Fiscal Federalism and Social Policy in Nigeria: A Contextual Review and Evaluation

Abstract

Attempt was made in this paper to further explore how the institutional and historical developments of fiscal federalism have shaped social policy-framing in Nigeria; a federal country where territorial contestation over fiscal redistribution was particularly strong, and a situation accounted for by the geographic concentration of ever-important oil resources. Utilizing institutionalist perspective, the paper noted that vertical fiscal-redistribution (i.e., the constitutional imperatives on how the federal government tackles regional inequality through transfers to sub-national units), shaped fiscal federalism in Nigeria. In the context of fiscal redistribution, Nigeria particularly, presented instructive illustrations in evaluating the role of fiscal federalism on social policy discourse and practice. In utilizing much of historical institutionalist analysis of fiscal federalism in Nigeria, the paper demonstrated that distinct constitutional responsibility was accorded to the roles of local governments as the 3^rd tier of government in the context of Federalism. However, contextual analyses of the fiscal side of the federal, and social policy nexus, continued to show incongruous relations and residual dimensions between fiscal distribution and social policy provisioning at sub-national levels, in Nigeria.