THE NIGERIAN STATE, POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION

Different writers on the Nigerian state have characterised it differently according to their different orientations and the types of question they set out to answer in their works. However, one fact about the Nigerian state is that it is a colonial creation and superimposed on the different groups that are now Nigerians (Ibodje, 2009:70). As a colonial creation, the Nigerian state became part of the colonial structure meant to attend to the requirements of the British conquest and imperial domination of colonial Nigeria.  Thus, the focus of the colonial policy was large to keep the colonial population in political subjugation in order to promote the easy exploitation of the nation's resources. Essentially, the aim was to establish a capitalist mode of production in the colony of Nigeria, and have the economy integrated into the capitalist economy of the world.

Consequently, the colonial population of Nigeria became divided into two classes according to their varying degree of access to the means of production, which was unevenly distributed in favour of a small minority of people who monopolized the means of production to the disadvantage of the large majority of the people who lacked access to means of production and had to sell their labour, which was usually under-priced.

Again, the fact that the Nigerian State was an imposition on the colonial population gave rise to another characterization of the state as being 'over-developed' in relation to the society. The logic of this argument is that the state is supposed to emerge from the people and develop in accordance with their emerging experiences. But the Nigerian state, when it emerged, was an off-shoot of the advanced British state, which was superimposed on the less developed society of the colonial Nigeria. For the same reason of superimposition, the Nigerian state is also characterised as detached from the society.

However, while the Nigerian state was said to be detached from, and autonomous of the society, it remained an instrument in the hands of the colonial elite, who manipulated it at will, both in the direction of the metropolitan interest and in the direction of their personal comfort.  According to Claude Ake (1996:2, cited in Ojukwu, 2009:26), the colonial situation needed that the colonial state should be all-powerful not only for the purpose of carrying out its mission but also to survive along with the colonial order in the face of the resentment and the hostility of the colonial people.  In order to maintain the colonial domination, the colonial elite had to exhibit certain tendencies, including those of absolutism, arbitrariness and suppression of any attempts to restrict their use of the state power.

At independence, the indigenous political elite who inherited power from the colonial elite also inherited a state that was not only autonomous and detached in relation to the society, but also one that could be manipulated to their own advantage at the expense of the masses. Thus, since independence in 1960, different sections of the Nigerian elite that have been associated with the control of the state, including the political class, the military and the bureaucratic technocrats, have significantly taken over the control of the political economy of the country to their own material benefit. It is to be noted that the autonomy of the state, as explained above, was only in relation to the masses of the society. As for the ruling elite, the state in the colonial and post - colonial Nigeria remained essentially an instrument to be manipulated to their personal benefit.

To add to the above scenario the Nigerian state partly because of its origin and partly because of the role it was made to play by the colonial elite has become the controller of easy access to wealth and status often without adding value to production or national wealth.  Because the Nigerian state provides an easy access to wealth and status for its managers, the processes leading to the control of its apparatus have been marked by intense competition, conflict and deadly struggle among the elite, with complete disregard for the rules of the game set by themselves.

The question calling for an answer here is how do the above characteristics of the Nigerian state constitute the environmental problem for efficient public administration in Nigeria? There is no single universal answer to this question. However, because of the fact that the state which resulted from colonialism in Nigeria was detached from the society, the process of political socialisation necessary for orderly democratic politics based on the rules of the game has not gained any strong roots. For the same reason, the process of institutional internalisation necessary for the observance of administrative rules and ethics for the modern political society has equally become quite slow. Consequently, the public officer of both the political and administrative classes in the post - colonial society of the Nigerian state has been faced with the reality of living in two separate analytical worlds or publics. These, as Peter Ekeh (1975) calls them, are the primordial public, which carries the characteristics and values of the pre - colonial African society, and the modern public, which came with colonialism and its processes, including institutions whose requirements have not been strongly internalised. 

The fact of the matter, therefore, is that most Nigerians involved in one form or the other in the public sector of the post - colonial Nigeria is more - or - less living simultaneously in these two analytical publics in moral terms. On the one hand, the Nigerian public officer lives in the primordial and moral society, which, in psychologically moral terms, is a more natural abode, where the public officer sees the need to uphold the traditional values of honesty, loyalty to the constituted authority and dedication to processes leading to goal attainment.  On the other hand, the officer operates within the worldview of the post - colonial society, which due to its limited socialisation and institutional internalisation, is an artificial abode, where one can steal and cheat for personal interest without any qualm or injury to one's conscience. Thus, the same Nigerian public officer who would be involved in milking the public purse dry at the expense of the welfare of the general public would be so committed to preserving community resources that are under his care for community development projects.

