TY - JOUR AU - Celestine O. Abasili AU - Solomon O. Akinboye PY - 2019/12/05 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Devolution of Power and Revenue Mobilization: Imperative for Effective Public Service Delivery in Nigeria JF - Unilag Journal of Humanities JA - ujh VL - 7 IS - 2 SE - Articles DO - UR - http://ujh.unilag.edu.ng/article/view/520 AB - The question of distribution of power and responsibilities among the tiers of governmenthas generated heated debate for years in Nigeria’s development narrative. The discussionhas been able to gather more proponents than opponents especially as it relates to theeconomic viability of sub-national governments and effective service delivery. Asconvincing as the arguments for the devolution of powers and resources to governmentsare, this debate has not been successfully translated into effective provision of publicgoods and services. This paper therefore, without reawakening the whole debate(because the discourse is still ongoing in the literature), addresses the paradigmaticeffect of devolution of power and revenue mobilization on effectively alleviating thesocio-economic deprivations of the Nigerian people. Thus, the paper relies on existingliterature (mainly secondary sources of data) in order to successfully argue its points.Devolution of power, if well-articulated and practised, can promote effective servicedelivery, reduce poverty, and at the same time increase the people’s capacity to pay taxesand levies. The study recommends that the concept of devolution of power should gobeyond mere political and administrative decentralization, to address publicparticipation in revenue mobilization for effective delivery of socio-economic services bygovernment. ER -