Constitutional basis
Section 2(1) of the nigerian constitution declares Nigeria "one indivisible and indissoluble Sovereign State," and Section 2(2) specifies that it "shall be a Federation consisting of States and a Federal Capital Territory." Section 3(1) then names the 36 states of the federation — Abia, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara — while Section 3(6) fixes the number of local government areas at 768, plus six area councils within the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, for a combined 774 units S1. Each state's boundaries, and the full roll of local government areas, are set out in Part I and Part II of the Constitution's First Schedule, which means that altering the count or the boundaries of either a state or a local government area is not an administrative decision but a constitutional one S1S2
Three tiers of government
Nigeria's federation is organised into three constitutionally recognised tiers: the federal government, seated in Abuja; 36 state governments, each with an elected governor and House of Assembly; and 774 local government areas, each intended under Section 7 of the Constitution to be run by a "democratically elected" local government council S2. Section 7(1) guarantees the "system of local government by democratically elected local government councils" as part of the federation's structure, though in practice many states have periodically substituted appointed caretaker committees for elected councils, a practice successive Nigerian governments and courts have treated as a live point of contention rather than a settled constitutional question S2. Each local government area is subdivided into wards — roughly eleven per council on average — which serve as the base electoral and administrative units for local elections and service delivery such as primary healthcare, primary education support, and market and sanitation regulation S2
In July 2024 the Supreme Court of Nigeria ruled that federal allocations owed to local government areas must be paid directly into local government accounts rather than routed through state-controlled joint accounts, and that the practice of state governments installing caretaker committees in place of elected councils is unlawful; the ruling was widely reported as a significant reassertion of local government's constitutional status as an independent tier rather than an administrative arm of the states S2. State governments' compliance with the ruling has varied, and the practical balance of power between states and their local government areas remains an area where documented practice has diverged from the constitutional text S2
Division of legislative powers
The Constitution allocates law-making authority among the tiers through the Second Schedule. Part I, the Exclusive Legislative List, contains 68 items — including defence, foreign affairs, currency, aviation, customs and excise duties, citizenship, and copyright — on which only the National Assembly may legislate, to the exclusion of the states S3. Part II, the Concurrent Legislative List, contains 30 items — among them taxation collection, agriculture, education, antiquities and monuments, and statistics — on which both the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly may legislate, with federal law prevailing over an inconsistent state law on the same matter S3. Matters not listed in either schedule fall to what is commonly termed the residual list, over which state Houses of Assembly hold exclusive competence; the Fifth Alteration Acts of 2023 moved several items, including railways and, within limits, electricity generation, transmission and distribution, from the exclusive list to the concurrent list, expanding states' formal law-making room in those sectors S6
Revenue sharing among the tiers
Because the federation's major revenues — oil receipts, customs duties, and most company and value-added taxes — are collected centrally and paid into the Federation Account, a statutory formula rather than each tier's own collection determines most government income. Under the formula in force, the Federation Account is shared 52.68% to the federal government, 26.72% among the 36 states, and 20.60% among the 774 local government areas, with the states' and local governments' shares then further divided among themselves using factors that include equality, population, landmass, internally generated revenue and social development need S4. The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), a body established under the Constitution, is charged with monitoring and reviewing this formula, and representatives of the federal and state governments meet monthly at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) to disburse the prior month's revenue across the three tiers S4. The current formula dates from 1992, under the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida, and has been the subject of repeated review proposals since the return to civilian rule in 1999, none of which had been enacted into a new formula as of mid-2026 S4
Federal character and inter-tier balance
The Constitution requires that the composition of federal institutions reflect Nigeria's diversity: Section 14(3) directs that appointments to federal executive bodies "shall be carried out to reflect the federal character of Nigeria," a principle applied in practice through conventions such as one ministerial appointee per state in the Federal Executive Council, discussed further in nigerian presidency S5. The three-tier structure interlocks with the national assembly, whose bicameral design — a Senate seating three senators per state regardless of population, and a House of Representatives apportioned by population — is itself intended as a further federal balancing mechanism between the states as constituent units and the citizenry as an aggregate population S5. Ongoing debate over Nigeria's federal balance — including calls from various interest groups and state governments for greater fiscal devolution, state policing, or further alteration of the legislative lists — is a matter of recorded advocacy positions rather than settled constitutional fact, and any claim about the "correct" allocation of power between the tiers is, per the site's neutrality policy, attributed to the body or commentator making it rather than stated as this article's own assessment S6S3