This study develops a comparable Human Development Index for sub national government in Nigeria. While built on the UNDP approach, we extend the generic framework to address challenges at the sub national level such as comparable indicator, data unavailability and estimation technique. The result shows wide disparity across states in their human development, with states within the southern region recording more impressive performance. We further examine the key economic and political drivers of the observed variations across state and found fiscal sustainability and geopolitical zoning as the key determinants.