Post-Colonial State Capacity and the Provision of Public Goods in the South East Geopolitical Zone: A Historical-Comparative Analysis

This study provides a historical-comparative empirical analysis of how post-colonial state capacity has shaped the provision of public goods including roads, schools, and health facilities in the South East geopolitical zone, encompassing Anambra, Imo, Abia, Enugu, and Ebonyi States, from independence in 1960 to 2023. The South East zone presents a distinctive case of public goods under-provision relative to its high human capital and entrepreneurial endowments, suggesting that state capacity rather than resource endowment is the binding constraint on development outcomes. A historical comparative design employing a 60-year dataset of state-level public expenditure constructed from archival state budget records and National Bureau of Statistics data, supplemented by qualitative case analysis of three states with divergent public goods provision trajectories, provides the empirical base. Regression with state fixed effects and synthetic control analysis are the primary estimation methods. The State Capacity Theory and the Historical Institutionalism Framework provide the analytical anchors. Findings establish that pre-colonial political organisational legacies, specifically the stateless or weakly centralised governance traditions of most Igbo communities, contributed to state capacity gaps that colonial and post-colonial institutions did not resolve. The devastating losses of the Civil War further depleted state capacity through the destruction of infrastructure and the death and displacement of skilled professionals. Keywords: state capacity, public goods, South East Nigeria, post-colonial governance, historical comparative analysis.