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ADMINISTRATION OF SOCIAL SERVICE IN NIGERIA AND ITS PROBLEMS

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The effects of Nigeria’s historically negative credentials in governance manifesting in its poor resource management and political corruption is reflected in the poor state of welfare and general development gridlock. This correlation has been well documented (Gary and Karl, 2003; Action Aid Nigeria, 2007; Eboh and Igbokwe, 2006; Ogun, 2010). The capacity to effectively providing for the welfare and security of her citizens is a critical responsibility of the state and its decision-making machinery the government. Oshelowo and Oniemola point out that effective service delivery is coterminous with the development aspirations of any country (Oshelowo and Oniemola, 2011).

Recent years have seen rising awareness on the important role national governments must play in social service delivery for the enhancement of public welfare, particularly in societies with high poverty statistics because of its implications for political and economic stability, law and order. This recognition underlies the clamor for state intervention in welfare provision and social development as recognized in the Washington Consensus, the Copenhagen Declaration and the

Millennium Development Goals (Oshelowo and Oniemola, 2011:25). This awareness underlies the identification of globally critical social policy agendas for governments’ intervention through the 2015 MDGs target programmes with particular respect to high poverty concentrations across the globe.

The advocacy for democratization as a political imperative rests on the importance of society responsive policies that attend to the people’s needs and aspirations (Onakuse and Eamon, 2007: 41). In spite of Nigeria’s democratization since 1999, disconnections between public policy and public aspirations in Nigeria have persisted. The state has seen, and continues to witness disruptions of varying degrees in public social and economic activities expressed through strike actions, protests and street demonstrations that have become regular strategies for the expression of discontent against government policies perceived as illegitimate and antithetic to public welfare (Umezurike, 2010: 1). These conflicts have often led to protracted deadlock in national economic and social activities at huge costs to the economy apart from accompanying violence, vandalism and deaths as witnessed in the recent fuel subsidy removal protest in January 2012 with casualties like Muyideen Mustapha and Anas Basambo among others, and over one trillion naira lost to the ensuing economic paralysis (Echezona, 2012).

These confrontations pose crucial questions for democracy, public opinion and welfare in Nigeria, as they present new angles to development planning. They portend problems of policy legitimacy which traverses important areas of decision making in a democratic state: questions of what, when, where and how to optimal choices and administration of public policies for effectiveness and efficiency at the least cost to 

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