Abstract
This paper examines the quality of local government leaderships in Nigeria. It explores how local governments’ inefficiency and poor leadership have been a major challenge facing the development process in Nigeria. The paper has two objectives. The first is to identify the professionalism of a sample of Nigerian local government chairpersons. The second is to examine whether there are systematic correlations between local government chairpersons’ professionalism, political partisanship, local characteristics, and performance. The paper argues that the quality of local government chairpersons has significant policy implications because of their vital role in policy making and implementation. The concluding section provides some policy recommendations on how local government leaders could improve performance.
Highlights
Nigeria is a petroleum producing country in West Africa
The number of local governments was increased by a military government to 449 in 1987 after a military regime overthrew the civilian government on December 31, 1983
This paper has examined the quality of local government leadership in Nigeria
Summary
Nigeria is a petroleum producing country in West Africa. The nation has a federal system of government that is divided into 36 states and 774 local governments. Dibie (2014a) suggests that the reason most of the staff in local government positions lack the training for the jobs they were hired to do is because hiring in the Nigerian civil service is marred by ‘Political Patronage.’ This is a system where elected politicians reward their supporters by giving them government jobs and contracts without considering their qualification or ability to do the job. State governments are working with the chairpersons to provide them with qualified professionals who can effectively implement programs for the benefit of citizens Another major problem facing the quality of local government leadership is the gradual erosion of power and authority at the local level. Studying local government chairpersons has significant policy implications because, as Salisbury (1964) posited, “the local government chairperson is both the most visible person in the community and, on questions of public policy, probably the most influential” (787)
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