Local Government, Regional Inequality, and Spatially Targeted Development Policy in Nigeria: An Original Spatial Governance Framework

This dissertation develops an original spatial governance framework for understanding and addressing regional inequality in Nigeria through targeted local government development policy, examining how the spatial distribution of local government development capacity, public investment, and institutional quality perpetuates and deepens inter-regional development inequalities across the country's six geopolitical zones. Nigeria exhibits profound spatial development inequality, with northern states consistently recording lower development indicators than southern states across health, education, infrastructure, and economic productivity dimensions. Yet the spatial governance mechanisms through which these inequalities are reproduced and potentially addressable at the local government level remain theoretically underdeveloped in Nigerian development policy scholarship. Employing Spatial Justice Theory, the New Economic Geography Framework, and the Regional Development Policy Model, this dissertation applies an original Spatial Development Governance Index constructed from local government capacity, fiscal adequacy, and development outcome indicators across all 774 local government areas in Nigeria. Secondary panel data spanning 2015 to 2024 is drawn from Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission records, National Bureau of Statistics subnational development indicators, World Bank Nigeria project databases, and federal ministry development assessments. Spatial econometrics, including spatial lag and spatial error models, are applied alongside qualitative case analysis from twelve purposively selected local government areas across high-inequality and low-inequality zones. Primary data supplements the quantitative analysis through 60 key informant interviews with regional development planners, local government officials, and spatial inequality scholars. The dissertation makes an original methodological contribution through the Spatial Development Governance Index and proposes a spatially differentiated local government capacity investment strategy for reducing regional inequality in Nigeria. Keywords: Regional inequality, spatial governance, local government, development policy, Nigeria, spatial justice.