There is a quiet but consequential shift underway in Nigerian economic governance, and it has nothing to do with the presidency. For the better part of a decade, the country's reform narrative has been scripted in Abuja — devaluation decisions, subsidy removals, monetary policy pivots, credit-rating negotiations. All eyes have pointed upward, toward the federal government, as the source of either salvation or sabotage. That gaze, understandable as it once was, is now looking at the wrong level of government.