Applied Political Philosophy and Local Governance Reform in Taraba State: A Professional Practitioner Analysis

This study applies political philosophy to the analysis and reform of local governance in Taraba State, located in Nigeria's North East geopolitical zone, examining how philosophical theories of democratic governance, subsidiarity, and distributive justice can inform practical governance reform. Local government in Nigeria has been widely criticised for corruption, ineffectiveness, and democratic deficit, but the philosophical analysis of what local governance should accomplish and by what principles it should be organised has received little attention in Nigerian policy literature. Using a professional practice design, the study draws on political philosophy from John Stuart Mill on local government, Robert Dahl's democratic theory, and African subsidiarity principles rooted in community governance traditions, supplemented by secondary literature published between 2020 and 2024. Structured interviews with 20 local government administrators, community leaders, and political philosophy academics in Jalingo provide the primary data. Findings reveal that local governance in Taraba State is structured according to administrative convenience rather than philosophical principles of subsidiarity and democratic participation, producing institutions that lack legitimacy in the eyes of the communities they govern. The study argues that applying the principle of subsidiarity, which requires decisions to be made at the lowest effective level of governance, would transform local government design in the state. Keywords: political philosophy, local governance, subsidiarity, Taraba State, democratic theory.