Dele Olowu

Introduction—Governance and Public Administration in the 21st Century: A Research and Training Prospectus

This article reviews the different approaches to the study of governance and how the concept and practice of governance is connected with public administration and public management. It examines the controversy surrounding the claim that a paradigm shift has occurred in the study of state-society-economy relationships. This has replaced public administration with public management. The paper suggests that the rediscovery of governance in public administration discourse has enriched the discipline. It then reviews each of the six articles in this special symposium of the IRAS. Issues raised in these articles constitute the agenda for training centres in public administration, policy and management.

Civil service pay reforms in Africa

African civil services have been subjected to perpetual rounds of reforms that have in many cases aggravated problems because the core issue of how to pay for quality civil service on a sustained basis has not been given the much-deserved emphasis. Many African countries have lost the capacity to pay for a high quality civil service due in part to the poverty of their economies, the structure of politics and administration, globalization, and wrong-headed reform programmes. A few countries in the region have adopted a strategic performance management approach to civil service reform that aligns the diversity of reform efforts in the public service. This strategy focuses attention on performance and productivity, the attraction and retention of skilled staff and senior management who in turn oversee a new culture of accountable use of resources for results. All of these are core to improving pay and the quantity, quality and performance of the civil service and the state in the region. Points for practitioners New proposals for civil service reform and civil service pay are made after contrasting failed and more successful approaches. These follow a discussion of the key human resource dilemmas presently confronting most of the African civil services.

Bureaucratic Corruption and Public Accountability in Nigeria: an Assessment of Recent Developments

The military struck again on 31 December, 1983 and intervened in the governance of Nigeria for the second time within its twentyfour years of political independence. The two major reasons given by the military for this intervention (which some observers believe was unnecessary) were the poor management of civilian President Shehu Shagari and the widespread public sector corruption that the civilian period witnessed.

The Nature of Bureaucratic Corruption in Nigeria

This paper takes as given that bureaucratic corruption is an extension into the public sector of the widespread political corruption which pervades the polity of all developing countries, in historical and contemporary periods (2). In countries at this stage of socioeconomic development, government property is regarded as the spoils for those fortunate enough to be in government at any point in time.

Administrative Responses to the Economic Crisis in Africa: A Summary of the Research Findings

Findings of the Secretariat of the African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM′s) study on “Administrative Responses to the Economic Crisis in Africa” (1989) are summarised, focusing on the experiences of four African countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. Research was based on a model of administrative responses to the “crisis”, predicting four types of change – changes in scope, processes, organisational structures and resource capacity (manpower, finance and equipment) of African Public Administration Systems (PAS). Reports of the subsequent workshop of researchers and policy makers on “Improving Public Sector Management in Africa”, at Arusha, Tanzania in April 1990 are examined, comparisons of the common concerns and dilemmas of the four countries are noted, and conclusions are drawn.

Governance and policy relevance of the Nigerian 40-year grassroots revolution: 1976–2016

This article assesses the 40-year-old program of building a third level of governance in Nigeria to improve the democratic and developmental aspirations of Africa’s largest democracy, one of only two federally governed countries on the continent. The assessment relies on secondary and primary sources. The article finds that even though the reform was sustained over the years in terms of structural, financial and human resources capacity infusion and a raft of changes to democratize the institution, the program was only successful in the first four years while the military was in power. The article proposes measures to make this institution adapt to civilian governance through enhancing accountability arrangements at all the three levels of governance and an asymmetric approach to financing infrastructures in the cities and rural areas. These would enable the local government institutions to actually function as grassroots structures for building and sustaining democracy and development from below complementing the export-led strategy of the present government. Points for practitioners The current Nigerian government is pursuing an export-led strategy comprising three main elements that several industrializing countries have used successfully. Only the first two elements – macro-economic stability, economic freedom for farmers and small-scale entrepreneurs – are in place. These need to be complemented by boosting rural infrastructures which a robust political and administrative system, underpinned by strong grassroots local government system as articulated in this article, makes possible.