1. Introduction

Democracy, governance process and the accompanying politics largely consist of the examination and maintenance of the ways in which constitutional, political and administrative institutions, social forces and movements in a particular society interact with each other; of limits upon the extent to which stable constitutional modes of behaviour can be developed and; of the effects they can have on moulding behaviour for a productive and mutually beneficial holistic existence of the state. This has been largely so and, still expected to be so, in that under the (federal) governmental system with the few exceptions of polities with four-tier political structures, each citizen is represented by at least three: federal; state and; local governments as well as a myriad of other interests. This, clearly, first puts into perspective the complexities of most, if not all (federal) polities within the global political landscape. Second, it equally compels the need to understand the complex reciprocities involved in the multidimensionality of politics concerning the governance of people within any federal political system like Nigeria.

These complexities have not been properly managed in Nigeria up till now particularly as they affect functional performance of political office holders –[elected and/or appointed], party officials, party structures, governmental structural processes, vertical –[federal, state and, local] – and horizontal –[Executive, Legislative and Judicial organs of government]; the bureaucratic institutions and, the expected friction-free relationship between and among them. The paucity of concrete management of these socio-political complexities is not without its telling blows on effective governance and, efficient and effective service delivery. This has variously contributed to debilitating buck-passing on issues of national importance between and among these institutions and organs in manners injuriously conducive to inter and intra institution/organ relationship. This, in itself, can be concretely traced to absence of willing collaboration among these bodies to rationally circumvent the rigidities of the formalized process through the evocation of the criterion of public personnel’s netherworld².

This and its negative multiplier effects on the governmental processes in Nigeria had been due to the fictive thinking on democracy and the negative imagery given to it as a tool of governance. Its hollow practical application -[which can however, now be articulated to have somehow diminished with the strong showing of opposition political parties in some states of the federation during the 2011 general elections] - has equally contributed to this negativism. In fact, democracy which has been shown as the best mechanism of governance in most polities of the world, has been variously endangered in Nigeria even up till 2012 thanks to the rampaging attacks on innocent lives and people by the Boko Haram or Boko Haramists as now being referred to or interchangeably used -[not minding the fact that the group has lately stated that it name is not Boko Haram and, that it was a wrong identity given to them instead of its real name which is synonymous with Jihadism[1] and, other terroristic groups] - which, as revealed by the State Security Service -[in spite of its helplessness] – enjoys the backing, patronage and sponsorship of powerful political actors and gladiators. This is evidenced by the prosecution of a serving Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who eventually secured a bail pending the commencement of trial even though the spokesperson of Boko Haram who identified the Senator as his sponsor, political backer and god father has been sentenced by an Abuja Magistrate Court to a term of three years in prison for act of terrorism against the Nigerian state. It is left to be seen if the Senator will suffer the same fate with his god-son, the Boko Haramist who is already in jail.

Democracy continues to be endangered in Nigeria in spite of its serving as a real mechanism for the sustenance of “universal applicability of legitimate rule; pluralism; rule of law; accountability and; fair representation of societal interests”. The near acclamation through misgovernance –[in the past, and, even now, in Nigeria] – given to democracy by ways of its dissemblance poses serious dangers, challenges and dilemmas to modern democratic governance and its mutually beneficial sustenance within the Nigerian state. This will continue to be so unless collaborative relationship can be adopted by the super-bureaucracies of the state being the critical administrative engines and vehicle of the state vis-à-vis policy formulation, implementation and evaluation.

In is clear from the foregoing that the state as a political entity continues to function as the macro and allencompassing governance ecology irrespective of the multiple diversities created within it by the value preferences; political orientations and philosophies of the people through the existence of the various operational mechanisms serving as its foundational pillars. These operational mechanisms include the twin-issues of democracy and governance and; other concepts – institutionalism and public service - which on their own have been used as conceptual instruments for the governing of men in terms of the determinism involved in the authoritative allocation of the scarce critical societal values and resources. They also include the relationship of the political system with its environment – principally the governed. The functionalism of these twin-issues and the other concepts under reference vis-à-vis public policy making and responsive service delivery to the citizenry in most polities of the world, Nigeria inclusive, has been made a continuous reality through appropriate politicalapparatuses and institutional arrangements, all of which have deep-seated historical roots in relations to the political existence of mankind and nations all over the globe.

These institutional arrangements and apparatuses of democratic governance include the quasi-horizontal administrative organs of government –[Office of the Secretary to Government, Office of the Head of Service and Civil Service Commission]. Without these organs, the raison d’être of democracy, governance and responsive service delivery would be a mirage. It is through these institutions that most polities have become models to the rest of the world today with all the nations that are desirous of peaceful, purposeful, meaningful, stable political and policy environment and existence striving to be like them.

Against this background, this paper deals with the issue of institutional collaboration as ingredient for good governance, efficient and effective service delivery to the citizenry in a democracy. It critically focuses on the role of the tripodic super- bureaucracies and their Practitioners in the processes involved. Its aims include attempts on how the avoidable inter and intra institutional agencies and organs of government’s wrangling, buck-passing on important policy issues, legislative conflicts, paucity of constitutional provisions and their interpretations which had hitherto caused problems in the absence of collaboration can be recognized and abandoned for mutually beneficial behavioural inclinations, goals and agenda setting at work in the respective institutions particularly in the course of putting effects to the authoritative functions of government and its determinism of who gets what, when, where, how and, why? vis-à-vis the scarce critical resources of the state.

The focus on these super-bureaucracies and their functionaries is deliberate. This deliberateness is deeply rooted in the conviction that these levels of the administrative structures and personnel of the state clearly constitute and form the apex and hub from where the nucleus of the state’s administrative machinery derives its existence and continuous sustenance vis-à-vis the day to day practical administration of the state and, enhancement of peoples’ realization of their goals within the democratic society. This assertion finds a deep-seated solace in the respective functions of these tripodic institutions or administrative organs of the state.

2. Conceptual Analysis

It is considered appropriate to commence the intellectual odyssey in this paper with concrete though, synoptic elucidation of the concepts of institutionalism and public service. This analytical orientation is compelled by the fact that the explication of such concepts with respect to the place of the administrative arm of the state and its functionaries is critically germane to our thinking vis-à-vis the issue of collaboration for democratic governance, efficient and effective service delivery processes within Nigeria’s political space particularly within the state of our case study analysis. This conceptual discussion is followed by that of the issue of institutional collaboration and its enhancers or facilitators; the need or why the super-bureaucracies and bureaucrats should or must collaborate; benefits andconditions associated with collaborations and; the conclusion.

2.1. Institutionalism

This is the belief that underlies the nature of institutions. It is a “belief in the usefulness or sanctity of established institution”[2] hence, institutions have been described as “the beliefs, paradigms, codes, cultures, and knowledge that support rules and routines”[3]. It is a concept that “sees organizations as social construct of rules, roles, norms, and the expectations that constrain individual and group choice and behaviour”[4]. It includes core –[results, performance, outcomes, and purposefulness] – ideas of contemporary public administration concepts[5]. Thus, it has been contended that, institutionalism as a concept “could be said to account for both how institutions behave and how they perform”[6]. As a matter of fact it has been clearly articulated that “institutionalism also combines the structural or organizational elements of institutions and the managerial and leadership elements of institutions. Thus, it is not limited to formal governmental organizations as it now includes empirical and theoretical considerations of the full range of the so-called “third sector” organization”[e.g. the informal organizations, groups and interests].[7],[8],[4],[9],[10], [11],[12].

