Issues on Development Administration

WHY NIGERIA NEEDS AWOISM MORE THAN EVER

_Olusegun Ogundipe_

Across Nigeria's restless social and political landscape, few names are uttered with as much reverence as that of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. In Yorubaland and among progressive circles nationwide, he is the "sage," the "architect of modern Western Nigeria", "the best president Nigeria never had", a figure draped in glowing adjectives. Yet, this profound admiration presents a striking paradox. While his name is eulogized, the core ideas he championed—collectively known as Awoism—often seem relegated to history books and ceremonial speeches, lacking the passionate continuity his legacy deserves. Awoism is more than a personality cult; it is a coherent political philosophy centered on a progressive, welfare-based state, true federalism, and multicultural cohesion. It is not in the wearing of "Awo" cap and eye glasses. The pressing question for today’s discourse is: Why do we celebrate the man but hesitate to implement his blueprint for national development?

*_Progressivism: The State as an Engine of Renewal_*

At the heart of *Awoism* is an active, interventionist concept of Progressivism. For Awolowo, governance was not a passive exercise but a deliberate, constant mission to renew societal infrastructure and expand human possibilities. He viewed the nation-state’s fundamental purpose as making life “easy and meaningful” for its people. This was not abstract theory. As Premier of the Western Region, he operationalized this through massive investments in infrastructure—the first television station in Africa, stadiums, housing estates, and industrial projects. But his most revolutionary progressive act was the investment in human capital: free primary education and subsidized healthcare.

In today’s context, discussing Awoist progressivism moves beyond simply building roads. It challenges us to ask: Where is our deliberate, state-driven push for 21st-century infrastructure—reliable power, digital connectivity, and sustainable transport? More critically, where is the unwavering commitment to renewing the Nigerian mind through accessible, quality education at all levels? The discourse shifts from praising Awo’s past schools to demanding a modern, progressive state that sees public investment in technology and education not as expense, but as the very "essence" of its existence. On social media, we debate banditry and poverty; Awoism would insist we debate the systemic lack of progressive state action that creates the conditions for them.

*_The Welfare-Based State: Dignity as a Right_*

Closely linked to this is the principle of the Welfare-Based State. Awoism posits that the state has a solemn duty to protect the health and well-being of its citizens, providing a social safety net through grants, pensions, and benefits. This was radical in a colonial and post-colonial context that prioritized extraction over care. Awolowo’s free education scheme was the ultimate welfare policy, a grant of knowledge and opportunity that lifted millions from potential destitution. His health policies aimed to make basic care a public good. The concept of Afenifere clearly defines the welfare component of Awoism.

Today, as we scroll through timelines filled with heartbreaking calls for crowd-funded medical bills and school fees, the absence of a functional welfare state is glaring. Discussing Awoism now means confronting our collective acceptance of a system where individual citizens bear crushing, often fatal, financial burdens for essentials. It forces a debate: Can Nigeria truly be great when its citizens live in perpetual anxiety over health, education, and old age? Championing Awo today means advocating for institutionalized social security, universal basic healthcare, and substantive support for the vulnerable—moving from charitable hashtags to demanding systemic, state-backed dignity.

*_True Federalism: The Architecture of Unity in Diversity_*

Perhaps the most critical and currently relevant pillar is True Federalism. Awolowo’s model was based on organizing federating units around distinct ethnic and cultural identities, granting them "complete control" over local affairs: education, policing, agriculture, resources, and culture. The central government would handle truly national matters like defense and foreign policy. This was not a call for division, but for a pragmatic structure where governance is closer to the people, leveraging local knowledge and priorities. It rested on the idea of equal partnership, where no unit dominates another.

This is the frontier of Nigeria’s most heated social media debates. The calls for "restructuring" are, in essence, calls for Awoist true federalism. We argue over regional security outfits like Amotekun, over resource control, and over marginalization because the overbearing, centralized system is failing. Awoism provides a clear framework: let each state or region develop at its own pace, harness its own resources, and manage its own police force. The passionate online advocate for state police is, often unknowingly, advocating for Awoism. The discourse needs to evolve from merely identifying the problem of centralization to concretely discussing the Awoist model—a federation of strong, autonomous, and competitive regions united by a lean, efficient central authority.

