When Nigeria’s military exited in 1999, the newly elected governor of Lagos, Bola Tinubu, inherited a state suffering from crime, corruption, and economic stagnation. During eight years in office, he oversaw economic growth, social service expansion, increased revenues, and lower crime rates. Against the backdrop of an optimistic “Africa Rising” narrative (Dayo Olopade, The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making Change in Modern Africa, 2015), donors and scholars wondered whether the “Lagos model” could be replicated. The question took on a new saliency with Tinubu’s election as president in 2023. Portia Roelofs’s book offers an unconventional explanation for why the Lagos model proved difficult to replicate. It also questions how success is measured, formulating a carefully integrated critique of patronage, transparency, and other core concepts in governance research.
Drawing on field research in Lagos, Ekiti, and Oyo states, Roelofs argues that popular understandings of governance radically differ from practitioner parlance and donor designs. Tinubu’s model struggled beyond the southwest because his public–private partnerships, civil service cuts, and tax collection—which involved contracting to a company he had ties to— chafed against socially embedded power (145). In Lagos, the policies conveniently aligned with an international “good governance agenda”; beyond Lagos, the model’s notions of “epistemic superiority of competent rulers—that is, the idea that technocratic rulers know better” (109)—clashed with informal power. The World Bank prescribed a paternalism similar to Edmund Burke’s government by “trusteeship,” and Roelofs further blames western scholars who emphasized impersonal, technocratic knowledge.
The book opens by establishing the historical basis for competing conceptions of good governance within Yoruba culture. On the one hand, Nigeria has a conservative populist tradition “in which distribution and generosity are prioritized over progress” (59). On the other hand, the progressive tradition, spearheaded by the nationalist leader Obafemi Awolowo, emphasizes olaju, meaning civilization or development. Modernization requires leadership by educated elites because the people might not know what is best for them. This is a fair interpretation of “Awoism,” as described in great detail by Wale Adebanwi’s 2014 book, Yorùbá Elites and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: Ọbá́fẹ́mi Awọ́lówọ̀ and Corporate Agency. But it is also important to appreciate the popular appeal of Awolowo’s inclusive policies. For example, far from simply setting up elite enclaves of political power, free universal education was seen as essential for “indigenizing” the civil service after independence.
These “contested legacies” amount to an elegant ethnography of political competition during decolonization and the subsequent rise and fall and rise again of party politics. It can be hazardous to make broad claims for historical continuity in Nigeria, and Roelofs expertly makes her case. I hope that future work will integrate relevant northern movements such as those led by Aminu Kanu and by the governor of Kano State and 2023 presidential candidate, Mohammed Rabi’u Kwankwaso. The book’s focus on the southwest is sensible but limits opportunities for self-reflection, especially where the practice of progressivism, populism, and “godfatherism” beyond Lagos could challenge her thesis.
Chapter 3 argues that the Lagos model converged with “the good governance agenda” advanced or, in her formulation, imposed from abroad. It further explores how “the biases of the good governance agenda and the neo-patrimonialism literature have been consolidated—not to mention made more respectable—through the subsequent embrace of economistic methodologies in political science” (53). Roelofs’s alternative centers on accountability as accessibility, which she begins articulating in chapter 4. In a “socially embedded” understanding of accountability, communication fosters relationships that constrain rulers through social sanctions. The book could more explicitly illustrate what such sanctions look like and when they succeed or fail. When assessing the theory’s originality, it also seems important to recall Joel Migdal’s influential Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (1988), which helped popularize the idea of a socially embedded understanding of the state.
