Dissertation:Is corruption the only cause of ineffectiveness in Nigerian public sector?

Negative networking leads to ineffectiveness

Networking provides managers the opportunity to interact with actors outside their organization. In Nigerian, ‘godfatherism’ is one of networking strategies managers of public sector organizations use for their career progression. They commit much of their organizations’ time and resources in the effort to join and sustain their membership of different network groups. Membership of the godfather’s network has little or nothing to do with the effectiveness of public sector organizations, other than benefiting the network members according to Nwokorie’s study.

Quota system is a setback

Apart from godfatherism, Nwokorie’s study identified other factors that make public sector organizations in Nigeria ineffective. Against the spirit of competitive recruitment and promotion standards, the Northern political elites introduced the quota system/federal character into the Nigerian constitution, to accommodate people from Northern Nigeria who are educationally backward into the federal public service and higher institutions of learning. This undermines merit, excellence, competence, and hard work. It constitutes a setback to effectiveness of public sector organizations in the country.

Poor salary kills motivation

Employees of public sector organizations are poorly paid, and in most cases, employees and pensioners are owed months of unpaid areas of salaries and pensions. This negatively affects motivation and commitment to their jobs and pushes many of them to involve in unethical practices and using government paid time to run their private businesses.

“Managers of Nigerian public sector organizations manifest poor leadership by failing to keep promises and agreements with employees, disregard for employees’ welfare, restricting every benefit to themselves, lack of transparency, poor communication, not knowing when to be work centered and when to be human centered”, says Nwokorie.

There is also lack of employees’ training and development, capacity building programmes, and performance measurement standards. All these whittle down the influence, confidence and trust managers enjoy from their employees. It also reduces employees’ motivation to function effectively in their organizations. Hence, managers merely command employees’ attendance, but not their attention.

Nwokorie conducted this qualitative research by interviewing senior and middle-level managers of public sector organizations, in the three (Federal, State and Local) tiers of government across Nigeria.

Managers of Nigerian public sector organizations think that their key to effectiveness is in the traditional management roles. This is evident in their penchant for treating files and memos, instead of communication and human resource management functions. This negatively affect their leadership style and manifest in their inability to motivate their employees to function effectively.

Finally, Nwokorie suggests that increasing citizenship education and social reorientation will help in rebuilding the broken moral codes and values in the Nigerian society. It will also help managers of public sector organizations to keep to their organizations ethical standards. Though the idea behind the quota system/federal character policy is rationale, a minimum standard should adopted for the implementation of this policy. It will reduce the level of incompetence and mediocrity associated with the policy.

Publication

Publication pdf: /materiaali/pdf/isbn_978-952-476-747-7.pdf

Publication orders: https://verkkokauppa.juvenes.fi/kategoria/318/vaasan-yliopisto

Nwokorie, Ethelbert (2017) Challenges to effective management of public sector organizations in an institutionally corrupt society: a study of Nigeria, Acta Wasaensia 377.

Further information

Ethelbert Nwokorie, tel. +358458947479, e-mail: Ethelbert.nwokorie(at)uwasa.fi

Ethelbert Nwokorie was born in 1973, in Imo State, Nigeria. He received Master of International Affairs and Diplomacy degree from Imo State University Owerri, Nigeria in 2005 and a Master’s degree in Administrative Sciences from University of Vaasa in 2009. He worked with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) Nigeria, as the Principal Orientation and Mobilization officer in charge of Njaba, Aboh Mbaise and Nwangele local government areas in Imo State Nigeria, from 1998 to 2007. He is currently working as a project researcher in Public Management Unit of University of Vaasa.

Public defense

The public examination of M.Sc. Ethelbert Nwokorie’s doctoral dissertation “Challenges to effective management of public sector organizations in an institutionally corrupt society: a study of Nigeria” will be on Friday 25th August 2017 at noon in Auditorium Kurtén (C203). Professor Amr Sabet (Dalarna University) will act as opponent and Professor Esa Hyyryläinen (University of Vaasa) as custos.