One civic grid. Many public systems.
The Plan · GWG Proposal
The levels do different jobs. We do not want every function to look the same. We want it to be easy to see who is responsible for what.
- 01 / CIVIC GRID
Polling Unit
75–100 active registered voters
A team its voters elect directly.
- 02 / CIVIC GRID
Neighbourhood
75–100 Polling Units
Everyday public services close to home.
- 03 / CIVIC GRID
Ward
2–3 Neighbourhoods
One directly elected full-time Councillor.
- 04 / CIVIC GRID
LGA
20–30 Wards
The full unit of everyday government.
- 05 / CIVIC GRID
Geo-economic Zone
20–30 contiguous LGAs
Coordination, not a government tier.
- 06 / NATIONAL
Federal
National responsibilities
National rights, national guarantees and top-level national capability.
These are proposed destination ranges and adjustment rules. We have not proved they work across the whole country. Real mapping and boundary testing are still to be done.
Polling Unit
A Polling Unit has 75 to 100 active registered voters. It is a community of voters. It does not always have its own building. Several Polling Units may vote at one approved Polling Centre. Each keeps its own register, officers, ballots, count and signed records.
Every established Polling Unit directly elects a three-person team:
a Representative, a Deputy Representative and an Assistant Representative.
They serve for one year. Sometimes a new Polling Unit is created after the yearly electoral cutoff date. That is the date the map is fixed for the year. Until its first lawful August election, only the permanent Electoral Secretariat runs that new Polling Unit. (The Electoral Secretariat is the permanent, non-partisan professional staff who keep election administration going and maintain the Civic Grid.) No unelected official is appointed to those elected offices.
Neighbourhood
A Neighbourhood has 75 to 100 Polling Units. It is the basic unit of everyday public service.
Every Neighbourhood is guaranteed at least:
- three Primary Healthcare Centres;
- Junior Basic Education close to home (the first five years of school);
- one Community Police Post, part of the local-tier Community Police service;
- one Neighbourhood Hall;
- one directly elected volunteer Neighbourhood Safety Representative.
More can be added where population, geography and demand need it.
Ward
A Ward has two or three Neighbourhoods. It is the base unit of politics in the republic. Every Ward directly elects one full-time Councillor.
Every Ward also has:
- a Ward Electoral Officer;
- a civilian Ward Safety Representative;
- a Community Police Station;
- Senior Basic and Secondary Education capacity (the second and third five-year stages of school);
- at least one General Hospital that provides secondary care;
- one Community Court jurisdiction. It is ordinarily housed in the LGA Justice Complex.
LGA
An LGA (Local Government Area) has 20 to 30 Wards. It is the full unit of everyday government.
It has:
- the Local Legislature, formed by the Ward Councillors;
- the LGA Director, who heads the Local executive administration;
- the Federal Representative, who carries the LGA into the Federal House;
- the Local Area Attorney, the LGA's public prosecution officeholder;
- the LGA Electoral Officer, who runs elections for the LGA;
- the LGA Justice Complex;
- the Community Police Area Command;
- a Correctional Services Department;
- an LGA Town Hall;
- tertiary medical care;
- Community Poly/University access;
- the professional staff needed to run everyday government.
For everyday services and government, Nigerians should not normally have to depend on a distant middle layer of political government.
LGA Justice Complex
The LGA Justice Complex is shared infrastructure, not a combined justice agency. It may bring together the Ward Community Courts serving the LGA, High Court capacity, prosecution offices, legal aid and mediation where provided, and correctional functions.
Every Ward still has one separate Community Court jurisdiction, so courts may share a site without requiring a separate courthouse in every Ward.
Police, prosecutors, courts and corrections remain under separate professional authority even when they share infrastructure.
Police investigate. Prosecutors prosecute. Courts judge. Corrections carry out lawful custody and sentences.
Corrections
Corrections is a specialised professional function inside the Federal Police, the national police service for federal and inter-LGA jurisdiction. It is carried out through Federal Police Correctional Services. Every LGA has a Correctional Services Department, and its Justice Complex includes ordinary correctional capacity, with juvenile custody kept separate from adults.
Investigation and corrections remain operationally separate. Officers who investigated a case do not control a prisoner merely because they investigated that case, and continued custody must rest on lawful authority.
Prisoners keep access to lawyers, courts and healthcare. Rehabilitation and education remain part of corrections. Detailed staffing, facility classifications, strategic locations, inspection and command procedures belong in the Corrections Policy Paper.
Islamic Personal Law
Islamic Personal Law may be available locally. Criminal law remains one national system.
A Local Legislature may set up or recognise Islamic Personal Law jurisdiction where local demand justifies it. It covers personal matters that the law defines, such as marriage, divorce, family relations, guardianship, inheritance and succession, wills, gifts, and other personal-law matters the law recognises.