Given the immediate foregoing, it is clear that some of the theorists on the concept while giving relevance to “the limitations of economics and market logic as the theory that accounts for institutional behaviour” built their theories on the subject on:

consideration of structure, particularly hierarchy, and individual and group behaviour in institutional contexts, on the interaction of individuals and organizations and their wider political, social, and economic contexts, and on the influence of professional and cultural norms on institutional behaviour patterns and on institutional longevity and productivity[8];[3].

It is generally accepted within the boundaries of public administration in the twenty-first century that all Public Administrators are “now intuitionalists” to the extent that the “new public administration hegemony” in this century has emerged based “on a broadly accepted institutionalism”[4]. In the process it has been clearly articulated that:

Institutionalism is not a theory in the formal sense, but is, instead, the framework, the language, and the set of assumptions that hold and guide empirical research and theory building in public administration. It begins with an argument as to the salience of collective organizational action as a basis for understanding political and social institutions…Institutions are affected by their social, economic, and political context but also powerfully affect that context[4];[13].

This explains the critical contention that “politicaldemocracy depends not only on economic and social contributions but also on the design of political institutions”[3]. In line with these critical positions, it has been asserted that institutionalism:

• Assumes that policy preferences are neither exogenous nor stable but are moulded through experience and by institutions, by education, and, particularly by professions.

• Assumes the centrality of leadership, management, and professionalism and comprehends theory development all the way from the supervision of street-level bureaucrats to the transformational leadership of whole institutions.

• Recognizes the salience of action or choice and defines choice as expressions of expectations of consequences.

• In the modern world of productivity, performance, and outcomes measurement, reminds us that institutions and those associated with them shape meanings, rely on symbols and seek an interpretive order that obscures the objectivity of outcomes.

• Is particularly useful in the world of the disarticulated state because its assumptions do not rest primarily on sovereignty and authority, but rest instead on the patterns of politics, order, and shared meaning found in both governmental as well as nongovernmental institutions.

• Lends itself to forms of modelling based on simplifying assumptions other than rational self-interest or competitive markets (in that), some of the most advanced thinking in contemporary public administration is being done by formal modellers using assumptions of cooperation, order, hierarchy, institutional responses to contextual influences, networks, and governance—all essentially institutionalassumptions[4],[3],[14],[15],[16],[17],[18],[19].

Institutionalism as herein explicated demands concrete involvement of all sectors of the polity and its economy to be predicated on mutually beneficial foundation the type of which can only be found in concrete and positive collaborations among agencies and relevant organs of government which are saddled with the responsibility of dealing with the intricacies involved in the formulation of public policy and its interpretive implementations. This clearly explains the need for collaboration which is discussed later in this paper.

2.2. Public Service

The institutional collaboration we have in mind here deals with the administrative institutions of the state. These institutions are explicable within the parameters of the public service as it affects the civil service. Both of these concepts have been used interchangeably. While we are not unmindful of the debate associated with this interchangeable conceptual usage, it is the conviction here that it is within the context of the public service we can actually talk about the super-bureaucracies and their practitioners which form the focus of our analysis. However, the expected collaboration among these administrative organs and functionaries of the state can hardly be examined without analysing the subject-matter of public service and its development within the Nigerian state.

Impartial students of political science and, indeed public administration, will agree with a synopsis which asserts that Public service has constantly played a significant role in shaping the making and implementation of government policies and programmes. The role of the public service in public policy making and implementation is so crucial that the first few working days of President Obasanjo were devoted to re-orienting the federal civil servants towards the expected performance standards of the civil service during the term of his civilian regime. This goes to show that “the effectiveness of the government is to a large extent determined by the efficiency and competence of its public service. What remain disputable, however, are the proper limit of the role of the public service in the affairs of the state and, the conditions under which the institution can more effectively serve the larger interests of the society rather than narrow corporate interests.

As to the origin of public service in Nigeria, it will be recalled that interest in public service grew out of the growth and expansion in governmental institutions. As these institutions evolved and increasingly grew over the years, their functions became clearly differentiated, law – making and its implementation were no longer vested in the same person and agencies. Consequent on this, as government expanded in size, functions and complexity, and became urbanized and industrialized most especially after independence in Nigeria; administrative processes also expanded and became more specialized. This development resulted in the emergence of councils, commissions, departments, bureaus etc to attend to clearly defined functions of government[20]. These called for proper management by people –[public servants] - employed in a civil capacity and whose remunerations are paid out of money voted by the legislature. Thus, it has been articulated that Public Service is:

Service of the Federal or a state in any capacity including service as staff of the National or of a state Assembly, member or staff of the Judiciary, or any commission or Authority established by the Nigerian Constitution or by the National or state Assembly, staff of a statutory corporation or educational institution established by or financed principally by the government of the Federation or of a state, staff of a company or enterprise in which government or its agency owns a controlling share or interest, members or officers of the Armed Forces of the Federation or the Nigeria Police Force, and staff of a local government[21].

Generally, public service refers to all public employees, while civil service is limited to government employees who are appointed on the basis of examination given by the civil service commission and who acquire civil service status after the probationary period. Even though, this is the traditional conception of the dichotomy between the two however, in recent times the interchangeable use of the two as synonyms has gained a wider currency. The seeming dichotomy or differences between the two notwithstanding, public service or civil service as the case may be belongs to the landscape of the public sector of any given political system Nigeria inclusive without any disputation. Although, the public service is today an indispensable organ of government, especially with the emergence of modern states and independence and the consequent complexities in government activities as earlier pointed out, it is not a creation of modern times. The creation/origin of the public service could be traced to three sources which are regarded as the history of ancient civilization[22]. First of these sources was the effort of Kung-Sun Hung (Chinese Prime Minister) who around 120BC observed the need for examining men and women to be selected for the implementation of the royal edicts and laws. His efforts marked the beginning of the civil service examination system. It was also the ancient Chinese who had successfully worked out a system of classifying men into nine (9) grades according to their ability, competence, knowledge, experience and character. This system has gained prominence world-wide. The second source was that of Pericles, an ancient Greek leader who in 462BC introduced a scheme for the compensation of official, thus facilitating the continued participation in public administration by citizens who had to work for their daily living by way of performing specific public assignments on day to day basis. The third source was the Jewish people who, in a well organized system, moved from Egypt to their country of birth. They moved as fully organized people accustomed to the system of organized governments and public administration clearly featuring a system of well defined codes of law and regulations as can be found in the present day civil service[22].

In Nigeria, the present form/status of civil service is a product of various changes. These changes are not only as a result of the need to strengthen its capacity for efficient and effective performance of the governmental functions or activities but because of the seeming need to respond to the dynamic nature of the country’s political, social and economic developments. There is no doubt that the structure and nature of the country’s civil service before independence was patterned along the British model. This was essentially the same in all Common-wealth African States. This notwithstanding however, the decade or so before independence could be regarded as transitional with the introduction of some various administrative and social changes, including the elements of Nigerianisation of the civil service, among other things[22].