Further arising from the character of the Nigerian state is the nature of patron-client politics which it brought into the nation's body politic, with its negative effects on public administration. Owing to the economic attraction of controlling the Nigerian state, the struggle leading to it became increasingly intense, requiring both vertical and horizontal alliances and linkages to succeed. Consequently, state and national level politicians need local level politicians for grassroots support, while local level politicians equally need the higher level politicians as patrons to protect their political interests at the local level. In this political calculation, local level politicians who provide grassroots support and platforms for state and national level actors usually get rewarded by being manipulated into the control of sub-national structures and agencies that are supposed to mobilise and manage local public resources for grassroots development. In this way, most individuals who would normally not be qualified for such positions have become local council chairmen, local councillors and chairmen and members of public corporations and development agencies as marks of political rewards, often against the people's choice.

The above political scenario in Nigeria has produced the following experiences:

(i)    Being so often politically manipulated into offices, local government chairmen, local councillors, as well as members of public corporations and development agencies, usually tend to be defiantly corrupt and blatantly unaccountable to the people, while being loyal to the patrons who manipulated them into offices.

(ii)    Political appointees frequently interfere in administrative matters with consequent conflicts that often disorient administrative procedures.

(iii)    Owing to the desire of political actors to gain or retain positions, public resources meant for the provision of services often get diverted into the service of patron-client relations.

(iv)    The pattern of politics often aids unqualified persons to get into political and administrative offices, thereby affecting the efficiency of administrative machinery.

(v)    Quite often, politics and administration get merged as senior administrative personnel frequently get tangentially involved in political affairs, while politicians openly meddle in administrative matters with consequent effects on professional development and efficient administration.

(vi)    Intergovernmental relations necessary for service provisions often get entangled in political conflicts, mostly in cases where different political groups control different levels of government. In Nigeria, the experience of the Federal-Bendel relations under Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Professor Ambrose Ali, respectively, was very vivid in this regard. More recently also, the Federal-Lagos State relations under Obasanjo and Tinubu, as well as under Yar'Adua and Fashola, are cases in point. In the particular case of Federal-Bendel relations, a prominent feature of the relationship was that party political differences were expressed in terms of competition rather than cooperation. Such that each level of government had to create conditions to disable each other in their attempts to provide services within the boundaries of Bendel State.

In a similar study of the political environment of Ghana under Hilla Limann's People's National Party (PNP) during the country's Third Republic (1979-1981), Asibuo (1991) found as follows:

(i)    That political circumstance, among other forces of socioeconomic nature, hindered the successful operation of local government institutions and administration under the PNP government of the Third Republic.

(ii)    That the politicisation of local government, the appointment of council personnel, the award of contracts, the distribution of development projects , and above all, the attempt to increase the number of district councils, were all dictated by political consideration.

(iii)    That the decentralisation policies of the PNP regime produced the opposite effect from that publicly stated to be its intention. They increased central control and reduced opportunities for meaningful popular participation.

(iv)    That the Ghanaian experience under Lemann presented a demonstration of the fact that the success of decentralisation or local government reforms depends on upon certain fundamental conditions that most African governments find difficult to provide, which is that it requires a strong political commitment which is often ignored and that that commitment was clearly lacking in that study.

(v)    That going by the Ghanaian experience under different civilian regimes, no Third World government that attempts the major reorganisation of political and administrative institutions can expect to implement its policies without difficulties.

Conclusion

Politics and administration are closely related. They facilitate each other cause in the policy process, depending, however, on the character and direction of the relationship. Such character and direction of the relationship can be defined by a number of factors, most important of which is the nature of the political environment, which itself is largely the product of the character of the state. The Nigerian state is an instrumental state whose control serves as an instrument of power, status and material wealth for the controllers and managers.

Consequently, the processes leading to its control have become inevitably intense and conflictual, leading to vertical and horizontal linkages which are serviced with public positions, offices, agencies and resources outside the merit criteria. Therefore, the political environment of public administration in Nigeria is one in which politics, rather than administrative professionalism and merit, is the criterion for advancement. For not encouraging professional development and merit pursuit, the environment of public administration in Nigeria has been non-promotional in the area of efficient delivery of services.