[POSITION PAPER] PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM: WHEN POLITICAL WILL IS NOT ENOUGH

Despite the rapid growth in the size and influence of Nigeria’s public service, there has not been a corresponding improvement in their performance. Indeed, labour productivity in the public service is at best suboptimal, if not, inimical to Nigeria’s growth.

The public service is the government machinery concerned with policies and programmes to deliver public goods and services. From 1934, successive governments have undertaken a series of reforms of Nigeria’s public service. Nextier identified 18 such efforts (see next page); however, Joe Abah (Guest Speaker at this Development Discourse) insists that only two efforts (1972 Udoji reforms and 2004-2007 Obasanjo reforms) qualify as public service reforms.