Bureaucratic Dysfunction and the Crisis of Nigeria's Public Administration

Abstract

The nature of Nigeria's public administration system and the myriad of responsibilities it is expected to accomplish in the nations quest for attainment of development makes it imperative that Max Weber's legal rational bureaucracy be adopted. Scholars have noted that when the bureaucratic structure becomes fail to meet the established goals of the organization, it is said to be dysfunctional. Nigeria's public administration system over the years has been stated as having been inefficient leading to many reforms of the public service. The study examined bureaucratic dysfunction and the crisis of Nigeria's public administration system. The study, a desk research utilized qualitative secondary data. Data were sourced from relevant textbooks, scholarly peer reviewed journal articles, official government publications, and materials downloaded from the internet. We argue in the paper that there many extraneous and ecological factors that affect the Nigerian Public administration system which are not really bureaucratic dysfunction, such as politicization of the administration system, socio-cultural factors and federal character principle, corruption by elected public officials and indiscipline in the public bureaucracy. The national assembly should review section 14 of the 1999 constitution to make appointments and promotions purely by merit in line with the tenets of bureaucracy, as well as strengthen institutions for curbing public sector corruption.