Nigeria: Nigeria’s Faltering Federal Experiment

Nigeria’s federal system and politics are deeply flawed, contributing to rising violence that threatens to destabilise one of Africa’s leading countries, says a new Crisisgroup report. Failing to encourage genuine power sharing, they have sparked dangerous rivalries between the centre and the 36 states over revenue from the country’s oil and other natural resources; promoted no-holds-barred struggles between interests groups to capture the state and its attendant wealth; and facilitated the emergence of violent ethnic militias, while politicians play on and exacerbate inter-communal tensions to cover up their corruption.