Title: Nigeria's transformation agenda : what role for public bureaucracy?
Abstract: The responsibility of ensuring the safety of lives and property of the citizens and providing for their material well-being is a vital prerequisite for the legitimacy of a state of government in the contemporary world. Apparently, as the most obvious part of government, public bureaucracy or public administration is saddled with the responsibility of implementing the policies and executing the projects that should assist government in attaining its objectives of securing the lives and property of the citizens as well as providing other basic needs of the people.
In view of these inevitable and unbiquitous responsibilities, this paper critically examines the role of the public bureaucracy in Nigeria, particularly since the reintroduction of civil rule in 1999, when successive administrations; in line with the great expectations that accompanied democratization, envisioned development, rebranding and transformation in the country. More specifically, the paper attempts to evaluate the role of the public bureaucracy in actualizing the objectives of such programmes as the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), the seven-point agenda and re-branding project as well as the transformational agenda, which the Obasanjo, Yar'Adua and Jonathan administrations respectively introduced in the country. Similarly, these Development Agenda, which over the years, became reference points at the state and other lower levels of governance in the country will be analyzed with a view to bringing out their impacts at these other levels.
The research methodology is descriptive and analytical. The framework of analysis largely draws from the increasingly growing paradigm shift from administration to the public management approach. In this approach, greater emphasis is placed on the quality of leadership in the key areas of governance, management techniques and, above all, value-for-money. However, in line with the mutually-reinforcing relationship between the environment and any socioeconomic and political policy, the paper does not de-emphasize the welfare responsibilities of the government in Nigeria and the implications for overall development, both in its analysis and recommendations.
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot