Governing the Urban Commons: Institutional Analysis of Urban Green Space Management in Nigerian Megacities

Urban green spaces function as commons resources in metropolitan areas, providing public ecological benefits while being subject to encroachment, degradation, and governance challenges arising from competing claims, inadequate management institutions, and weak political will. This doctoral research develops an institutional analysis of urban green space management as urban commons governance in Lagos and Kano, Nigeria's two largest cities, applying and extending Ostrom's institutional analysis and development framework to the urban African context. The research employs a multiple case study design across twelve urban parks, street tree networks, and peri-urban forest patches in each city, using a six-component commons governance assessment instrument adapted from Ostrom's design principles. Data collection combines three years of institutional ethnography at case sites, 140 semi-structured interviews with park managers, user groups, encroachment claimants, and planning officials, document analysis of green space policies and management agreements, and ecological condition monitoring through vegetation and biodiversity surveys. The institutional analysis reveals that successful green space management configurations in Nigerian megacities involve hybrid institutional arrangements combining formal government authority with neighbourhood co-management bodies, and that the design principles for collective action governance require significant adaptation for urban contexts characterised by anonymous user populations and monetised land values. Original theoretical contributions include an urban commons governance design framework applicable to low-income mega-cities in the global South and a typology of green space commons failure modes observed in Lagos and Kano. Policy contributions provide actionable institutional design recommendations for the Lagos State Parks and Garden Agency and Kano State Metropolitan Planning Authority. Keywords: urban commons, green space governance, institutional analysis, Lagos, urban ecology.