36-Week WAEC Revision Programme — Government
September to the May WAEC sitting. SS3 is not a year of new material so much as a year of pressure on material already met, so this is not a course to work through from the beginning — it is a testing programme. Each week you answer cold, work the ones you got wrong, and have the AI explain why you got them wrong. Anything you turn out never to have been taught, you learn there and then, and meet again three weeks later.
A week is one block of the syllabus and the prompts that cover it. You are not meant to do all of them: answer the questions first, and let what you get wrong decide which of the rest you need. Fifteen or twenty minutes a subject is a real week's work — nine subjects do not fit any other way.
Every week, in this order
Start with the questions, not the explanation. The first two steps are in every week; a purpose-written mistake or pitfalls prompt appears in about half of them, and where it does not, your own wrong answers are the material for step three.
- 1. Retrieve — Answer cold, with nothing in front of you. Wrong answers are the point — they show you where the week's work is.
- 2. Drill — Work the ones you missed properly, showing every step, so you and the AI can both see where it went wrong.
- 3. Explain my error — Ask why your answer was wrong, not just what the right one is. Where the week offers a Spot My Mistake or WAEC Pitfalls prompt, use it.
- 4. Teach me — Only if the error turns out to be something you were never taught. Then come back and retrieve it again.
Basic Concepts of Government
↑ Jump to week- Week 1
- Quiz: The scope of government — what falls inside its authority and what lies outside it
- Quiz: The three types of authority: traditional, charismatic and legal-rational
- WAEC prep: Government as an academic field of study, and what political science actually covers
- WAEC prep: Legitimacy, and how a government can hold power without possessing it
- Practice set: The state, its essential features, and how it differs from a nation
- Spot my mistake: Telling government apart from the state, the nation and a political party
- Spot my mistake: Treating power and authority as the same thing
- Let me explain: Government as a process of governing — how decisions are made, enforced and reviewed
- Let me explain: Sovereignty as supreme law-making power, and who actually holds it
- Teach me: Government as the machinery of the state, and the three organs through which it acts
- Teach me: Power, authority and influence, and the differences between them
- Week 2
- Quiz: Socialism and its guiding principles
- WAEC prep: Feudalism and the structure of a feudal society
- Spot my mistake: Totalitarianism and fascism set against democracy
- Let me explain: Communism, and where it parts company with socialism
- Teach me: Capitalism — its features, and the arguments for and against it
- Week 3
- Quiz: Checks and balances between the three arms of government
- WAEC prep: Constitutionalism, and how it limits the people in power
- Practice set: Representative government and popular sovereignty
- Spot my mistake: Reading separation of powers as each arm working in complete isolation from the others
- Let me explain: The rule of law and the pillars Dicey built it on
- Teach me: Separation of powers, and why Montesquieu argued for it
- Week 4
- Quiz: Written against unwritten constitutions
- Quiz: The political executive against the permanent executive
- WAEC prep: Unitary and federal constitutions compared
- WAEC prep: Types of executive: single, plural, parliamentary and presidential
- Practice set: The cabinet, and how collective responsibility works inside it
- Spot my mistake: The difference between a constitution and an ordinary Act of parliament
- Spot my mistake: Assuming a presidential executive must always be a single executive
- Let me explain: Rigid and flexible constitutions, and how each one is amended
- Let me explain: The functions the executive arm performs
- Teach me: What a constitution is and the work it does in a state
- Teach me: The composition of the executive arm
Revisit from three weeks ago
Constitutions and the Organs of State
↑ Jump to week- Week 5
- Quiz: Unicameral against bicameral legislatures
- WAEC prep: The law-making functions of the legislature
- Practice set: The legislature's non-law-making work: oversight, financial control and confirmation
- Spot my mistake: Assuming the only function of a legislature is to make laws
- Let me explain: The journey a bill takes before it becomes law
- Teach me: What a legislature is and why every state needs one
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 6