*_From Eulogy to Action_*

The disconnect between the verbal deification of Awolowo and the neglect of his ideas is a metaphor for Nigeria’s struggle with legacy and implementation. We love the hero but abandon his manual. Awoism offers a timeless, yet urgently modern, framework to tackle Nigeria’s foundational crises: a weak social contract, infrastructural decay, and a suffocating unitary system disguised as federalism.

Therefore, the challenge for this generation, especially in the vibrant agora of social media, is to shift the discussion. Let’s move beyond simply posting Awo’s quotes or pictures. Let’s dissect, adapt, and demand the principles of Progressivism, the Welfare State, and True Federalism. Let’s tag our discourse with and use these ideas as a litmus test for policies and politicians. The true tribute to the sage is not in the adjectives we use, but in the courage to revive and pursue the transformative ideas that made him worthy of praise in the first place. The blueprint exists. The question is, do we have the will to build from it?

How Northern Nigerian Elites Cultivated Religious Fundamentalism to Preserve Power.

Olusegun Ogundipe

The political and social landscape of Northern Nigeria remains one of Africa’s most consequential paradoxes: a region endowed with immense human and natural potential, yet perennially plagued by underdevelopment, systemic inequality, and the violent rise of Islamic fundamentalism. A common, though often oversimplified, narrative attributes these challenges solely to colonial legacy or inherent cultural conservatism. However, a deeper historical excavation reveals a more deliberate and strategic origin. The truth is that the entrenched feudal-aristocratic elite, predominantly of Fulani extraction, consciously fostered a society of religious orthodoxy and educational deprivation as a mechanism of political control. This was not a passive outcome but an active project—a choice to prioritize hegemony over human capital, ensuring that the populace remained amenable to traditional authority and insulated from the emancipatory ideas of sweeping the rest of Nigeria and the world. The fierce resistance to Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s revolutionary free education policy in the First Republic stands not as an isolated policy dispute, but as the emblematic battle in this war for the Northern mind.

The Foundation of Control: Sokoto Caliphate Legacies and Colonial Complicity

The blueprint for this system predates Nigerian independence.The 19th-century Sokoto Caliphate established a theocratic state where political and religious authority were fused, and social stratification was rigidly enforced. The British colonial policy of Indirect Rule crucially preserved and calcified this structure, governing through the Fulani aristocracy (the Masu Sarauta). This partnership ensured elite dominance in exchange for administrative stability and tax collection. Consequently, Western education, seen as a corrosive force to traditional and religious authority, was deliberately limited, with colonial authorities acquiescing to elite preferences. The famed Boko (Hausa for "Western education") was stigmatized as not only foreign but haram (forbidden), a narrative powerfully wielded by the elite. Thus, at independence, the Northern Region inherited a political class whose legitimacy was intrinsically tied to the preservation of a static, religiously-defined social order.

The First Republic and the Battle for the Northern Mind

The dawn of competitive party politics in the 1960s presented an existential threat to this order.The charismatic and progressive Premier of the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, championed universal free primary education, seeing it as the engine of social mobility and modern statehood. His Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC) counterpart, the Sardauna of Sokoto Sir Ahmadu Bello, perceived it as political and cultural poison. Awolowo’s ideas, if allowed to permeate the North, threatened to awaken a new class of literate youth who might question the status quo. The Northern elite’s preoccupation was, therefore, not development in the modern sense, but the containment of Southern political and ideological influence. This was framed as a holy struggle—a defense of Northern religion and tradition against infidel incursion. The elite expended tremendous energy not in building schools to rival Awolowo’s, but in ensuring his message was barred at the regional border, legislating a form of intellectual quarantine.

