A Systems Analysis of Environmental Health Governance Failures and Institutional Reform Pathways in Federal Nigeria

Nigeria's environmental health governance architecture is characterized by overlapping mandates, weak enforcement, fragmented institutional responsibilities, and chronic underfunding, generating persistent failures in protecting population health from environmental hazards. This dissertation applies systems thinking and institutional analysis frameworks to diagnose governance failures and identify reform pathways within the Nigerian environmental health governance system. A qualitative multi-case study design was employed, involving analysis of legislation, policy documents, and institutional frameworks at federal and six geopolitical zone levels; eighty-three in-depth interviews with regulators, environmental health officers, civil society actors, and affected community representatives; and twelve months of participant observation within two federal environmental health agencies. Critical systems heuristics were applied to map systemic boundary conditions, feedback loops, and leverage points within the governance architecture. The analysis identified seven recurring governance failure patterns: principal-agent problems between NESREA and state environment ministries, regulatory capture by industrial actors, institutional silos between health and environment ministries, absence of outcome accountability metrics, fiscal federalism constraints on LGA environmental health financing, inadequate judicial infrastructure for environmental enforcement, and exclusion of vulnerable communities from policy processes. A theory of change for governance reform is developed, identifying three prioritized reform pathways grounded in institutional economics and governance theory. The dissertation makes an original theoretical contribution by applying systems analysis to Nigerian environmental health governance for the first time. Keywords: environmental health governance, systems analysis, institutional reform, Nigeria, federalism.