BUREAUCRACY AND THE CRISIS OF DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Bureaucrats with their unique characteristics of inflexible adherence to rules in ordered
hierarchical arrangements of authority pattern are designed to assist the government to
propel development. In relatively “developed” polities, where social discipline and
justice or equal allow for the efficient and effective delivery of public goods and services,
bureaucracy, as a system of formal control, order and predictability of public
performance may be development serving in the sense that it creatively assist in stabilizing
an enduring level of development. However, in relatively less stable or developing
societies as Nigeria, the crisis of development with a formal bureaucratic emphasis
becomes disturbingly manifest with the concomitant effects of policy disconnect and
summersault between policy enacted and its implementation. Thus, instead of
bureaucrats fostering development, they tend to retard or slow down development in
Nigeria. This study examined how bureaucrats can be properly positioned to involve the
individuals in the collective decision making and their participation in the total
developmental efforts. The study also examined how bureaucrats can be positioned to
involve the individuals in qualitative movements from the acquisition of individual
freedom from the clutches of feudal institutions, putting the individuals in command over
the economy and the democratic process and towards the rigorous pursuit of collective
welfare. Data for this study was sourced from content analysis. The study concludes that a
new conception of bureaucracy is necessary and desirable. It is advocated that a
bureaucracy with the capacity to creatively assist government in initiating and
implementing collective decisions capable through conscious efforts of transforming the
environment in some systematized and collectively desirable ways becomes imperative.