Nigeria’s population has doubled approximately every 25 years, from about 50m in 1965, to approaching 200m today, according to UN Population data. The demographic trajectory we are still on, is that it will double twice more this century, overtaking USA as No. 3 in population around mid-century, and coming to rest with China and India at the top, with over 900m by 2100. In the meanwhile, it will have transitioned from being a 70% rural economy in 1965, to becoming a 70% urban population. As it stands, Nigeria’s cities are growing, not only in size, but also in inequality, with 80% living in informal, unplanned and mostly unserviced urban communities (‘slums’), per World Bank estimates. This is the central problem; Nigeria’s urban, demographic ‘time-bomb’, growing in size and In governance terms, cities in Nigeria have several structural challenges, which makes them less able to cope with their rapid growth and demographic shift. A fundamental problem is that administratively, cities don’t exist in Nigeria. Nigeria recognises three tiers of government/governance; the National (or Federal), the States (36 Nos + FCT) and Local Government Areas (774 Nos). The LGAs sub-divide to the Ward level, but the city is merely a contiguous settlement within one or more LGAs. It has no specific jurisdiction, no Mayor, no ‘City Council’, per se. Cities have no effective governance mechanism, which connects the Governor (as custodian of all urban lands, via the Land Use Act, 1978) to the local communities and informal land markets. NRCN has designed a Governance-Model, known as 4P : Public-Private-People-Partnerships. Our theory of change is that the ‘people’ or the social/civic component of cities can’t be an after-thought for effective governance. Economic development means that the public (government) and private (corporate) sectors cannot tie up deals with ‘social impact’ as a mere ‘bolt-on’. Civil society, the ‘people’, must be bona fide, full-partners integrated into economic development.