Prioritizing the Barracks over the School

This defensive strategy had a proactive corollary: the deliberate cultivation of the military over the educational capital. While the South, particularly the East and West, invested in producing graduates, clerks, and technicians, the Northern elite, with the tacit understanding of the colonial and early independent army leadership, ensured a disproportionate number of Northerners were recruited into the army. This was a calculated, long-term strategic move. An army career offered prestige, income, and loyalty to the state (and by extension, to the traditional rulers who were seen as its custodians), without exposing the individual to the liberating, questioning nature of broad liberal education. The soldier was to be disciplined and obedient; the educated citizen, inquisitive and demanding. By filling the ranks with Northerners, the elite secured a critical pillar of state power, a buffer against internal dissent and Southern political pressure. The tragic culmination of this policy was the coups and counter-coups of the 1960s, where a politicized military, fractured along regional lines, plunged the nation into civil war.

The Faustian Bargain: Manufacturing a "Religious Haven"

Having stiffed secular, state-driven development, the elite needed an alternative source of social cohesion and legitimacy. This they found in promoting the region as a "religious haven." Investment was diverted from industrial parks to mosque complexes; state patronage flowed to Islamic scholars (Ulama) who upheld the ruling ideology, while dissenting voices like the reformist Yan Izala were initially suppressed or co-opted. Sharia courts were expanded, and religious identity became the primary marker of citizenship and favor. This created a fertile territory for fundamentalism in two key ways. First, it created a vast population with deep religious piety but limited critical educational tools to contextualize or challenge extremist interpretations of faith. Second, it established a societal model where political grievances could only be legitimately expressed in religious terms. When the state failed—economically, socially, security-wise—the only coherent, alternative framework for resistance was a more "pure" and often militant form of Islam, positioned against the allegedly corrupt and compromising establishment.

The Reckoning: From Manufactured Backwardness to Modern Crisis

The chickens of this decades-long strategy have now come home to roost.The neglected, uneducated masses have become the recruiting ground for Boko Haram—a group whose very name denounces Western education as sinful and which directly challenges the state’s authority. The Almajiri system, a product of educational neglect, provides a perpetual stream of disenfranchised youth. The national quota system, initially designed to boost Northern representation, often papers over the region’s profound developmental deficits without solving them. The elite’s bargain has ultimately spawned forces they can no longer fully control, as fundamentalism turns against its erstwhile patrons in a bid to establish a puritanical state that would sweep away the very aristocratic class that nurtured its preconditions.

The underdevelopment and fundamentalist violence in Northern Nigeria are not historical accidents. They are, in significant part, the legacy of a deliberate political strategy employed by a hereditary elite to maintain power in a changing world. By choosing to fight free education, promote military enlistment over scholarly pursuit, and substitute industrial policy with religious patronage, they mortgaged the region’s future for their own preservation. The result is a society grappling with the consequences of a talent pool systematically underdeveloped, an economy chronically dependent, and a polity where violent religious extremism has become the twisted offspring of a calculated project of control. The path forward requires not just counter-terrorism, but a profound, courageous reckoning with this history and a genuine, unconditional investment in the human mind that was for so long the North’s most feared and forbidden resource............
Convener, Nigerian Alliance for Development and Leadership

Nigeria's systemic corruption is deeply rooted in a physical and administrative environment of profound disorder. From chaotic urban layouts to haphazard infrastructure, this pervasive mismanagement creates systemic inefficiencies where unethical practices can flourish unchecked. This disarray directly fuels social instability, as the lack of order and opportunity in the built environment allows criminality to entrench itself in neglected communities, undermining public safety and eroding trust in governance.

Exploiting this confusion, the political class often perpetuates chaos as a tool for control. A stark example is the politicization of commercial driver unions, which are permitted to impose illegal levies with impunity. While law enforcement is marginalized, these unions generate substantial unregulated revenue, entrenching a culture of corruption and fear. This cycle institutionalizes corruption as a normal part of urban life, exposing profound institutional weaknesses where governance is crippled by political interference.

This lawlessness has comprehensively engulfed the civil service, where town planning regulations and building codes are routinely violated. The erosion of professionalism and integrity has debased public institutions, transforming them from societal pillars into compromised entities. Consequently, the social contract between the state and its citizens is severely broken, with respect for governance becoming a fragile illusion.

