Nigeria and the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development: Navigating Content, Context, Issues and Prospects

Abstract

This article examines the major provisions of the 2014 African Charter on the Values and Principles of Decentralisation, Local Governance and Local Development (hereafter the Charter) and the prognosis for the prospects of its actualisation in Nigeria. Specifically, it notes that if this Charter is viewed within the purview of the philosophical principles and values that undergird it, it seems novel. If it is domesticated and internalised by the Nigerian governing elites and their counterparts in other African countries, especially at the federal and local levels, it could be the springboard for ensuring development at grass-roots level. However, based on the evidence they gathered from the review of the country’s development history, the authors argue and submit that the objective of the Charter has a slim prospect of being realised in Nigeria, given the convoluted nature of the Nigerian federal state and the political environment that has sustained it. The article calls for the restructuring of the convoluted Nigerian federal system in order to allow peripheral governments to have more power and resources.