Given the centrality of the public service particularly it Functionaries at the super levels of the state and how critical their functions are to the state in terms of democratic dispensation, good governance, efficient and effective service delivery, it is essential for the relevant arms particularly the office of the Secretary to the Government, office of the Head of Service and, the Civil Service Commission to collaborate in the course of the performance of their functions. In other words, there is without any doubt the need for the super-Bureaucracies –[Office of the SSG; Office of the Head of Service and; CSC] - in the state to get out of their systemic and self-inflicted impediments. There is equally the need for them to patriotically confront the challenges they face with a view to rationally perform the functions for which they are appointed and meet the democratic aspirations of Nigerians without infusing any administrative selfishness and greediness. This is necessary in that, the benefits of democratic self-fulfilment, good governance and effective service delivery to the Nigerian masses are clearly locked in the existence of an effective, non-corrupt public service and its inherent administrative process devoid of myriad of problems and political decadence. One of the possible routes to administrative success by the tripodic super-bureaucracies and their bureaucrats is a healthy and positive collaboration.

3. The Issue of Institutional Collaboration

The issue of collaboration –[which literarily means cooperation and harmonious working together for the attainment of set goals] - among the institutions of the state is without doubt important to the end result –[good governance, efficient and effective (responsive) service delivery to the citizenry] – of the existential wherewithal of the state. It is particularly important and imperative in terms of the state’s capacity to pursue and attain the multifarious and asymmetrical goals, aspirations and interests of the governed within a diversified federal political system like Nigeria. Even though, the compelling forces for collaboration among these administrative arms –[Ministries, Departments and Agencies-MDAs] - of government in Nigeria are wide, the real propelling factors for such collaborations can actually be understood within the boundaries of the character of Nigeria’s intergovernmental relations and its federalism. As a matter of fact, the factors that readily come to mind in this regard are as follows:

• It is not always possible to divide the jurisdiction of central and state governments into watertight compartment, in which case their functions sometimes overlap.

• The relative constitutional inflexibility in federal system has prompted the various levels of government to search for flexibility through collaboration.

• The provision of concurrent powers in a federal system makes cooperation necessary.

• In areas where courts have restricted the exercise of either federal or state power, cooperation becomes necessary.

• The need for some level of equalisation of the range and quality of public services available to all citizens has sometimes produce central-state projects or programmes. This requires cooperation.

• Natural disasters such as drought, flood or other occurrences which are beyond the financial strength of unit usually compels the unit to solicit for federal assistance.

• The action of a state government may adversely affect citizens of other states. In this regard, inter-state cooperation would be necessary.

• Joint economic planning is usually undertaken by the general and regional government. This is necessary to ensure national economic integration.

• Inter-state and/or vertical cooperation may be required to put in place a project which would generate benefits for citizens in more than one state.

3.1. Collaboration among the Three Super-Bureaucracies of the State

In order for Nigeria and Nigerians to attain and benefit from “politics of hope” and its usually accompanying provision of “effective public service delivery” and, creation of workable road map to economic development, there must be unity of purpose among the tripodic super-Bureaucracies or quasi- horizontal administrative organs of government [Office of the SSG; Office of the Head of Service and, the Civil Service Commission] - particularly in the areas of policy initiation, formulation, implementation, interpretation and evaluation in the quest for responsiveness of service delivery. This unity, calls for collaboration among them. This collaboration can be brought about through many means depending on the nature of the state and its exigencies from time to time. However, it should be stated at the onset that the collaboration in mind here is the positive one since it is equally possible to have negative collaboration for illicit ends.

4. Enhancers/Facilitators of Collaboration

Collaboration among the relevant arms of the administrative state which in this paper, are the tripodic super-bureaucracies and their practitioners in Ekiti State, Nigeria can be attained through various means. However such attainment is contingent on certain things that must or should be done in the quest for administrative efficiency and effectiveness vis-a-vis meeting the needs and aspirations of the citizenry.

The first thing to be done in this regard is to truly understand and embrace the need for collaboration and, where relevant actors both at the governmental/political and citizenry levels stand in the scheme of things within the landscape of the political system. This is more so because, the indispensability of the criteria of “good governance”, “good economics”, “sane budgetary process”, “participatory budgeting”, “professionalism of the public bureaucracies and the practitioners within them”, “cordiality of political actors and actions among the three organs of government” to the attainment and sustenance of “effective public service delivery” and “politics of hope” for the Nigerian people compels the need for collaboration. This collaboration among various administrative and governmental units is in line with the imperatives of today’s existential globalism which clearly constrains unproductive and arrogant independence, individualism or isolationism in preference for collaborative efforts. And, it can only be taken for granted at any nation’s perils.

The issue of collaboration among the super-bureaucracies and bureaucrats under reference is further compelled by the constant squabbles among various competing interests in all polities of the world, Nigeria inclusive. This is so in that these squabbles are constantly capable of creating avoidable ambivalence vis-à-vis the needed harmony between political and economic objectives of any given nation as a mechanism for achieving balanced resources mix for impeccable administrative process and its virtues of effective policy initiation, adoption, formulation, implementation and evaluation amidst ever-increasing administrative constraints. Political and Economic objectives as the signposts of national development which can be understood within the macro-parameters of politics and economy as the twin-pillars of governmental actions and inactions on both political and economic fronts can actually be effectively pursued and brought to bear through collaborative relationship envisaged within the analytical parameters of this paper. Since collaboration among these agencies of government for the pursuit of political and economic objectives means consolidated focus of governance and policy process for national development, it is imperative in Nigeria in view of the constant paucity of adequate, focused andwell-implemented political and economic planning within her landscape.

This need is further compelled by the quest for efficient and effective public policies and the need to sustain them for the benefits of the people in most polities of today’s global village. In fact, the constant erosion of the virtual monopoly of state powers and/or, the continuous shrinkage of such powers as a result of the thesis of globalization and its subscription to public sector networks calls for collaboration that is geared towards economic development and its mechanism of good governance which is clearly predicated on the four pillars of “accountability”; “transparency”; “predictability” and; “participation”.

Generally, the developments across international borders which are not without their impacts on individual states’ internal governmental structures and processes further compel the kind of collaboration under discussion here. The collaboration needed among the administrative organs of government in Nigeria is expected to be positive particularly in the interest of the citizenry. Through such positive collaborations the hopes of the masses would not be dashed.

In order for the Public Bureaucracies and the Practitioners within them to be relevant and provide the requisite guidance and technocratic road map for the political actors in the quest for effective public service delivery and politics of hope for Nigeria and the Nigerian people in the context of real economic development, there must be collaboration among them. Such collaboration must affect the issues of public policy and its processes within the state particularly in terms of the needed respect for the fiscal requirements of the budget. Through such collaboration the administrative agencies at the super-bureaucratic level would be able to jointly foster a culture of policy implementation through which the political angle of the state would be made to imbibe the etiquette of fiscal process as it relates to budget’s implementation. It will aid the state’s economic survival by ensuring the avoidance of idiosyncratic tampering with the budgetary process through the hitherto existing usual disregard for fiscal requirements. Such collaboration will make it possible for the attainment of a conducive process through which the budget will serve its purposes as:

• A planning device for translating present scarce fiscal and human resources in the public sector into future government goals.

• An economic document.

• A tool for fiscal policy.

• A tool for internal co-ordination and efficiency in public administration.

• While not trying to be repetitive, collaboration is needed among these administrative organs in order to ensure responsive, efficient and effective governance and avoid political bankruptcy ³[23].

