Abstract
The public sector in Nigeria is irrefutably beset with gross incompetence and ineffective management. Perplexing difficulties endure in the Nigerian public sector in spite of a number of reform programmes that have been designed to enhance efficient and effective service delivery for almost two decades. The fact that public service has failed dismally to achieve its laudable objectives is the reason for the vote of no confidence passed on its administrators by majority of the Nigerian populace. The article examines the dilemma of accountability and good governance in Nigeria and demonstrates that the critical point in achieving meaningful developments in the country intrinsically lay with improved service delivery in the public sector. The basic reason why the public service has become the scorn of the people is because for too long, both the government and public servants have paid lip service to the crucial issue of effective and efficient service delivery. The article argues that improved service delivery will improve both the performance and the image of public service and re-awaken the citizens’ interest and trust in them to do business with public servants. It suggests that in order to bring sanity back to the Nigerian Public Service, all unprofessional tendencies such as ethnicity bias and nepotism in appointments and promotions, lack of security of tenure of office, and appointment of non-career public servants into key positions in the public service must stop. Also, effective service delivery must be tailored to the circumstances of Nigeria. The study made use of secondary data obtained from various sources. It therefore concludes that without a reawakening of the culture of accountability and transparency lost over the years, the trusting relationship needed to forge between the government and the governed for the actualization of good governance will not materialize.
Highlights
Public service delivery has been one of the key functions of the public sector
This work has been able to examine the concept of accountability and good governance, which is very essential as a precondition for effective service delivery
The widespread lack of public accountability in governance in Nigeria certainly undermines the provisions of public services and economic development
Summary
Public service delivery has been one of the key functions of the public sector. Traditionally in most parts of Africa until the recent past − mid 1980s and early 1990s − the sector has been directly involved in delivering both core and none-core public services. Effective service delivery is rendering services that correspond to the customer's desires, needs and expectations This concept emanates from the perceived need to treat members of the public that require government services like a private-sector entrepreneur would treat his/her customers. This is against the backdrop that a major obstacle to efficient and effective delivery of government services is the attitude of public servants to members of the public who are their customers (Fagbemi, 2006:47). Public service delivery is commonly understood to mean the provision of public goods or social (education, health), economic (grants) or infrastructural (water, electricity) services to those who need (or demand) them
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