Abstract: The cruciality of using federalism to advance the prospectus of local governance and the requisite of the latter for resolving the problems of democracy and development have continued to raise issues over intergovernmental relations in Nigeria. These issues have understandably been purveyed both in thoughts as in practice. But quite importantly is that they have being about how the Nigerian laws can be arranged in order to approximate the requisites of local governance; the latter suggesting a trend in which governance is properly hinged on the people. Also, these issues have revolved around how the current structuring of governments in which the lower tiers are heavily dependent on the higher ones can be reduced. Finally, these issues have being about how to resolve the identity aspects of the democratic struggles of the Nigerian people in the context of the existing federal arrangements in the country. Consequent on these three above, this study seeks to explore the interface between the content of intergovernmental relations in Nigeria’s federalism and the prospectus of local governance in the country. It notes necessarily that the former has been short changing the latter and that the details of these realities are crucial enough for engendering requisite social actions and practices with implications for governance. In the final analysis, the perpetuation of Nigerian federalism and democracy and their proper extrusions to the wider African terrains are no doubt contingent on the quality of democracy contextualized in local governance in the country.