- Quiz: The functions of the judiciary
- Quiz: The federal system and how powers are divided within it
- Let me explain: What judicial independence means in day-to-day practice
- WAEC prep: Judicial review and why it matters in a constitutional democracy
- WAEC prep: The conditions that make federalism necessary in a country
- Practice set: The exclusive, concurrent and residual legislative lists in Nigeria
- Spot my mistake: How judges are appointed and how they may be removed
- Spot my mistake: Treating a unitary state as one that cannot have local governments at all
- Let me explain: The confederal system, and why so few states adopt it
- Teach me: The structure of the courts in Nigeria, from magistrate to Supreme Court
- Teach me: The unitary system — its features, strengths and weaknesses
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 7
- Quiz: The parliamentary system and its defining features
- Quiz: Citizenship by birth
- WAEC prep: Democracy in its direct and indirect forms
- WAEC prep: The rights a citizen enjoys and the duties they owe
- Spot my mistake: Confusing the head of state with the head of government
- Spot my mistake: How citizenship is lost, through renunciation or deprivation
- Let me explain: Monarchy in its absolute and constitutional forms
- Let me explain: Citizenship by naturalisation and what it requires
- Teach me: The presidential system and its defining features
- Teach me: Who counts as a citizen, and what citizenship confers
Revisit from three weeks ago
Citizenship, Parties and Pressure Groups
↑ Jump to week- Week 8
- Quiz: The features that identify a political party
- WAEC prep: The roles political parties play in a democracy
- Practice set: Party funding, and the problems that follow from it
- Spot my mistake: Treating any organised group that criticises the government as a political party
- Let me explain: How parties recruit members and select their candidates
- Teach me: What a political party is, and what sets it apart from other groups
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 9
- Quiz: The two-party system and its effect on political competition
- Quiz: Economic pressure groups such as trade unions
- WAEC prep: The merits and demerits of a two-party system
- WAEC prep: The methods pressure groups use to influence government
- Practice set: Why pressure groups succeed or fail in Nigeria
- Spot my mistake: The difference between a party system and a political party
- Spot my mistake: Assuming a pressure group sets out to capture power in the way a political party does
- Let me explain: The multi-party system and how coalition government arises from it
- Let me explain: Professional and promotional pressure groups
- Teach me: The one-party system and the states that have used it
- Teach me: What a pressure group is, and how it differs from a political party
Revisit from three weeks ago
Elections and Public Administration
↑ Jump to week- Week 10
- Quiz: The agents that shape public opinion
- WAEC prep: The functions of the mass media in a democracy
- Spot my mistake: Freedom of the press and the limits placed on it
- Let me explain: The ways public opinion is measured
- Teach me: What public opinion is and how it takes shape
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 11
- Quiz: The stages of the electoral process, from registration to declaration
- WAEC prep: Suffrage, and how universal adult suffrage was won
- Practice set: Electoral malpractice and the ways it can be curbed
- Spot my mistake: Taking universal adult suffrage to mean every adult may vote without any condition
- Let me explain: Voter registration and the compiling of the voters' register
- Teach me: What an election is and why elections matter to a democracy
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 12
- Quiz: The functions of INEC
- Quiz: The features of the civil service: anonymity, neutrality and permanence
- WAEC prep: How an electoral body is funded, and why the source of funding matters
- WAEC prep: The functions the civil service performs for government
- Practice set: The problems facing the Nigerian civil service
- Spot my mistake: The electoral body's part in collating and declaring results
- Spot my mistake: Counting every person employed by government as a member of the civil service
- Let me explain: How an electoral body is composed and its members appointed
- Let me explain: The structure of a ministry and the role of the Permanent Secretary
- Teach me: What an electoral commission is and why it must be independent
- Teach me: What the civil service is and who belongs to it
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 13
