Federation is a device to harmonise the need for local autonomy with the necessity of preserving the unity of the State. This requires that there should be government for the country as a whole to administer national affairs and other governments to look after the needs and interests of local areas in such a may that both sets of governments are supreme within their own spheres. Hence the most important characteristic of a federation is the formal distribution of sovereign powers between the federal government at the centre and the governments of the federating units. “A federal constitution attempts to reconcile the apparently irreconcilable claims of national sovereignty and State sovereignty.” It does not divide sovereignty between the two sets of governments, because to divide sovereignty is to destroy it. It only distributes sovereign powers between them. Sovereignty lies neither in the federal government nor in the federating units, but in the constitution-amending power, as prescribed in the constitution.<\/p>