Administrative corruption which has consistently wrecked the engine of good governance and true democracy in Nigeria can also the escaped through the inculcation of values of accountability. In fact, these values can be more vigorously pursued through collaboration among the various offices. This, in turn, will aid the avoidance of corruption by the super-bureaucracies and their functionaries within the state. Such avoidance of corruption is critically important because, corruption is a threat to democratic culture. It remains the most invidious obstacle to stability in Nigeria both under the military and civilians and, inimical to the systemic existence of any polity[24]. It is a socio-political, economic and moral malaise that may permeate and cripple, as a result of its contagiousness and malignancy, the nerves of any polity. It is “an intolerable characteristic” that should be discouraged in governance because once it sets into any part; it automatically contaminates all the strata of that system’s multidimensional hierarchy in ways symmetrical to the spread of a bush fire[25],[26]. Its effects on Africa are, to say the least, incalculable given the following facts:

• Corruption can ultimately formally undermine the legitimacy of any government and eventually lead to the collapse of any government that fails to check its onslaught.

• Corruption induces inefficiency and waste. It results in best use not being made of scarce opportunity.

• Corruption contaminates the environments. It represents a rise in the price of administration (the tax payer must submit to bribery as well, thereby having to pay several times over for the same services).

• Through its kickback nature, corruption serves to diminish the total amount available for public purposes and governance.

• It exerts a corruption and corrosive effects/influence on the administrative apparatus, eroding the courage necessary to maintain and/or adhere to high standard of probity and transparency. It leads to decline in morality (e.g. each person asking himself why he/she should be the moral crusader or the sole custodian of morality).

• Corruption in government if and when perceived by the people, wipes out respect for constituted authority and consequently the legitimacy of government.

• If and when elite politicians and senior civil servants/public officials are widely believed to be corrupt, the public and/or the masses will see little reason why they, too, should not help themselves through corruption/corrupt practices.

• Through corruption, corrupt officials, civil servants or politicians remain self-centered individualsunwilling/unlikely to jeopardize their personal prospects for the sake of prosperity for the whole country or his environment in the remote future. They are not always willing to sacrifice their proclivities for corrupt practices for the betterment of the larger society.

• Corruption results in a substantial loss of productive effort because time and energy are devoted to making contacts to circumvent and outwit the system, rather than to enhancing credentials and strengthening one’s case objectively (fraudulent claims).

• Corruption as it represents unfairness, inevitably leads to litigation and in most cases trumped – up charges with which even the honest official may be blackmailed while the culprits remain free.

• It is damaging to the family system as it encourages the misdirection of scarce national resources towardsnon-productive areas. In other words, corruption wastes resources by distortion government policy against the interest of majority and away from its proper goal”[27],[28],[29].

4.1. Inculcation and Enforcement of the Values of Accountability

The internalization of the values of accountability by our Public Administrators is a sine-qua-non to administrative efficiency and efficacy vis-à-vis the pursuit of good governance and responsive service delivery to the citizenry. The essence of this is located within the parameters of the subject matter of accountability and its propeller –[transparency].

Accountability connotes a way of being answerable or liable for one’s actions and/or inactions and, conduct in office or position. It is the process of making elected and/or appointed officials and, other office holders accountable and responsible to the people who elected or appointed them for their actions while in the office. Thus, it is the “state or quality of being liable and required by a specified person or group of people to report and justify the actions of people in office in relations to specific matters or assigned duties. Accountability requires and/or involves faithful discharge of one’s duty in ways that fulfils the public interest or the interests of those who entrust such responsibility to the office or position holder(s). It is an integral part of any organization whether business, political or household. It can be viewed as responsibility. Accountability “focuses attention upon the sanctions or procedures by which public officials may be held to account for their actions (and /or inactions) (Emphasis mine)[30],[31],[32],[33]. Within this same context, it has been conceived as a process through which “the administrative state has to render an account of its performance to its sovereign-the people”. To be accountable to somebody means that, the person is superior and therefore in a position to exercise control or sanctions on the subordinate[34],[32].

Accountability as a concept or by-product of transparency defines operational measures for multidimensional performance. Thus, it means the recognition and acceptance of the fact that those -[public servants/political actors, in this case] - in public and/or any office own and hold their positions in trust for their masters –[the people]. The people that are expected to render accounts of their stewardship vis-à-vis the services they are expected to provide to the people must do so in order to determine their successes and/or failures. They must from time to time show the balance sheet of their activities and particularly, the ways and manners in which they have used and exercised the responsibilities bestowed upon them.

Accountability can be in form of political accountability, fiscal accountability, legal accountability, programme accountability, responsive accountability (covering the needs, problems and performances of the citizenry). It exists whenever the people and their government or government officials can hold one another for the discharge and/or performance of their respective responsibilities or duties to one another. Thus, failure to be accountable connotes betrayal of trust. With accountability comes transparency which, on its own means openness. It is a component of ethical values/practice expected to be demonstrated by the people in official positions. It is expected to be demonstrated vis-à-vis government activities on issues of public accounts, budgets, politics, programmes, legislations, contract awards all of which are expected to be made open. Transparency includes freedom of access to information by the citizenry. It allows the government to carry along the citizens and allow the latter to participate and contribute to day-to-day running and administration of government. It is through it that the policy actors (both formulators and implementers) can be made to be accountable to the people. Thus, it is the propeller of accountability. It stifles corrupt practices through the shrinkage of its existential space. Transparency enhances and sustains people’s rights to know what is going on in government. It brings about responsibility andresponsiveness of leadership and the policy process. It enhances government ability to manage the scare societal resources for development and sustainable democracy throughaccountable-process. Hence, no polity that is desirous of survival can or should take for granted the need for transparency and accountability[29].

Put together, accountability is “the obligation of public office holders to account for or take responsibility for their actions. Accountability “exists when power-holders have to explain and justify their actions or face sanctions” hence, it is the “cornerstone of good governance. Unless public officials can be held to account, critical benefits associated with good governance –[such as social justice, poverty reduction, and development] – will remain elusive”[35]. It is clear from the foregoing that:

The accountability of state actors is a consequence of the implicit social compact between citizens and their delegated representatives and agents in a democracy. The social compact, in turn, derives from notions of human and citizen rights, as enshrined in the General Assembly of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in many national constitutions. A fundamental principle of democracy is that citizens have both the right and the responsibility to demand accountability and to ensure that government acts in the best interests of the people. Public actors can and should be held accountable for both their conduct and performance. In other words, citizens have the right to ensure that public actors (a) obey the law and not abuse their powers, and (b) serve the public interest in an efficient, effective, and fair manner. In an institutional environment for good governance, certain conditions underpin the ability of governments to be accountable (supply-side conditions) and the ability of citizens and civil society to hold governments accountable (demand-side conditions). Supply-side and demand-side mechanisms of accountability are complementary and mutually reinforcing [35].

4.2. Dealing with the Problems of Corruption, Lack of Accountability and Arrested Development within the State

The problems of arrested development attributable to lack of accountability and transparency in Nigeria can be understood within the matrix of taken for grantedness of the raison d’être of accountability and transparency. As a matter of fact, the now obvious problems of corruption, lack of accountability and arrested development which have become terminal to the healthy existence of Nigeria as a nation must be dealt with. This is necessary and must and should be urgently done in view of the damage it has unleashed and continue to unleash on the nation’s psyche.

It is therefore, stating the obvious to observe that corruption and lack of accountability in governance have thrown up issues that border on the development of Nigeria. Politics in the country has become for most of the political actors an avenue for primitive accumulation of wealth to the detriment of the impoverished Nigerian masses. No wonder the do or die mentality that has characterized the political processes in the country. Characters of all sorts of social and political plumage have hijacked political activities and in the process shunted out genuine patriots who would have contributed immensely to the development of the country. They have in the process manacled effective and efficient public administration for the betterment of the citizenry and the state.