- Quiz: The features of a public corporation
- WAEC prep: The reasons behind privatisation and commercialisation
- Spot my mistake: A public corporation set against an ordinary government department
- Let me explain: The ways public corporations are controlled and held to account
- Teach me: What a public corporation is and why governments set them up
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 14
- Quiz: The functions of a local government council
- WAEC prep: Local government autonomy, and why it is so often contested
- Practice set: The 1976 local government reform in Nigeria
- Spot my mistake: Reading local government as a branch office of the state government
- Let me explain: The structure of a local government council and its officers
- Teach me: What local government is and the case for having it
Revisit from three weeks ago
Pre-Colonial Rule to Independence
↑ Jump to week- Week 15
- Quiz: The Emirate system and the authority of the Emir
- Quiz: The 1914 amalgamation and the consequences that followed it
- WAEC prep: How justice was administered in pre-colonial Nigerian societies
- WAEC prep: The legacy colonial administration left behind
- Practice set: Colonial economic policy and its political consequences
- Spot my mistake: The assumption that all pre-colonial systems were organised alike
- Spot my mistake: Assuming British rule was imposed on every part of Nigeria at the same time and in the same way
- Let me explain: Centralised and non-centralised pre-colonial systems compared
- Let me explain: The Native Authority system and how it operated
- Teach me: The Hausa-Fulani political system before colonial rule
- Teach me: How British colonial rule was established in Nigeria
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 16
- Quiz: The early nationalist organisations in Nigeria
- Quiz: The features of a military government
- WAEC prep: The factors that carried Nigeria to independence
- WAEC prep: The arguments for and against military rule
- Practice set: The transition programme from military to civilian rule
- Spot my mistake: The difference between nationalism and regionalism
- Spot my mistake: Assuming every seizure of government by force amounts to a revolution
- Let me explain: The part the press played in the nationalist struggle
- Let me explain: How decrees displaced the constitution under military rule
- Teach me: What nationalism is, and what gave rise to it in West Africa
- Teach me: The reasons armies intervene in politics
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 17
- Quiz: The principal organs of the United Nations
- Quiz: Legal sovereignty against political sovereignty
- WAEC prep: The African Union and the goals it pursues
- Let me explain: The limitations sovereignty meets in practice
- WAEC prep: The ways a government acquires legitimacy
- Spot my mistake: The Commonwealth, and what membership of it actually means
- Spot my mistake: Sovereignty set against raw power
- Let me explain: The objectives of ECOWAS and what it has achieved
- Teach me: The aims and structure of the United Nations
- Teach me: Internal and external sovereignty
Revisit from three weeks ago
Sovereignty, Rule of Law and the Judiciary
↑ Jump to week- Week 18
- Quiz: Parochial, subject and participant political cultures
- WAEC prep: The agents of political socialisation
- Practice set: Why political culture differs so sharply between societies
- Spot my mistake: Treating political culture as another name for political ideology
- Let me explain: Political socialisation and the process by which it happens
- Teach me: What political culture means
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 19
- Quiz: The conditions the rule of law needs in order to work
- WAEC prep: How separation of powers operates under a presidential system
- Spot my mistake: How separation of powers fares under a parliamentary system
- Let me explain: The practical limitations on the rule of law
- Teach me: Dicey's three principles of the rule of law
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 20
- Quiz: Customs and conventions as constitutional sources
- WAEC prep: The advantages of having a written constitution
- Practice set: The merits and demerits of a rigid constitution
- Spot my mistake: Assuming a written constitution must therefore be a rigid one
- Let me explain: Judicial precedent as a source of constitutional law
- Teach me: The sources a constitution is drawn from
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 21
- Quiz: The veto power and the limits placed on it
- Quiz: The functions of the Senate
- WAEC prep: The ways the judiciary checks the executive
- WAEC prep: Legislative committees and the work they do