Chapter 5 demythologizes and disaggregates transparency in development discourse and the popular Nigerian imagination. Although the Lagos model values “transparency in data” and technical expertise, Roelofs insists we must also consider the transparency of visible and tangible “things” along with transparency in “people”: knowing precisely who is governing signals important information about norms. Here she constructs a rich critique from focus groups and a thorough reading of the literature, although the analysis depends on a narrower definition of transparency than the one embraced by Nigerian civil society. As a result, she risks understating grassroots support for transparency in procurement, hiring, or human rights. Given that the country recovered billions of dollars stolen by Sani Abacha, the head of state between 1993 and 1998, who was assisted by the recently confirmed budget minister, civil society’s expectations for oversight of the recovered “loot” are high because norms of transparency and accountability for public resources run deep.
Chapter 6 updates Peter Ekeh’s characterization of Africa as torn between “civic” and “primordial” publics ("Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement," Comparative Studies in Society and History 17, no. 1 [1975]). Nigerians expect good governance from politicians, whether they are in office or not. This chapter draws on recurring debates about civil society and whether its “autonomy” from the state is analytically useful or empirically accurate. The insights rely on a critique of principal-agent theory as limited by a “binary” understanding of power and an emphasis on material incentives. This critique, however, understates the evolution of rational choice since 9/11 and the Perestroika Movement. For example, some rationalist-inspired analyses of Nigeria explore when and how elite power varies depending on the depth and breadth of societal linkages (Carl LeVan, Dictators and Democracy in African Development: The Political Economy of Good Governance in Nigeria, 2015). More generally, the criticism of economics’ influence understates how eclectic political science has become, thanks in part to the channels opened up by the creation of this very journal. Yet none of this should discount Roelofs’s many talents for concept development and building theory “in the field,” enriched by humility.
External actors and structural adjustment programs constrained African actors and inspired a generation of popular protests against economic policies. But asserting historical continuities muddies the analytical picture—arguably and ironically—while neglecting Nigerian agency. Conditionality “tied the hands of African governments” (22), even though Roelofs notes that foreign aid plays a very small role in Nigeria. Conditionality also generally proved hard to enforce (Nicolas van de Walle, African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–1999, 2001) and has arguably declined (Leonardo Arriola, Lise Rakner, and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Backsliding in Africa? Autocratization, Resilience, and Contention, 2023). Moreover, Nigeria renegotiated and paid off virtually all its foreign debt in 2006, significantly reducing foreign leverage during the period of study. Soon thereafter debt returned, with states often borrowing directly; as some governors told me, some states circumvented the federal government by borrowing from private lenders more interested in profits than anything else. China’s sizable loans similarly lack linkages to a “good governance agenda.”
Roelofs says the agenda promoted multi-partyism and free elections but “limited the scope for democratic control over decision-making, especially on economic issues” (23). It problematically operationalizes success as “the provision of more and better public goods” (26). This sets up her argument that targeted benefits are not necessarily clientelistic, giving familiar political economy concepts new contours for debate.
One point of contention will be whether informal power increases the risks of exclusion. Joining an emerging critique of liberalism, she is also skeptical of its assumption of anonymity (186–88). This should, for example, include a discussion of the role liberalism can play in promoting fairness amidst sub/ethnic diversity. Another controversy will arise from the book’s portrait of godfathers, popularly understood as “figures who use their informal power…to cultivate proteges and shape formal political outcomes” (89). The Lagos model assumes that godfathers lack transparency, but in Oyo “godfathers were instead agents in the push towards a cleaner, more reliable mode of governance” (101). The rub is that godfathers also subvert popular will (92) and often mobilize violence (79), as Nigerians in Imo, Rivers, Kaduna, and many other states will tell you. Godfathers may comply with reciprocal obligations, generate jobs, or distribute free food but still construct subnational authoritarianism.
The practice of governance involves adaptation and innovation. Roelofs seeks to inspire fresh thinking about the nature of power that can suffocate local mechanisms of progress. Political development debates will be enriched by her insights about accountability and novel evidence from the field. For his part, President Tinubu has prudently looked to the economic choices of his (recent) predecessors to identify key drivers of Nigeria’s developmental disappointments, even when it may be useful to look elsewhere.