Breaking this cycle, where disorder breeds corruption and corruption deepens disorder, requires a fundamental reinvigoration of social values and political will. Effective reform must go beyond policy to strengthen institutional integrity, enforce accountability, and restore public trust through transparent and ethical governance at all levels.

REVITALIZING RURAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRADITIONAL LEADERSHIP IN NIGERIA

Olusegun Ogundipe

Two problems face us in Nigeria in our development stride: how to develop the rural areas and how to redefine the roles of traditional rulers. For the country to solve its myriad problems including insecurity and to grow sustainably, it needs new strategies for the rural development and expand the roles of the local leadership wisely. These challenges are connected and must be addressed together to create plans that truly help people living outside the cities.

Rural development in Nigeria has been slow, with many rural areas left behind compared to urban centers. To change this, the government should focus on empowering rural people both economically and socially. One way to do this is by decentralizing power, allowing local communities to make decisions that suit their needs. Instead of the current Local Government Areas (LGAs) with elected chairmen and councils that often struggle, these areas can keep their boundaries but shift governance to Town Councils that are closer to the people.

Traditional rulers used to be central to community life, helping to lead, settle conflicts, and preserve culture. But their roles have weakened over time. Recently, traditional rulers in the southwest have shown new ideas and energy for development. Bringing these rulers back as town leaders within the Town Councils will blend traditional authority with modern democracy. The Oba-in-Council would serve as the executive body, guiding the community, while an elected town leader would handle administration and legislation.

This new system offers many benefits. It connects trusted traditional leaders with elected representatives to build community trust and effective governance. It also lets towns run their own development projects, focusing on what rural people really need. The LGAs would remain for identification but with fewer staff, supporting Town Councils instead of running parallel governments. This approach calls for new laws, training for rulers, and educating people about their roles, helping Nigeria move toward real rural empowerment and balanced national progress.

The effective devolution of administration to the township level will mark a pivotal step toward fostering inclusive governance, enhancing security, and driving sustainable development. By transferring responsibilities closer to the grassroots, this model empowers local populations to actively participate in decision-making, ensuring policies align with the unique needs of their communities.

This decentralization yields profound benefits for governance and society. It strengthens democratic participation by making leaders directly answerable to their residents, thereby promoting transparency and accountability. Furthermore, township councils act as breeding grounds for emerging leaders, who gain the skills and experience necessary for future higher office, thus strengthening the nation's democratic fabric.

A key advantage is the promotion of inclusive development. When township councils manage local affairs and resources, they create platforms for diverse community voices—including marginalized groups—to be heard. This fosters a sense of shared ownership over development. Economically, local governments are better positioned to harness agricultural potential, natural resources, and cultural heritage, leading to context-sensitive initiatives that support indigenous entrepreneurs and boost the rural economy.

The results are a more equitable and secure society. Localized management ensures a fairer spread of development, reducing regional disparities and creating a more resilient and diversified national economy. Finally, integrating security under township oversight allows for policing tailored to local social dynamics, which enhances safety, reduces crime, and builds community trust in law enforcement.

The effective devolution of administration to the township level will mark a pivotal step toward fostering inclusive governance, enhancing security, and driving sustainable development. By transferring responsibilities closer to the grassroots, this model empowers local populations to actively participate in decision-making, ensuring policies align with the unique needs of their communities.

This decentralization yields profound benefits for governance and society. It strengthens democratic participation by making leaders directly answerable to their residents, thereby promoting transparency and accountability. Furthermore, township councils act as breeding grounds for emerging leaders, who gain the skills and experience necessary for future higher office, thus strengthening the nation's democratic fabric.

A key advantage is the promotion of inclusive development. When township councils manage local affairs and resources, they create platforms for diverse community voices—including marginalized groups—to be heard. This fosters a sense of shared ownership over development. Economically, local governments are better positioned to harness agricultural potential, natural resources, and cultural heritage, leading to context-sensitive initiatives that support indigenous entrepreneurs and boost the rural economy.

The results are a more equitable and secure society. Localized management ensures a fairer spread of development, reducing regional disparities and creating a more resilient and diversified national economy. Finally, integrating security under township oversight allows for policing tailored to local social dynamics, which enhances safety, reduces crime, and builds community trust in law enforcement.