- Practice set: Parliamentary privileges and immunities
- Spot my mistake: Emergency powers and their constitutional boundaries
- Spot my mistake: Confusing how senators are elected with how members of the House of Representatives are elected
- Let me explain: The ways the legislature checks the executive
- Let me explain: The powers of the House of Representatives
- Teach me: The prerogative of mercy and how it is exercised
- Teach me: The composition of Nigeria's National Assembly
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 22
- Quiz: Financial autonomy of the judiciary
- Quiz: The demerits of a federal system
- WAEC prep: The threats to judicial independence in Nigeria
- WAEC prep: The particular problems of Nigerian federalism
- Practice set: The conditions a federation needs in order to survive
- Spot my mistake: Judicial independence set against judicial impartiality
- Spot my mistake: Assuming federalism requires the federating units to be equal in size and population
- Let me explain: How the method of appointing judges affects their independence
- Let me explain: Revenue allocation, and why it generates conflict in a federation
- Teach me: Security of tenure for judges
- Teach me: The merits of a federal system
Revisit from three weeks ago
Federalism, Parties and Public Opinion
↑ Jump to week- Week 23
- Quiz: The demerits of the presidential system
- WAEC prep: Why Nigeria adopted the presidential system in 1979
- Spot my mistake: Fusing the roles of head of state and head of government
- Let me explain: The presidential and parliamentary systems weighed against each other
- Teach me: The merits of the presidential system
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 24
- Quiz: The requirements for naturalisation in Nigeria
- WAEC prep: The difference between a citizen and an alien
- Practice set: The rights that belong to citizens alone
- Spot my mistake: Confusing citizenship by registration with citizenship by naturalisation
- Let me explain: Dual citizenship and how Nigerian law treats it
- Teach me: Citizenship by registration
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 25
- Quiz: How a party selects the candidates it fields
- Quiz: Why a two-party system tends to produce a strong opposition
- WAEC prep: Party discipline and the means by which it is enforced
- WAEC prep: The factors that determine which party system a country develops
- Practice set: The party systems Nigeria has lived through since independence
- Spot my mistake: The role of the opposition party in a democracy
- Spot my mistake: Treating a one-party system and a no-party system as the same arrangement
- Let me explain: The party manifesto and what it is for
- Let me explain: How coalition partners divide office and policy between them
- Teach me: The internal organisation of a political party
- Teach me: How a one-party system affects opposition and dissent
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 26
- Quiz: Anomic and associational pressure groups
- WAEC prep: Lobbying as a pressure group method
- Spot my mistake: Pressure groups set against political parties
- Let me explain: The functions pressure groups perform in a democracy
- Teach me: Institutional pressure groups
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 27
- Quiz: Opinion polls and the way they are conducted
- WAEC prep: Why public opinion matters to a government
- Practice set: Referenda as a way of measuring public opinion
- Spot my mistake: Taking public opinion to mean an opinion held by everybody
- Let me explain: The limitations of opinion polling
- Teach me: The stages by which public opinion forms
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 28
- Quiz: The media's role in political education
- Quiz: Proportional representation and how seats are allocated under it
- WAEC prep: Censorship and the justifications offered for it
- WAEC prep: Single-member against multi-member constituencies
- Practice set: Delimitation of constituencies, and why it is politically sensitive
- Spot my mistake: Social media and its effect on politics
- Spot my mistake: Assuming the party with the most votes nationally must win the most seats
- Let me explain: Media ownership and how it shapes what gets reported
- Let me explain: The merits and demerits of proportional representation
- Teach me: The media as the fourth estate of the realm
- Teach me: The first-past-the-post electoral system
Revisit from three weeks ago
Elections, the Civil Service and Local Government
↑ Jump to week- Week 29
- Quiz: Political interference in the work of electoral bodies
- Quiz: The role of the Head of the Civil Service
