THE POLITICS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT CREATION AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS IN NIGERIA: A CASE STUDY OF LAGOS STATE UNDER BOLA AHMED TINUBU, 1999–2007

Abstract

This study examines the politics of local government creation and intergovernmental relations in Nigeria, using Lagos State under Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu (1999–2007) as a case study. The creation of 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) by the Lagos State House of Assembly in 2003, without recourse to the constitutional procedure prescribed under Section 8 of the 1999 Constitution, triggered a protracted fiscal and legal confrontation with the Obasanjo federal administration, culminating in the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Attorney-General of Lagos State v. Attorney-General of the Federation (SC. 200/2004). Anchored on Fiscal Federalism Theory and the Cooperative Federalism framework, the study employs a quantitative case study design to analyse the fiscal, constitutional, and governance dimensions of this intergovernmental dispute. Findings reveal that LCDA creation was driven by demographic pressures, political calculations, and deliberate exploitation of constitutional ambiguity; that federal fiscal sanctions under Section 162(5), while judicially constrained, exposed the coercive architecture of Nigeria's revenue allocation system; and that Lagos State's Internally Generated Revenue grew from 34 per cent to 62 per cent of total state revenue between 2000 and 2007, demonstrating the viability of subnational fiscal resilience under federal coercion. The study concludes that the Lagos experience illuminates fundamental tensions between constitutional rigidity and subnational administrative innovation in Nigeria's federal system, and recommends constitutional amendment of Sections 8 and 162(5), upward revision of states' Federation Account share, and the establishment of a statutory Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations Commission.