Salient features of the 1988 civil service reforms in Nigeria
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230120307 |
| Date | 01 August 1992 |
| Author | Haruna Dantaro Dlakwa |
| Published date | 01 August 1992 |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL. 12,297-31
1
(1992)
Salient features
of
the
1988
civil service reforms in Nigeria
HARUNA DANTARO DLAKWA
University
of
Maiduguri
SUMMARY
The main provisions of the
1988
civil service reform in Nigeria are discussed, including struc-
tural reorganization, professionalization and the enforcement of public accountability.
As
of the time of the reform, the following defects were associated with the civil service: undue
importance accorded the generalists at the expense of the professionals; profligacy among
public officers; nonchalant attitude among civil servants to their duties; and corruption. Mea-
sures taken to rectify these defects by the reform include: the adoption of a uniform structure
for the civil service nationwide; the harmonization of power with responsibility; the stream-
lining of the span of control of officers to not more than eight units; the expansion of the
powers of internal audit units complemented by an audit alarm system; the mandating
of
chief executives to submit progress reports on their ministry to the president; and the rationali-
zation of promotion criteria for public officers. These provisions are little more than the
rehashing of past legislations, which failed to achieve positive results, not because they were
faulty in precept but because they were sacrificed to sloppy implementation. Therefore, the
1988
reform may suffer from the same fate because it was simply grafted onto the corrupt
system that caused the failure of past reforms before it.
INTRODUCTION
The past four decades in the political history of Nigeria have witnessed a wave
of administrative reforms. The earliest reforms were specifically concerned with the
means by which the local service would be integrated with the expatriate service,
with a view to preparing the country for self-government. This entailed the need
to Africanize or localize the civil service, while at the same time retaining a crop
of expatriate staff, especially in the professional sector of the service, who could
groom the indigenous staff for independence.
Accordingly, the Harragin review commission of 1946 redesignated the former
European and African services to senior and junior services respectively. This helped
in a way to conceal the racial connotation which had characterized the civil service
prior to 1946. Similarly, the Gorsuch report of 1954-55 introduced for the first
time in the country’s history a middle-level cadre referred to as the executive. Through
this cadre the African civil servants who hitherto were consigned to the junior service
found an inlet into the senior cadre.
The introduction of ministerial government in 1951, and the subsequent intensifica-
tion of the localization of the civil service, brought professional civil servants into
Dr.
H.
D. Dlakwa is Senior Lecturer, Public Administration, University of Maiduguri-Nigeria, and a
Commonwealth Post-doctoral Fellow at the London School of Economics, 1990-91. He acknowledges
the contribution made by the anonymous referees whose views have been incorporated in the paper.
027 1-20751921030297-1 S$07.50
0
1992
by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
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