- WAEC prep: How the independence of an electoral body can be strengthened
- WAEC prep: The Public Service Commission and its functions
- Practice set: Public service reform in Nigeria and what it aimed to fix
- Spot my mistake: The electoral body's role set against that of the election tribunals
- Spot my mistake: Treating a ministry and an extra-ministerial department as the same thing
- Let me explain: Logistical failures and the damage they do to an election
- Let me explain: Recruitment and promotion within the public service
- Teach me: The funding problems an electoral commission faces
- Teach me: The ministries, departments and agencies structure
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 30
- Quiz: The sources from which public corporations are funded
- WAEC prep: The arguments for and against privatising them
- Spot my mistake: Accountability and control of public corporations
- Let me explain: The causes of inefficiency in public corporations
- Teach me: Why public corporations were established in Nigeria
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 31
- Quiz: Statutory allocation and the federation account
- WAEC prep: The problems facing local government in Nigeria
- Practice set: How local government performance might be improved
- Spot my mistake: Assuming local governments are funded only from the federation account
- Let me explain: Why local governments depend so heavily on federal allocation
- Teach me: Internally generated revenue in local government
Revisit from three weeks ago
Colonial Rule, Nationalism and International Bodies
↑ Jump to week- Week 32
- Quiz: The Oyo Mesi and the checks it placed on the Alaafin
- Quiz: Why indirect rule failed in Eastern Nigeria
- WAEC prep: The Yoruba and Igbo political systems compared
- WAEC prep: Assimilation set against the later policy of association
- Practice set: British indirect rule and French assimilation compared
- Spot my mistake: The Ozo title and the council of elders in Igbo society
- Spot my mistake: Treating assimilation and indirect rule as the same colonial policy
- Let me explain: Igbo village democracy and the age grade system
- Let me explain: The French policy of assimilation
- Teach me: The Oyo Empire and the position of the Alaafin
- Teach me: How indirect rule worked in Northern Nigeria
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 33
- Quiz: Nnamdi Azikiwe and the nationalist press
- Quiz: The Richards Constitution of 1946
- WAEC prep: Kwame Nkrumah and the road to Ghana's independence
- WAEC prep: The Lyttleton Constitution of 1954 and the turn to federalism
- Practice set: The Independence Constitution of 1960 and the Republican Constitution of 1963
- Spot my mistake: Nationalist movements compared across West Africa
- Spot my mistake: Assuming the Clifford Constitution introduced elections across the whole of Nigeria
- Let me explain: Obafemi Awolowo and the Action Group
- Let me explain: The Macpherson Constitution of 1951
- Teach me: Herbert Macaulay and the beginnings of Nigerian nationalism
- Teach me: The Clifford Constitution of 1922
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 34
- Quiz: The command structure of a military government
- WAEC prep: Military rule in Ghana under Jerry Rawlings
- Practice set: The return to civilian rule across West Africa
- Spot my mistake: Assuming a coup and a revolution are the same event
- Let me explain: The effect of military rule on the rule of law
- Teach me: The causes of military coups in West Africa
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 35
- Quiz: The 1989 Constitution and the Third Republic that never ran
- WAEC prep: The London and Lagos constitutional conferences of 1957 and 1958
- Practice set: The features common to Nigeria's post-independence constitutions
- Spot my mistake: Assuming the 1979 Constitution simply re-enacted the independence constitution
- Let me explain: The 1999 Constitution and the return to civilian rule
- Teach me: The 1979 Constitution and the turn to a presidential system
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 36
- Quiz: The specialised agencies of the United Nations
- Quiz: Welfarism and the welfare state
- WAEC prep: The organs of the African Union
- Spot my mistake: Assuming a Security Council resolution fails when a permanent member abstains
- Spot my mistake: Treating Marxism and socialism as interchangeable terms
- Let me explain: The institutions through which ECOWAS works
- Let me explain: Democracy considered as a political ideology
- Teach me: The UN Security Council and the veto power
- Teach me: Marxism and the class analysis behind it
Revisit from three weeks ago