The nature, character and context of Nigerian politics have diminished an otherwise towering image of the country. In spite of the assumed limitations of the founding fathers of Nigeria, the current realities put them as men and women who struggled to leave some indelible marks in the National scheme of things. The Awolowos, the Azikiwes, the Ahmadu Bellos and the Okotiebos left institutions and monuments that have stood the test of time.

In all areas of life a large deficit can be noticed in the inability of the elites in power to address the needs and aspirations of the people. One of the latest Human Development Indices paints a dismal picture of Nigeria as it is ranked 158 out of the 182 nations that were assessed. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) also ranked Nigeria, over 167th in life expectancy, 112th in adult literacy, 150th in combined GDP[36]. Again, in its latest assessment of countries in the African continent, the M. O. Ibrahim Foundation indicated in 2009 that Nigeria fell below 20 other countries in terms of good governance on the continent, with Mauritius, the Indian Ocean Island being chosen as the best as its government and private sectors delivered the best practices and public goods to their people.

It bears repeating that in Nigeria the elites whether in political governance or the private sector have in fundamental ways not discharged their historical responsibilities creditably well. In fact, it was the level of graft and other socio-economic indiscretions prevalent in the country that led to the establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2001 by the regime of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.

However, we are not unaware of the fact that opinions are divided on the activities of the EFCC. Some people are of the view that the era of Ribadu marked a golden period in the activities of the EFCC while others are of the opinion that the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo used the anti-graft body to fight his political opponents thereby leaving other corrupt government officials who were close to him and his government untouched. As a matter of fact, Ekiti State had its share of this expedient political brinkmanship through the contestable impeachment of the State’s Executive Governor during the first phase of the fourth Republic (1999-2003). This political brinkmanship made Ekiti State a theatre of ‘one-day Governorship”; “double-Governorship”; “one-day-Secretaryship”;“one-month or so Governorship” following the “state of emergency period” which made “Sole Administratorship” the apex of the state’s political institutions. Even though, this paper does not want to dabble into this argument, it is worthy of note that the need to strengthen the EFCC and its sister organization, ICPC cannot be over emphasized if the fight for the extirpation of corruption in our land must be successful.

It is in recognition of this that one acknowledges the efforts of the EFCC which brought to book former Managing Directors of banks in Nigeria who used their positions either to enrich themselves or their cronies. The EFCC must add more vigour in its fight against corruption and ensure that no corrupt official no matter how highly placed is allowed to go scot free.

However, the ability of EFCC to do his with be enhanced through its restructured merger with the ICPC. In other words, The EFCC and ICPC must be restructured and consequently merged for effective performance. Even though, we are not unmindful of the various contestations and/or oppositions which this call for a merger of these agencies have engendered, it is the conviction here that such a merger can be done by making the revamped ICPC the investigative component of a new and revitalized EFCC with the latter serving as a prosecutorial and enforcement component of the new EFCC that will emerged from the merger. In the same vein, those who obtained loans from the banks and have refused to pay back should be made to honour their obligations as allowing them to treat their loans as their own share of the national cake has dire economic and legal implications for the country and its National Development. Thus, there is need for concrete accountability. As a matter of fact, the nation’s policy makers and those saddled with policy implementation most especially the Public Servants/Administrators must be made to be accountable to citizenry or the nation. In other words, accountability must be enforced and promoted through internal mechanisms. Such mechanisms include:

• Political mechanisms, such as constitutional constraints, separation of powers, the legislature, and the legislative investigative commissions.

• Fiscal mechanisms, such as auditing, financial management, and procurement regulations.

• Administrative mechanisms, such as reporting systems, norms of public sector probity, public service codes of conduct, rules and procedures regarding transparency, and public oversight.

• Legal mechanisms, such as corruption control agencies, ombudsmen, and independent judiciary[37].

It is worthy of mention here that these mechanisms or their variations – (e.g., the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission -[EFCC] and, The Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission -[ICPC]) - exist in Nigeria to some degree. However, these agencies have not really worked or been put into effective utilization or enforcement because of the nation’s geo-political, ethnic and primordial sentiments and considerations coupled with judicial bottlenecks, governance decadence, apolitical considerations, retrogressive thinking and, above all, poverty of decisive and determined leadership and non-collaborative public service. It is left to be seen if the shakeup at the apex of both agencies that led to the exit of Faridal Waziri as the head of the EFCC will bring about the desired reform of the agencies considering the fact that her immediate subordinate-Lamourde was appointed as her successor.

4.3. Professionalism of the Practitioners within the Public Service as a Facilitator of Collaboration

The collaboration in focus here will be more attainable if our public service and its functionaries are professional or become professional in the conduct and performance of their functions vis-à-vis the raison d’être of the state. As a matter of fact, it is our contention that the only way out of the apparent entrapment of today’s public service is for the practitioners within it to become professional in their own rights. This and other factors underscore the need for professionalism in the public service by the public servants/administrators.

4.4. Professionalism in the Civil Service: The Particularistic Perspective

It is the contention here that there is a need for professionalism in the civil service. However, such professionalism is particularistic rather than institutional or systemically universalistic. Thus, it will be impolitic not to stress the fact at this juncture that the professionalization or professionalism of the public administrators in mind here is absolutely different from that embarked upon by the military in 1988. The professionalism we have in mind is not systemic or systemically particularistic but individualistic. It is one which is based on particularistic criteria. The reason for this distinction between our thinking here and the reform of the military of 1988 finds a deep-seated solace in the fact that the 1988 professionalization of the civil service –[if it can actually be taken to mean so in the real sense of the term] – professionalized the institution but not the careerists.

This claim is supported by the fact that the military professionalization gave undue credence to office and/or nomenclature to the detriment of the careerists or occupants of such offices or institutions. It destroyed the foundation of the credibility of the service and, in the process opened it to ridicule through destructive political patronage which preferred mediocrity to meritocracy. In other words, the so-called military reform or professionalization of the civil service substituted meritocracy with mediocrity and, in the process removed the values which at that time served as the magnetizing factors pulling capable, well educated, prepared, knowledgeable and competent materials to the service. Due to its preference for mediocrity and incompetence, it completely destroyed the administrative cadre which, even though difficult to join by all and sundry, –[thanks to the difficult and competitive entrance examination conducted by ASCON, Topo, Badagry] – remains the dreams of a preponderant majority of people seeking positions in the civil service.

It was a reform agenda that crippled the civil service. It imported and/or transported dubious nomenclature of “Director-General” to the civil service. The dubiousness of this disturbing nomenclature is clearly explainable in what subsequently followed the political interference. Through it the civil service became the preserves of all comers and rejects - (with or without the necessary competence).

The interference in the guise of the so-called reform was clearly humiliation which can be traced to its predecessor that took place in 1975 during which the Civil Servants were severely humiliated. It was a period political power was used through the military fiat to deflate the ascendancy of the Public Administrators as a potent social force whose perceptions, interests and actions were determinant in shaping policies and strategies of government. The 1975 civil service purge which indisputably laid the chassis for the 1988 Babangida’s reform of the same institution clearly gave credence to the detestation which the military had for the Public Administrators in that:

It gave a lie to the “commonality of characteristics and interests” explanation of military-civil service coalition government. What perhaps was significant about the massive purge of the Civil Service is the inference that the service was politically responsible for what General Murtala Muhammed characterised as the ‘drift and indecision’ of the later years of the Gowon administration which led to his overthrow. Put differently, the Civil Service was no longer considered neutral in political decision-making. If political bosses fall, then, their civil service advisers must equally fall. In this regard, the requirement of the civil service reforms that permanent secretaries should retire along with the regime which appointed them would appear to have laid its precursor in raison d’être of the 1975 purge.[It is interesting to know that the stipulation that permanent secretaries should retire along with the regime that appointed them has been abandoned] - (Emphasis in bracket is mine)[38].

