PBAT and the Real Meaning of Nation-Building: Why Decentralising Federal Institutions Matters

By Otunba (Dr) Abdulfalil Abayomi Odunowo.

Recent criticisms from certain political pressure groups claiming that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (PBAT) has “offended the North” by expanding key federal institutions across Nigeria are not only factually misplaced but also expose a fundamental misunderstanding of federalism. In a true federation, national assets belong to all citizens, not to any single region. Sustainable nation-building demands fairness, capacity-building, inclusion, and geographic balance principles that cannot thrive under long-standing regional monopolies.

For decades, several strategic federal institutions were heavily concentrated in specific zones, particularly parts of Northern Nigeria. This pattern stemmed from colonial legacies, land availability, military history, and past political decisions. While understandable in context, no such arrangement should be treated as immutable. President Tinubu’s moves represent not a subtraction from any region, but a modernisation of the Nigerian federation through deliberate decentralisation.

Evidence of Strategic Decentralisation
Consider the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) in Zaria, Kaduna State. For decades, it served as the country’s primary federal aviation training institution. Yet Nigeria’s aviation sector has grown significantly, with the heaviest passenger traffic, private operations, and airline activity concentrated in the southern corridors particularly Lagos. In 2025, Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos recorded an 11.8% growth in air traffic movements, the fastest among Africa’s top airports, as Nigeria emerged as the continent’s second-largest domestic passenger market with over 10.5 million passengers.

In January 2025, President Tinubu approved the splitting of NCAT into six campuses, one in each geopolitical zone: Akure (Southwest), Osubi (South-South), Ebonyi (Southeast), Ilorin (North Central), Yola (Northeast), and Zaria (Northwest, retaining headquarters status). This expansion aims to enhance efficiency, national coverage, and access to training for pilots, engineers, and technicians directly addressing capacity gaps without diminishing the original institution.

A similar logic applies to the Nigeria Police Academy (POLAC) in Wudil, Kano State. Established as a single campus, it has struggled to meet growing national demand for professional policing amid complex security challenges. In April 2026, President Tinubu approved a new campus in Erinja, Yewa South LGA, Ogun State, backed by a ₦15 billion take-off grant. This aligns with the Nigeria Police Academy (Establishment) Act, 2021, which explicitly envisions a multi-campus structure to strengthen policing education nationwide.

For the military, the century-old Nigerian Army Training Depot in Zaria (established 1924) long served as the primary basic training ground. In recent years, the administration has decentralised this by establishing additional depots, including one in Osogbo (Osun State) and another in Abakaliki (Ebonyi State, South-East), increasing the total from one to at least three. This diversification reduces over-reliance on a single geographic centre, enhances resilience against security threats, and improves manpower development across zones.

These steps embody practical governance: spreading capacity to where operational needs are greatest, while upholding the Federal Character Principle enshrined in Section 14(3) of the 1999 Constitution, which seeks to promote national unity by preventing the predominance of any few states or groups in federal institutions.

What PBAT Must Strengthen for Lasting Impact
Decentralisation is a necessary but insufficient step. It must anchor a broader reform agenda focused on measurable outcomes rather than symbolic gestures. Nigerians across all zones seek tangible results: safer communities, higher skills, more jobs, and genuine inclusion.

1. Prioritise Functional Institutions Over Physical Structures
New campuses risk becoming under-equipped signboards without world-class training facilities, qualified instructors, transparent funding, digital infrastructure, and clear performance metrics tied to national needs (e.g., pilot output targets or police graduation rates aligned with security indices).

2. Uphold Merit Alongside Geographic Spread
Federal character ensures balance, but excellence must remain non-negotiable. Recruitment, training, and certification in aviation, policing, and military programmes should maintain rigorous standards to produce competent professionals, not compromise them.

3. Integrate Supporting Infrastructure
Federal institutions should catalyse local development. Host communities need reliable roads, stable power, housing, broadband, water, and security to maximise benefits and prevent new sites from becoming isolated enclaves.

4. Leverage Institutions for Economic Ecosystems. Each campus should anchor industrial clusters linking to SMEs, research hubs, logistics, agro-processing, and youth skills programmes. This transforms one-off projects into job-creating engines that generate multipliers beyond training.

5. Enhance Data-Driven Communication
Many controversies arise from poor explanation. The government should proactively share metrics: baseline capacities before expansion, projected increases in trained personnel, timelines, costs, and independent monitoring frameworks. Transparency builds trust and counters regional suspicion.

6. Promote National Healing and Reassurance
Persistent inter-regional mistrust remains a major obstacle. Clear, consistent messaging must affirm that no zone is punished or permanently favoured progress is collective, funded by taxpayers from Lagos to Maiduguri.

The Core Principle
Aviation colleges, police academies, military depots, and similar institutions are not regional or ethnic inheritances. They are national assets financed by revenues contributed by citizens nationwide. Expanding them should be viewed not as loss for one area but as growth for the entire federation.

President Tinubu’s ongoing challenge is to evolve from equitable redistribution to genuine transformation. Ultimately, Nigerians will evaluate leadership not by the map coordinates of institutions, but by concrete deliverables: reduced insecurity, a more skilled workforce, expanded economic opportunities, and a republic that feels united in practice.

If these reforms deliver measurable results, questions of geography will recede, overshadowed by shared national progress. That is the true assignment of nation-building under PBAT.

Signed

Otunba (Dr) Abdulfalil Abayomi Odunowo
National Chairman
Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu Support Group (AATSG)