The strength of a nation should not be built on faith and beliefs and the realities of the people must not remain at the valley of hope. Such people will always see development as miracle. They will see good leaders and a well organized society as favors from God. The strength of a nation are knowledge, discipline, cooperation and sincerity.

The seven 'Asian Tigers' have convinced everyone beyond doubt that national development begins with disciplined elites who can mobilize the nation. The beauty of their development model is the inclusiveness of every strata of the society. They simplified development and removed all the old Western bottleneck.

A disciplined and well cultured elites will have the ears of the masses. The masses will be ready to jettison every selfish agenda to pursue corporate goals when the elites are willing to lead from the front. The Asian Tigers' first agenda was human capacity development, electricity generation and distribution, cottage industries and investment incubating villages.

Unfortunately, Nigeria planned and built three Industrial Tools Manufacturing Companies at Katsina, Osogbo and Aladja but refused to operate them. Rather, we sold them off at rock bottom prices. None of the power generation facilities is functioning at the optimal strength.

Every Friday and Sunday, the elites who cannot organize their minds will cajoled the people to begin to seek God they are not ready to obey for solutions to personal and national problems.

God will not solve the problems that requires human intellect and discipline.

MEDIOCRE AND THE PRINCIPLES OF THINKING

Olusegun Ogundipe

Common to both literary and scriptural text is the depictions of the lowly mind character as fools. Particularly in European literature, the court and street jesters were believed to be fools.

This is common in Shakespeare writings to draw a unique allegory or to make a complicated comical conclusion, the jester are drawn on to make a comic statement.

In the novel, *The King Lear*, The Fool is Lear's court jester. His job is to entertain Lear. However, he also functions as a wise advisor to Lear because he is the only character who is allowed to criticize Lear or question his decisions.

In the play, Julius Caesar, the soothsayer warns Caesar to ''beware the Ides of March'' twice. The soothsayer who was considered a fool is telling Caesar to avoid coming out to the Senate on March 15 or he will surely die. Caesar ignores the soothsayer and calls him ''a dreamer''.

Lemunel was a court jester in King Solomon's court. His comic but witty conversation occupies a chapter in the Book of Proverbs, which represents one of the profound statements and eternal truth.

It is ironical that most fools are exponentially rational and objective. Not all Fools are foolish afterall.

Modern social media has democratize foolish statements and make irrational thoughts look like the footnotes of the wise. It has not only cheapen knowledge, it deceived the literates to believe that ability to read and write equal good thinking. Whereas, there are principles of thinking.

Critical thinking involves:
- asking questions,
- defining a problem,
- examining evidence,
- analyzing assumptions and biases,
- avoiding emotional reasoning,
- avoiding oversimplification,
- considering other interpretations, and
- tolerating ambiguity.

Whilst the liliputians considered thinking as cheap and unnecessary, they arrogantly arrogate to themselves the qualities only found in well trained minds. Of all the abuse of the factors of thinking by the mediocre, *oversimplification* of realities make the view of the mediocre nothing but an irritant noise.

In social science, for example, the data set are human beings. The focus are on human beings. The conclusion are human beings. Plato concluded that the purpose of the state is the "creation of the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers". Economists believe that the demand and supply are about meeting human needs. In Development Administration, growth is separated from development because human beings are not the same as houses and figures on the pages of office papers.

Any allegory that reduces human beings to mere figure is immoral. Figures are for illustration and planning. They cannot and will not take the position of human beings.

Whatever is recorded as growth but does not reflect in quality of lives of the people is an irresponsible and rogue talk.

The chieftaincy crisis that is brewing in the far northern states of Kano and Sokoto states may soon engulfed the whole federation. The crisis is the clear evidence that the present local government administration system is a failure. The present system that was introduced by Obasanjo in 1976 is a mockery of democracy. The government of the people by the people must be the structure the people understand.

The present LGA is akin to no government. It is just an elitists means of appropriating the local wealth. By bringing 10-15 communities together and establishing the administrative headquarters in a strange territory is a ridiculous administrative arrangement. After paying the salary of the LG staff, any other development efforts are concentrated at the headquarters.

