Reflections on Governance and Development in Nigeria

In this book, published for the first time with Routledge in 2025 and including some previously unpublished papers, the renowned professor of public administration Ladipo Adamolekun argues powerfully that only a devolved Nigerian federation can become a well-performing state that is capable of achieving good development performance. He discusses and ranks seven governance issues which include electoral legitimacy, rule of law, and civil liberties as well as development-oriented leadership, administrative competence, accountability and transparency (including anti-corruption). Professor Adamolekun has based his rankings on over six decades of the study and observation of the differing dimensions of the issues and suggests that the federal government and each of the subnational governments in a devolved federation should be responsible for sequencing the necessary reforms, taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of their respective governance structures and processes.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Ladipo Adamolekun is a Professor of Public Administration and a former Dean of the Faculty of Administration at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, Nigeria. For about two decades, he held senior appointments in the World Bank in Washington, D.C. He has written and published extensively on politics and public administration in Africa. He has won many honours and distinctions at home and abroad over the years, including the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM) award, officially described as the "highest national prize for academic and intellectual attainment".