This political interference which had its roots in the military arrogance and its attendant bankruptcy of knowledge as to what constitutes the cornerstones of public administration or the civil service, actually led to the unfortunate situation through which Officers who were not in the mainstream –[Administrative Cadre] - of the civil service were smuggled and/or imported into the administrative arm of the service. Some of the beneficiaries of this administrative calamity and policy blindness who may still be in service would find it difficult to discern the rationality of this argument given human proclivities for self benefits and demands of the flesh but, this is a reality however bitter it may be. While the intention here is not a call for retroactive reversion of the status of such beneficiaries, it is aimed at evoking the need for policy guidelines to keep afloat the relevance of the administrative cadre and its professionalism for the futuristic sustenance of the credibility and attractiveness of the civil service and, the need to resist such policy madness and blindness in future. As a matter of fact, a critical example that readily comes to mind here was the appointment of Officers in the Local Government Service as Permanent Secretaries against the existing “position-classification” requirements and the enabling Civil Service Regulations. In fact, through such interference some of such Officers eventually became Head of Service to the detriment of real Professionals who traditionally belonged to the Administrative Cadre and, who actually went through the requisite competitive examinations prior to their engagement/recruitment into the civil service.

It is innocuous to articulate the fact that prior to 1988 military’s tinkering with the Nigerian civil service, the Administrative Cadre of the civil service was the dream of every civil servant including those already in the service –[in different career lines] - and those seeking to join it. This class of civil servants enjoyed benefits of good and prioritized postings to critical sections, offices and; sectors of the service in deference to the complex recruitment processes they went through prior to their appointment. The level of their career advancement and rapidity of promotions was indeed, telegraphic and enviable. To a significant extent, at that time so many people in other career lines usually strived to cross-over to the administrative cadre and, were even very much willing to go through make-up competitive examinations which, probably they could not pass initially prior to joining different cadres of the service. All these went with the wind of the 1988 so-called military reform of the civil service.

As a matter of fact, and, without meaning to be flagrantly immodest or, trying to slur and attack peoples’ image, I wish to emphatically state at this point that entry into the Administrative Cadre at that time was so competitive and rigorous due to the entrance examination. To some extent, most or some people seeking positions in the civil service were afraid and, knew that they were not competent as human resources or materials for the cadre. In fact, such people voluntarily preferred and/or opted to join the civil service through non-competitive other career lines. It is however, sad to note that some of such incompetent materials or rejects later found their ways into the service courtesy of the so-called reform which crippled that critical cadre of the civil service to the extent that they later found themselves at the apex of the service at certain points in time. This is a bitter reality of what actually happened to the civil service within our polity at certain point in the annals of its history.

Without any doubt whatsoever, the 1988 reform or professionalization of the civil service marked the beginning of the end of “Permanent Secretaryship” in the civil service before its belated reincarnation with the abolition of the same reform by the Abacha military oligarchy in 1995. The 1988 reform was the beginning of the practice whereby nothing was again permanent about permanent secretaryship in the civil service in Nigeria. Even though a semblance of sanity seems to be coming back to the service in terms of competitive examinations for promotions and appointment as Permanent Secretary or Head of Service, the fact that such positions are in most cases no longer tenure tracked in the real sence of it but, in stead tied to specific terms of office of two or more years and, the dependency of renewability of such appointments on political exigencies –[which are always open to political manipulations] – makes it worrisome and absolutely disturbing.

As a matter of fact, this aspect of the Nigerian civil service calls for serious concerns the discussion of which is better left for some other days. It is however referred to in passing here to give credence to the fact that the professionalism or professionalization of the Public Administrators (Civil Servants) we have in mind in this paper is quite different from that of the systemic or institutional professionalization that once took place in Nigeria through the military fiat and, which clearly slaughtered the pillars of the service on the altar of political expediency and military arrogance. It is different in the sence that, unlike the military reform, which gave ascendancy to mediocrity to the detriment of meritocracy and its accompanying technical competence in the Nigerian civil service, the professionalism in focus here is a tool for professional handling of the administrative affairs of the state by our Public Administrators as they affect good governance, efficient and effective service delivery and sustenance of democratic principles for the betterment of the citizenry.

It is therefore, the contention here that the particularistic professionalization or professionalism of the careerists - (the Public Administrators/Civil Servants) – will add more values and vitality to the service better than the institutional one that serves as a mechanism for the erosion of the centrality of the service as the true vehicle for the sustenance of governance and policy initiation, formulation, implementation and evaluation within the Nigerian state. Through the former –[professionalism of the public administrators] – the careerists themselves will see the need for collaboration among them through inter and intra agencies or institution relationships at all levels. Such resultant collaboration will end in-fighting which hitherto had made them willing preys to the political predators. And, through such productive and forward looking relationships the constant “Darwinism” -[survival of the fittest] – to which they sometimes subject themselves in the course of unhealthy rivalries and lobbying –[of the political angles of the state] – for what truly and by all standards and criteria belong to them will hardly exist as they will automatically become impeccable and/or unassailable.

The essence of the claim here is revealed by the fallouts from the 1988 military reform of the civil service. This is particularly so in that such in-fighting or struggles among the civil servants following the 1988 military’s tinkering with the foundational pillars of the civil service cannot be fatally denied. As a matter of fact, such in-fighting and parasitic struggles led to situations whereby Grade level 12 officers and, in most cases lower Grade levels officers were made Directors-General over and above their superiors. Such appointments were made based on the untenable excuse that those so appointed would leave office with the government/regimes that appointed them. This in most cases led to the premature career sunset of those so appointed which, to this author, they thoroughly deserved due to their career covetousness.

With career professionalism and its propensity for willing collaborative relationship vis-à-vis the governance and policy processes, such policy madness –[explainable in the dubiousness of the 1988 civil service reform] – and its accompanying destruction of the public administrators’ e-sprit de corps will diminish if not totally abated. This will once again make the civil service the cynosure of all eyes it traditionally used to be.

It is our contention that the issue of professional public administration, its development or determination of who is a professional public Administrator can be addressed and/or done through the dichotomy of “self-seeking bureaucrats” and “dedicated civil Servants”[39]. The former usually called “the empire-building bureaucrats”, “seek to maximize their power and/or income as determined by the size of their bureaus” while the latter “seek to contribute to an efficient operation of the public sector and to the public”[39], The self-serving bureaucrats (i.e. non professional public administrators) will:

• Ask for more funds than needed to perform a given function.

• Overstate the benefits to be derived from a given level of services.

• Inflate the total budget in anticipation of expected cutbacks[39].

Conversely, the dedicated (professional) civil servants will:

• Provide technical expertise in the designing of programs so as to enable decision – makers (elected government officials) to make intelligent choices.

• Implement and operate programmes once they are enacted.

• Provide an element of continuity to the governmental process introduce a sense of rationality with the operation (of the governmental process).

The services of the “dedicated civil servants” or “civil service perspective civil servants” are very crucial to the functioning of the modern state and, to the designing and implementation of public policy”[40]. The need for the development of professional public Administrators in Nigeria can be understood within the context of their instrumentality for the attainment of democratic benefits by ways of policy orientation that can address the inadequacy of our current democratic dispensation. Through the attainment of professionalism our public bureaucrats will clearly be aware of the constant basic misconceptions of democracy, which may have hitherto, been negatively affecting the performance of their duties.

