Critical Analysis of Nigeria’s Food Systems Governance Architecture: Institutional Fragmentation, Policy Coherence, and Reform Pathways

Nigeria's food systems governance architecture involves a complex array of federal and state ministries, regulatory agencies, standards bodies, and development programmes whose mandates frequently overlap, conflict, and leave critical gaps, undermining the coherent management of food safety, nutrition, and sustainability objectives. While individual institutions have been evaluated in isolation, a comprehensive critical analysis of the governance architecture as an integrated system and its reform imperatives is absent from the scholarly literature. This thesis presents an original critical analysis of Nigeria's food systems governance architecture using institutional analysis frameworks, with specific attention to institutional fragmentation, policy coherence failures, and feasible reform pathways. The research programme combined systematic documentary analysis of legislation, policy documents, institutional mandates, and regulatory instruments spanning ten key institutions, with sixty-four semi-structured interviews with senior civil servants, regulatory officials, academic experts, private sector representatives, and civil society advocates. Ethnographic observation of inter-ministerial coordination processes was conducted over nine months. Network analysis of inter-institutional relationships and information flows was performed using social network analysis techniques. Results revealed seventeen distinct institutional actors with food systems mandates operating with limited formal coordination mechanisms. Policy coherence was weakest at the nexus of trade, nutrition, and food safety objectives, with documented cases of contradictory policy signals from different institutions. The study proposes a food systems governance reform framework centred on a statutory National Food Policy Coordination Council with cross-cutting mandate and independent secretariat. Keywords: food systems governance, institutional analysis, policy coherence, Nigeria, food safety reform.