Every Household Its Own Government: Improvised Infrastructure, Entrepreneurial Citizens, and the State in Nigeria

An up-close account of how Nigerians’ self-reliance in the absence of reliable government services enables official dysfunction to strengthen state power

When Nigerians say that every household is its own local government, what they mean is that the politicians and state institutions of Africa’s richest, most populous country cannot be trusted to ensure even the most basic infrastructure needs of their people. Daniel Jordan Smith traces how innovative entrepreneurs and ordinary citizens in N...