It can be reasonably, to some extent, deduced from the foregoing, that the issue of the development of professional Public Administrators for coping with the values of governance and/or democracy is not alien to the Nigerian polity. Even though, its pedigree and, abrogation/deflation can hardly be examined in isolation from the policy initiatives of the military Regime of General Yakubu Gowon’s Udoji Commission Report and, the Civil Service Reform of 1975 and Babangida’s 1988 civil service reform already alluded to above, it held sway during the ill-fated third Republic which was never a full fledged democratic Republic because of its subservience to the military oligarchy. The reform was equally abolished not minding its military pedigree by the same military though, under a different leader-General Sanni Abacha in 1995.

It is however, interesting to note that the pride of the public service or civil service dismantled by the military reform of 1988, can be taken to have been reincarnated if the reintroduction of promotion through competitive examination which started with the President Goodluck Jonathan Administration’s promotion of the Federal civil servants including the Head of Service is allowed to continue. This new philosophy has been adopted by some States of the Federation particularly Ekiti State.

The development of professional public Administrators for the new democratic culture in Nigeria can only be understood and/or appraised within the context of the political character of the public service progenized by the new thinking that “politics is synonymous with public administration”. There is no gainsaying the fact that Nigeria’s public Administration (or public Service) needs transformation into one that will be most efficient, competent, self-confident, knowledgeable and Professional to earn the confidence and respect of the political class in that “career civil servants who are self-confident, highly competent, knowledgeable, dedicated and results-oriented professionals normally enjoy the respect of the political class regardless of the regime type”[41]. They have to be professional in that as “the main agent of change that preconceive, design, implement and co-ordinate the process of change in the society”; they possess the “instruments of Public Administration”. More importantly they are involved in “social engineering” that deals with “the action part of government, the means by which the purposes and goals of government are achieved. Such “social engineering” deals with:

• Designing the process of the change from old to new (ideal) society.

• Creation of new institutions.

• The planning and regulation of the economic system.

• Rendering advice to and guiding the leaders of the political system and,

• Above all, the setting of new norms and standard of morality to guide the society.

The needs elucidated in the foregoing section can only be harnessed subject to certain conditions which must be fulfilled. The extent to which these are fulfilled will determine the hope of the public service in Nigeria today for the future. Since, the core of their environmental expectations occurs within the new democratic culture, it is, in our view, appropriate to start the discussion of the expectations from the “would- be professional Public Administrators” from the point of democracy and, its relevance and indispensability in today’s world of public administration.

To begin with our Public Administrators must understand what the challenges of democracy are today, in Africa and, indeed, in Nigeria in that:

the challenges of democracy in Africa are great because of the nature of the continent, its people, and its history. Africa is a complex continent requiring complex solutions in order to enable a democratic and fruitful life for its citizens to develop. Africa is not only the big continent it is, but has diverse cultures and experiences. At the same time, Africa has similarities. Democracy and developments are closely linked. We find that the ideal components of democracy, development, and peace are common in all these terms. Indeed, one is in the other[42].

To be able to meet the challenges of democracy our public Administrators must consider many factors. which include: “physical geography of the place”, “population and density” “ethnic diversity” “Religion and spirituality” “culture”, “language”, “colonial links”, “economic situation”, “political system”, and “people on the margins”[42]. As a matter of fact, the issue of the “people on the margins” is very important and relevant to the Nigerian political space and its administrative landscape. The essence of this position is that our Public Administrators, to be called and regarded as real Professional, must, in the performance of their duties, recognize that democratic culture calls for the protection of the minority rights and, the understanding recognition of the asymmetrical aspirations of the people in the democratic environment.

More importantly, our public Administrators, to be professional must understand that “the application of standards embodying the values of only one culture over the other cultures is indeed an affront to the latter”[43]. Thus, they should have at the back of their minds, the need to redress some of the pitfalls of the fundamental assumptions of democracy in the performance of their official duties because “democracies around the world are being swept by a new form of politics guided more by issues than by traditional distinction between liberal and conservative positions”[44]. Concretely, their own interpretation of democracy must understand the need, due to the increasing complexities of our societies, to redefine the fundamental assumptions of mass democracy. They should and must understand that democracy:

Must not only guarantee the democratic rights of the majority but assure the minority of their rights to differ from the majority. These are without any obligation on the part of the former to yield their rights and abide by the he erosion of identity and survival of ethnic groups. Otherwise, the minority would simply be persecuted by the majority. The persistence of a mosaic of ethnic groups who operate in accordance with their own rules and perseveres in their legitimate rights to self-governance either outside or within the realm of the State is slowly giving rise to “mosaic democracy” as distinguished from mass democracy. Mosaic democracy appears to correspond to the mosaics in the economy and diversified or “de-massified” peoples needs and political demands[44].

There is no gainsaying the fact that the complexities of administration and governance in contemporary time have created “contours of modern management and a spectre of problems quite beyond the capacity of non-professional public servants. Nigeria’s public service to be relevant for today and survive for the future must first of all become totally professional and knowledgeable about the problems associated with corruption as earlier highlighted in this paper. They must be particularly abreast of “new institutionalism”, “network theory” and “governance theory” as mechanisms specifically designed to solve, ameliorate or “at least address the issues associated with the complexities of today’s administrative world.

Generally and specifically, the public service in Nigeria at this time of the new millennium, must be knowledgeable about the current trends and the position of Public Administration in the 21st Century particularly within the context of globalization and its “impact on most dimensions of government administration in most countries and constraints or the ability of national governments and their bureaucracies to act independently without collaboration[45]. Above all, the future of the public service in Nigeria, even though, specifically and concretely dependent to a significant extent, on compliance with the dictates and complexities of the technologically based villagized world and its thesis or constitution, can actually be guaranteed by the collaboration and adherence of the practitioners (to the ethical obligations and codes of conducts” which from our perspective remain the indispensable pillars of the public service. These ethical obligations include: loyalty, accountability, courtesy and respect, discipline and integrity, honesty and impartiality and, confidentiality”[46].

It is through respect for these obligations, that the degeneration and/or erosion of public service ethics –[the ascendancy of corruption and proclivities for Kleptocracy by public officials in the course of performing their official duties] - can be reversed for the sustainability of the Nation’s public service for today and the future. The sustainability is equally dependent on the provision of enabling environment by the State for the realization of what has been termed practical agenda for promoting ethics and accountability in contemporary African public service[47]. These include: fostering and promoting enabling conditions of service to enhance professional and ethical standards; advancing and affirming sound policies on recruitment, training and public personnel management. encouraging public service occupational associations to play a leading role in institutionalizing professional values and defending occupational interests; promoting a psychology of service in political and public life; upholding the integrity and effectiveness of public institutions of accountability; fostering popular participation to ensure the accountability of governance[47].

4.5. Good Leadership as Enhancer of Effective Collaboration

Leadership is “the ability to get men do what they don’t want to do and like it”. It is “the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. It is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen”. Leadership is “the process of using power to obtain interpersonal influence”[48],[49]. In other words, leadership involves influence and its evocation to alter the behaviours of others in groups and organizational settings to attain desired goals based on proper agenda setting. It is about capacity: the capacity of leaders to listen and observe, to use their expertise as a starting point to encourage dialogue between all levels of decision making, to establish processes and transparency in decision making, to articulate their own value and visions clearly but not imposes them. Leadership is about setting and not just reacting to agenda, identifying problems, and initiating change that makes for sustainable improvement rather than managing change[50].

