO estimates—students who could have studied at home if the federal government had invested adequately in strengthening the local education system. We are our own Ministry of Education.
6. Healthcare:  In 2024, we paid over ₦15 trillion out of pocket on healthcare (WHO, World Bank), one of the highest private health burdens globally. The federal government has failed to adequately fund the sector, while the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) remains largely dysfunctional, excluding most citizens and delivering little even to those it claims to cover. We are our own Ministry of Health.
7. Infrastructure: We spent an estimated ₦57 billion in 2024 to hire contractors for building and repairing roads in our local communities and villages (African Mind Journal, Nigerian Construction Industry reports, RAAMP-SU data). We are our own Ministry of Works.
8. Inflation: ₦30 trillion (estimate using NBS data) added to the cost of daily living for Nigeria’s 41 million households in 2024 due to inflation that rose 5.87 percentage points above 2023 levels. This spike affected food, transport, housing, school fees, utilities, and basic goods (NBS, expert analyses). We absorbed the full cost of policy failure.
9. At the same time, the government lost or looted vast sums: ₦15 trillion to oil theft (House of Reps Committee); ₦17 trillion on fully funded but abandoned projects with ₦100 billion lost in 2023/2024, according to report by Tracka/BudgeIT; and ₦27 trillion through public procurement corruption (Chatham House and Auditor-General’s Office).
10. Oil Theft: In 2024, oil theft drained an estimated ₦15 trillion from the economy—about 400,000 barrels per day, according to the House of Representatives Special Committee on Oil Theft and Losses.
11. Pensions: We even stepped in to support abandoned pensioners, donating to retirees left without their entitlements. Widespread corruption still plagues Nigeria’s pension system, with billions lost to fraud, ghost accounts, and systemic abuse, according to the ICPC and multiple investigations. We have become our own Pension Commission, filling the gap where the government failed.
12. Institutional Failure: Elections are rigged or dismissed, with INEC serving whichever party is in power. The courts sell justice to the highest bidder. Corrupt regulators allow fake and unsafe food and medicine to flood the market. The education system barely functions and produces graduates unprepared for the workforce.
13. Transport: We endure broken roads, overcrowded vehicles, and unreliable transportation systems because the government refuses to invest in safe and efficient public transport.
14. Environmental Degradation: Our farmlands and waters have been poisoned by decades of oil spills, gas flaring, and industrial waste. Fertile land is now toxic, livelihoods lost, and polluters go unpunished. Communities face food insecurity and rising cases of asthma, chronic bronchitis, and other respiratory illnesses.

Note: All figures cited are drawn from credible sources and expert estimates. While some are approximate, they accurately reflect the scale of government fraud, waste, and neglect. They show why Nigerians bear the full cost of governance—paying taxes, providing services, and making sacrifices—while receiving little in return, even in a ₦600 trillion economy. The Tinubu administration may try to dismiss them, but the evidence of mismanagement is overwhelming.

This reflects a deeper structural failure. We have a government that demands everything but delivers nothing. It regulates without protecting, taxes without serving, and claims legitimacy without representation. What remains is no longer a functioning democracy, but a predatory system built for control and extraction.

Why the Government Failed

The social contract collapsed under the weight of systemic corruption, failed leadership, structural imbalances, and the widespread ignorance and passivity of the Nigerian majority:

1. Leadership Failure: Successive leaders have prioritized personal power, patronage, and political survival over national development and our collective welfare.
2. Elite Extraction Coalitions: A small political and business elite controls access to our resources and power, sharing benefits among themselves while excluding the majority of us. This entrenches inequality and stifles reform.
3. Centralization of Power: Excessive concentration of authority at the federal level increases looting opportunity, undermines local governance, limits community agency, and disconnects leadership from our daily realities.
4. Control of Resources at the Center: Our natural resource revenues, especially oil, are controlled by the federal government, fueling rent-seeking behavior, weakening accountability, and creating dependency among states.
5. Corruption and Mismanagement: Public funds are routinely stolen, embezzled or wasted, depriving us of essential services like electricity, water, housing, roads, healthcare, and education.
6. Broken Institutions: Our judiciary, legislature, police, and civil service are chronically compromised or dysfunctional, failing to uphold justice, transparency, or service delivery. The rich operate above the law, answerable to no one but themselves.
7. Insecurity and Impunity: The government has failed to protect our lives and property, allowing insurgency, banditry, and police abuse to flourish without consequence.
8. Exclusion and Discrimination: Ethnic, regional, and religious favoritism in appointments and allocation of development projects deepens distrust and alienation among marginalized groups. Mediocrity is endemic.
9. Electoral Fraud and Voter Disenfranchisement: Rigged elections and vote suppression undermine democratic legitimacy and erode our faith in democracy and reinforce impunity. 
10. Economic Injustice: We, the people, shoulder heavy tax burdens yet are forced to provide our own water, electricity, healthcare, education, and security because the government has abdicated its basic responsibilities. The political and economic elites benefit from, and are content with, this broken arrangement.