The purpose of public administration is to direct, control, support, organize and monitor the people and the community. The present LGA has failed in this direction. It has not attended to the peoples need and it does not allow for direct peoples participation in decision makings.

States should be allowed to fashion out the best LG system that fits their needs and the traditional institutions should be given the complete responsibilities for local administration.

Events have overtaken the limited roles given to the traditional institutions in Nigeria. It is either we discard them away or we reform them. This is the time we transform the traditional institutions from hereditary to democratic. All the compounds chiefs or village heads should be converted to councillors.

The basis of our local administration should be the town or village. No matter the size of the town, each town must have complete Town Council. Twelve or Fifteen TC can be grouped into one LGA. The LGA will have no administrative base just like the present geopolitical arrangement that are known by names only.

The only reason why most African countries, particularly Nigeria, have quality standard for agricultural commodities is because the commodities are for European consumers. When the Europeans held us captive, they classified the agricultural commodities into cash and non-cash crops. The "cash" crops are for export and with stringent quality parameters.

Cocoa beans, palm kernel, sesame seeds, ginger, coffee, groundnuts, cashew nuts and soy beans are regarded as premium commodities. After independence, we maintained adherence to the quality standards and the classification briefly before we jettisoned it and turned to our careless ways of doing things.

In Nigeria today, there is no quality specifications for most raw foods we produce locally. Palm oil, shea butter, yam flour, yam, banana, maize, guinea corn, palm wine etc are delivered to the markets and the consumers without any quality assurance of these produce.

The worse is that all the State Departments of Produce do not know anything about the quality of these produce and no plan to set agenda to monitor them in future.

Except lies and manipulation of figures, there is presently nothing on ground to assure a stronger naira against foreign currencies.

Our electricity is in shamble. The whole nation can go for 24 hours without light. That's not the trait of an economy that wants to have strong currency. The industrial capacities is abysmally too low and thus our productivity is almost insignificant.

More importantly, the rural economy holds 65% solutions to our economic recovery, growth and sustenance. About 56% of the population are living in the rural areas where almost one hundred million are extremely poor. Rural infrastructure and economic empowerment of the rural dwellers are essential we should pursue.

Almost 80% of our domestic needs are imported goods. And no genuine efforts to change the tide.

You can get to power through intimidation and propaganda. It takes great minds with discipline to make the nation great.

One of the regimentation and oppression of the polity is the indispensability of the elites to the organization and even the survival of the polity. The tragedy in Africa is that the continent is at the mercy of chaotic and ill-formed and a redundant elites.

To know the danger that befalls Africa, put the Chinese elites, American elites side by side any African country's elites and let them address issues. Whilst the Chinese will demonstrate an extreme patriotic, solid and confident personality, American will demonstrate the totalitarian nature of the capitalist to prove the USA is the only nation on earth, Africans will become so confused and disoriented, jumping from self pity to self amusement.

In every epoch and generation, Nigerian is known for getting it wrong always. I have argued here that national development rests on three pillars: primary, secondary and tertiary structural possibilities.

I have posited that underdeveloped economies, especially Nigeria, must set time line to develop and transform the three structural possibilities.

The primary structural possibilities are: rural infrastructure, rural human empowerment, rural economy integration, rural industries/cottage industries.

The development strategy must, by necessity, be a bottom-up approach. Our educational system is not linked to our economic ambition. Hence, there is no plan for rural areas. Educated Africans don't see themselves as labor forces and the center of production. They see themselves as elites who will and must command.

Our education system cannot sustain our development. An education that has destroyed self worth of the individuals that it produced cannot be relied upon. Our education does not speak of solving problems, which is the drive of technological achievements and advancement. Rather, our education speaks of self deceit and misplaced priorities.

In our economic plans, we don't see the rural areas as center for food and raw materials production. Our government efforts and budgets are geared toward creating urban solutions and promoting elites pleasure.

This negative trends formed part of the mindset of our presidents, who still see the elites and urban as the only territory of their country.