Managing Covid-19 in a ‘Façade Federalism’

Abstract

Managing Covid-19 has been a challenge for countries, such as Nigeria, with poor infrastructure and a weak health-care system. Nigeria was not prepared for a pandemic of this magnitude when Covid-19 struck. Deploying the necessary resources in controlling the spread of the pandemic therefore meant the federal arrangement would be put to test. Thus, the pandemic presented an opportunity to re-assess Nigeria’s federal governance system given the recent resurgence of the clamour for restructuring. While federalism was originally put in place in the country to bring together diverse ethno-religious interests, recent events now reveal that there are deeper issues which federalism ought to address and which are left unattended. This chapter aims at examining Nigeria’s multi-government level response to Covid-19. It finds that the practice of federalism in the country is dysfunctional and this is made more apparent by the handling of the pandemic which revealed more centralisation of powers and the diminishing role of federating units. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Nico Steytler.