Together, these failures have broken the foundational trust between us and the government, reducing governance to an extractive, transaction system rather than a service-oriented, people-centered relationship.

This raises a deeper question: if our taxes, oil revenues, and massive government borrowing do not translate into economic growth, security, healthcare, education, or justice, what legitimate claim does the government have to keep demanding them? What is the value of a social contract that offers no protection, no support, and no future?

At some point, we must confront the truth: what happens when a government keeps taking and gives nothing in return? What happens when citizens stop believing in the promise of their own nation? History gives us the answer.

The Consequences of a Broken Social Contract

History has shown that there are always consequences when the social contract is broken. Political philosophers have long warned of the dangers that follow. 

Political philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke argued that when the social contract is broken, government loses its legitimacy, and the people are no longer bound to obey. What follows is disorder, collapsing trust in institutions, and growing unrest. History has shown this path ends badly. It is not the path we want to take.

History offers clear warnings. In Somalia, state failure in the 1990s led to civil war, lawlessness, and humanitarian collapse. In Venezuela, looted oil revenues and economic mismanagement triggered hyperinflation, hunger, and mass exodus. Syria’s brutal repression and corruption ignited a civil war that destroyed cities and displaced millions.

We’ve seen the same in Yugoslavia, Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Soviet Union—where broken social contracts, inequality, and ethnic domination led to violent fragmentation and collapse.

Even in ancient Rome, rising inequality and political corruption eroded trust and broke the empire apart. In 18th-century France, elite excess and mass suffering sparked a revolution that swept away the monarchy.

Today, even established democracies like the UK show signs of strain, as austerity and rising inequality erode trust in institutions and fuel class divisions that are likely to deepen as the social contract continues to unravel.

The lesson is clear: when governments stop serving their people and break the bond of mutual responsibility, nations unravel. The consequences are real, lasting, and often irreversible.

Call to Action: The Tinubu Administration 

More than any administration in our history, Tinubu’s government has deepened public distrust, intensified economic hardship, and laid bare the collapse of the social contract between citizens and the state.

History shows that nations cannot survive under such strain. From Somalia to Venezuela, Syria to the Soviet Union, broken trust leads to unrest, economic collapse, or outright state failure.

Nigeria is not immune. Rising poverty, insecurity, joblessness, and calls for self-determination are not isolated—they are symptoms of a deeper national breakdown. Ignoring these signs risks pushing the country into irreversible crisis.

The Tinubu administration must act. It cannot continue to play politics while Nigerians suffer. This is a time for leadership, not excuses. The government must urgently implement the framework of Competitive Federalism, as detailed in my book Covenant With Nigerians: Reversing Our Nation’s Decline.

Restoring the social contract requires bold, honest, and people-centered governance. Anything less courts disaster.

Call to Action: The People

In a constitutional democracy, power belongs to the people, not those in office. We owe no loyalty to a system that fails us. What we owe is the courage to speak up, organize, and act. This government exists because we gave it power, and we have every right to take that power back.

It starts with unity. We must stand together around shared goals, speak against corruption, demand accountability, and reject leaders who serve only themselves. Tribe, religion, and region must not divide us, because unity is our greatest strength. And we must pursue our rights through peaceful, lawful action.

Where elections work, we vote. Where justice functions, we go to court. And when all institutions fail, we rise in peaceful resistance.

This is not a call to chaos. It is a call to justice. Those in power must be reminded that their authority is temporary, conditional, and revocable. If the government keeps breaking our trust, we have both the right and the duty to reject it.

Our struggle is not fueled by anger alone—it is driven by belief: in ourselves, our communities, and in the idea of a just Nigeria. That belief must carry us to the 2027 polls—united, informed, and ready to reclaim our future.

In 2027, we must elect leaders with character, courage, and true public spirit. Do not sell your vote or believe your voice doesn’t matter. Your vote is your power; use it wisely.

*About the author

Nnaoke Ufere is a leading voice in African public thought and policy. He writes a weekly opinion column for the African Mind Journal, where his work shapes national conversations on leadership, governance, and reform. A Harvard alumnus and PhD holder in Strategic Management from Case Western Reserve University, Ufere is an influential author, public intellectual, and global development analyst whose insights on U.S.-Africa relations and institutional accountability continue to challenge the status quo and inspire change.