By the law establishing the Centre, it is subject to the authority of two bodies namely:

The Governing Council whose responsibility it is to “exercise general control and superintendence of the policy, finances and property of the Centre, including its public relations”.
The Academic Board invested with responsibility to “formulate and continuously evaluate the academic programme of the Centre, and to perform such other functions as are tradition to such bodies as the Governing Council may, from time to time direct”
The Principal Officers whose appointments and tenure are in accordance with the Nigerian University system. They are charged with the day-to-day running of the centre.
In the process of conducting the day to day management of the centre, the Governing Council and Academic Board require the services of committees to deal with particular area of work. These Committees could be standing committees or ad hoc committees.Governance

GOVERNING COUNCIL
Decree No. 40 of December, 1989 provides for the autonomy of the National Mathematical Centre, Abuja as a corporate body. The Centre, in this regard, has a Governing Council which shall comprise a Chairman, the Director General of the Centre and 11 other members.

The Governing Council is the governing body of the Centre and it is charged with the general control and superintendence of the policy, finances and property of the Centre, including the public relations. It is also the responsibility of the Governing Council to ensure that proper accounts of the Centre are kept and audited annually by an independent firm of auditors.

Members of the Council who are not serving public officers, are appointed to hold office for a period of four years from the date of their appointment and are eligible for re-appointment.

The composition of the Council is as follows:

a Chairman;
one representative of the Federal Ministry of Education;
one representative of the National Universities Commission;
one representative of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology;
one representative of the Nigerian Academy of Science;
two representatives of the Nigerian Universities appointed in rotation for two years;
one representative of the Polytechnic;
one representative of the College of Education;
three members to represent professional and other interests in mathematics, computer science, statistics and theoretical physics; and
the Director and Chief Executive of the Centre.


ACADEMIC BOARD
The academic board of the centre is charge with organization and control of lectures and tutorials, symposia, workshops, conferences etc in the subject areas of Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, Theoretical Physics and Mathematical Science Education. The broad subject area of Mathematics i.e. Algebra, Geometry, General and Global Analysis, Topology, Approximation Theory, Computational and Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Modeling, Operation research, Systems and Control Theory etc; shall be given due attention. Similar attention are devoted to the usual key subject areas of the other programmes.

Its responsibilities also include the admission and discipline of participants who are admitted into the centre to receive one course of instruction or the other.

The membership of the academic board, as stated in part IV, section 10 of Decree No. 40 of 1989, comprises:

the Director and Chief Executive of the centre as its Chairman,
the Deputy Director,
the Librarian,
four representatives drawn in rotation from among the Universities in Nigeria in the discipline of Mathematical Sciences,
and five other persons, for the time being holding such appointments on the staff of the centre, as the Director of the Centre may, with the approval of the Council, specify.
The Academic Board is also expected to formulate and continuously evaluate the academic programmes of the centre, and perform other functions as are traditional to such bodies as the Director who is the Chairman of the Academic Board meetings, the Deputy Director shall preside at such meetings. However, in the absence of both, the members present at any of such a meeting, shall appoint one of their members to preside.