An LGA may provide Islamic Personal Law courts or divisions for people who lawfully use that system in family and other personal matters. But criminal law remains the same national system for everyone. An LGA cannot create a different religious criminal code.
The safeguards are firm:
- It is not a religion imposed on everyone in an area.
- It is never forced on a non-Muslim who does not consent.
- It takes away no national right, and it creates no second-class citizens.
- Nobody loses access to the ordinary courts.
- It cannot override constitutional rights.
Islamic Personal Law sits inside the one five-tier judiciary. There is no separate nationwide Sharia judiciary. Where needed, Community Courts may have Islamic Personal Law divisions. High Courts may have judges qualified in Islamic law. Higher courts may use specialised panels. Exact appeal routes and judge qualifications are still to be worked out.
Geo-economic Zone
A Geo-economic Zone has 20 to 30 contiguous LGAs. The Geo-economic Zone is not a tier of government. It is a coordination layer recognised in the Constitution. LGAs use it to act together where size genuinely matters.
The Zone has:
- no Zonal Legislature;
- no Zonal Police;
- no separate Zonal judiciary;
- no general power to tax;
- no leftover government power of its own.
Its powers are listed. They are not assumed. The LGA Directors together form the Council of LGA Directors. The Council picks a Zonal Chief Executive (ZCE) from a pool of qualified applicants from outside the Council.
The Zone exists for:
- economic strategy across LGAs;
- major infrastructure;
- attracting investment;
- shared systems;
- emergency coordination;
- advanced capability;
- other joint work that is expressly authorised.
The Geo-economic Zone coordinates. It does not govern citizens in place of their LGA or the Federation.
Federal
The Federal Government does two kinds of work: what must be equal across Nigeria, and what only the nation can do at national scale. It protects constitutional rights. It guarantees national floors. It runs truly national institutions. It operates the Federal Police, including Federal Police Correctional Services. It evens out capacity where poorer LGAs cannot pay for the national guarantee. And it carries top-level capabilities that are too rare or costly to repeat lower down.
The rule is simple:
The Federation guarantees the national floor.
The Geo-economic Zone coordinates what genuinely needs a bigger scale.
The LGA governs and delivers.
And the public motto stays the same:
Government where people live.
Geo-economic Zones where economies connect.
Federation where the nation must act as one.
Boundaries That Move With the People
Political boundaries cannot stay frozen while populations change. No unit may keep growing while its representation stays the same. A Polling Unit cannot grow past 100 active registered voters. A Neighbourhood cannot grow past 100 Polling Units.
A Ward cannot permanently gain a fourth Neighbourhood. An LGA cannot permanently gain a thirty-first Ward. A Geo-economic Zone cannot permanently gain a thirty-first LGA. Ordinary Wards and LGAs must also stay within the approved 2:1 balance standard for active registered voters, unless a lawful geographic or accessibility exception applies.
The Electoral Service also tracks differences in resident population. This stops unequal voter registration from hiding a serious imbalance in representation. Registration does not close just because the political map is frozen. The permanent professional Electoral Secretariat keeps updating the lawful next-cycle map. When new registration or initiative would break a hard maximum, the next-cycle map is recalculated under published rules.
Political mandates, however, run on the map certified at the annual electoral cutoff. They stay untouched until the next lawful August election. So boundaries can get ready to move without inventing mid-year representatives, caretaker councils or temporary elected offices.
In short: the next-cycle map can keep updating while the political map for current mandates stays fixed until the next lawful August election.
When a change is needed, the rules apply in this order:
- obey every hard maximum;
- keep areas connected and reasonably easy to reach;
- meet the lawful minimums;
- move the fewest voters or lower units needed;
- cut travel and disruption;
- keep communities together where the earlier rules allow;
- where lawful answers are still tied, use a published tie-break that always gives the same result.
The area of change grows only as far as needed. A new unit may start anywhere inside its lawful range if that causes less disruption than forcing it to start at the minimum. A geographic or accessibility exception may relax a minimum.
No exception may waive a hard maximum.
If an exception temporarily breaks the ordinary 2:1 balance rule, the imbalance must be fixed at the earliest lawful chance. If no lawful connected map exists even after the permitted adjustment, the Electoral Service publishes the failure and its data. The matter then goes through the legal boundary-review and court process. The maps and methods are public. The software that applies the rules is open. Affected communities may challenge a wrong application.
Incumbents cannot veto a lawful redrawing of boundaries because it hurts their political advantage. The Federal Electoral Officer certifies the lawful result. The officer does not invent it.
The rules decide.
Go deeper
Read GREEN WHITE GO MANIFESTO — 2026.10.01 Explore all 63 cells Evidence and source notes Hard Questions Ask GWG
These website summaries guide you to the policy. If a summary and the manifesto ever differ, GREEN WHITE GO MANIFESTO — 2026.10.01 controls.