Governance and policy relevance of the Nigerian 40-year grassroots revolution: 1976–2016
评估尼日利亚40年基层治理改革，发现改革仅在军政府执政前四年成功，提出加强问责和不对称基础设施融资以适应当前出口导向战略。
This article assesses the 40-year-old program of building a third level of governance in Nigeria to improve the democratic and developmental aspirations of Africa’s largest democracy, one of only two federally governed countries on the continent. The assessment relies on secondary and primary sources. The article finds that even though the reform was sustained over the years in terms of structural, financial and human resources capacity infusion and a raft of changes to democratize the institution, the program was only successful in the first four years while the military was in power. The article proposes measures to make this institution adapt to civilian governance through enhancing accountability arrangements at all the three levels of governance and an asymmetric approach to financing infrastructures in the cities and rural areas. These would enable the local government institutions to actually function as grassroots structures for building and sustaining democracy and development from below complementing the export-led strategy of the present government. Points for practitioners The current Nigerian government is pursuing an export-led strategy comprising three main elements that several industrializing countries have used successfully. Only the first two elements – macro-economic stability, economic freedom for farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs – are in place. These need to be complemented by boosting rural infrastructures which a robust political and administrative system, underpinned by strong grassroots local government system as articulated in this article, makes possible.