Thus, in today’s organizations and to some extent political systems, the understanding of the concept of leadership is critical to the attainment of organizational goals. This is more so in that:

Leaders today work in socially intricate organizations where they need the assistance not only of subordinates but also of peers, superiors, and external parties to accomplish their goals. Accomplishing goals that positively impact the organization requires effective leadership linked to strong power bases and workable influence strategies. Building a strong power base and developing effective influence strategies to produce power dynamic is an important leadership challenge[51].

The essence of the immediate preceding quotation vis-à-vis the subject matter of focus in this paper can be clearly located within the parameters of the conceptualization of leadership as:

A reciprocal relationship between those who choose to lead and those who decide to follow. Strategies, tactics, skills and practices are empty unless we understand the fundamental human aspirations that connect leaders and their constituents. If there is no underlying need for the relationship, then there is no need for leaders”[52].

The need for effective leadership is compelled by the fact that “everything rises and falls on leadership” and, the “success or failure of every human endeavour depends solely on the kind of leadership available for such endeavours”. Thus, “a leader in an organization or political setting is an embodiment of a force that directs the entire organization towards the realization of the organizational goals”. Concretely put, leadership connotes “ability to inspire, direct, motivate and encourage others positively to targeted ends. It is the ability to lead others”. It “represents authority and the pinnacle of the organization. It is the form that authority assumes when it enters into process”[53],[54],[55],[56],[57]; [58],[59].

Nigeria as a nation needs a determined leadership to get out of her political woes part of which are explainable within the parameters of the administrative lawlessness, greed and avarice foisted on her and her people by a preponderant majority who have been constantly elected and/or appointed or, who have through one way or the other always found their ways into the nation’s high level administrative structures or institutions both at the national and state levels.. For such a leader to be effective and truly serve and meet the needs of Nigeria and Nigerians through impeccable administrative process, he must be a change leader with beneficial focus and determination in his quest for sustainable democratic governance process, efficient and effective service delivery to the people.

A change leader is a key to large-scale, sustainable reform. It is a leader that is committed to sustained and sustainable innovation in his quest for organizational effectiveness. A change leader is a focused leader who is committed to the development of knowledge and skill within his organization particularly in terms of programme coherence and technical resources[60]. Change leaders are critically concerned with and, committed to the achievement of large-scale organizational turnaround in the course of their leadership role and management of human and natural resources within a given political economy and its accompanying multiple variables and other societal landscapes and their terrains.

A change leader is one who seeks deep and lasting reforms through the establishment of conditions aimed at the attainment of “enduring greatness”. He is a leader who “catalyses commitment to a compelling vision and higher performance” by going beyond “performance standard” and building “enduring greatness”[61].

Generally, a change leader is one whose goal is “sustainable change in society”. He is a leader of the future who is “attuned to the big picture” of his environment. He is “a sophisticated conceptual thinker who transforms the organization through people and teams” and displays “palpable energy, enthusiasm and hope”[62]. He is a leader who performs change leadership roles that are critical to the organization’s stability, goal attainment and durable sustainability.

Through this type of leadership the Nigerian nation will benefit and the kleptocracy that has been foisted on the Nigerian state by administrative ineptitudes, morbid inter and intra agencies struggles and squabbles and, political avarice and covetousness will be reduced. This is more so in that a change leader “values the tensions inherent in addressing hard to solve problems because that is where the greatest (organizational/systemic) accomplishments lie” [62].

5. Why the Super-Bureaucracies and their Bureaucrats Must Collaborate through Inter and Intra Agency/Institutional Relationship in Ekiti State, Nigeria

The choice and use of the adjective “Tripodic” in describing the three critical super-bureaucracies of the state and their functionaries is deliberate. It is deliberate in the sense that these institutions are constantly adjustable through re-organization, modification, removal, redeployment using the sometimes unassailable instrumentalities of office and/or powers of the Executive. This is clearly put into perspective by the history of the tripodic bureaucracies in Nigeria which details how they have been tinkered with over the years based on regime turnovers and political expediency amongst other factors:

the history of the Civil Service Commission has all along been rather steady, those of the offices Secretary to Government and Head of Service have been rather zigzag. The first well known Secretaries to government in Nigeria in the colonial era were Donald Cameron who was styled “Chief Secretary” at the “Central Secretariat” in Lagos; Major Moorhouse as Secretary Southern Provinces; and Mr. Mathew as Secretary Northern Provinces. They were appointed by Sir Frederick Lugard, who was Governor of Nigeria. At Independence in 1960, the title changed to Secretary to the Prime Minister in person of S. O. Wey. After the takeover of government by the military in 1966, the title changed to Secretary to the Federal Military Government at the centre and the office was occupied by M. A. Ejueyichie and later A. A. Atta. Somehow by the time of C. O. Lawson, the title of the office has changed to Secretary to the Federal Military Government and Head of Service. Lawson was succeeded by A. A. Ayida, A. L. Groma, S. A. Musa, G. A. E. Longe and Adamu Fikka. Adamu Fikka was later divested of the aspect of Secretary to Government and made to retain only the aspect of Head of Service......there was a lot of tinkering with the two offices. While between 1966 and 1979 they were merged as Secretary to Government and Head of Service, the 1979 constitution separated it into two offices of S. S. G and H. O. S. But by 1984, the Buhari military regime merged them again into one office SMG and H.S. However, by 1988 General Babangida atrociously abolished the office of the Head of Service through a bogus Civil Service Reform, only to be restored soon after by General Abacha. Such was the chequered history of the office of the S. S. G and H. O. S in Nigeria[63].

These super-bureaucratic institutions of governance –[which even though, debatable or contestable within the parameters of “coordinate-subordinate partnershipcontinuum” or “coordinate-subordinate authority dichotomy”] - are to some extent quasi-pyramidal or hierarchical in terms of relevant state’s Organogram. They are very critical to the state vis-à-vis the governance process and its accompanying expected manifest responsive service delivery devoid of red-tapism and injurious extra-systemic official conducts. The extent to which these tripodic institutions can sustain themselves amidst the almost constant political onslaught of the Executive by means of readjustment, reorganizations, disruptions which are always debilitating to the career aspirations of the functionaries will be determined by their ability and willingness to collaborate in the performance of their respective functions.

6. Functions of the Tripodic Bureaucracies

The functions of the tripodic bureaucracies –[SSG; HOS and; CSC] - in focus here with a moderate or contestable exception of the Civil Service Commission, are to some extent determined by political considerations as they can be altered from time to time depending on the political agenda of the government in place. Thus it can be argued to some extent that such functions are products of both political and constitutional delegations.

6.1. Functions of the Office of the Secretary to the State Government –[SSG]

In terms of functional performance the Secretary to the Government (SSG) depending on the position, thinking or orientation of the political leadership or government in place, is in most cases, responsible for superintending or overseeing the affairs of the under listed critical areas or segments of the state.

• Cabinet Secretariat.

• Meetings of the Executive Council.

• Matters relating to the Legislature.

• Constitutional or political matters such as Tribunals and Commissions of Inquiry.

• State Security and public safety.

• Directing the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) regarding government policies and decisions.

• Maintaining contacts with Political Executives in the various departments.

• Protocol Affairs.

• Intergovernmental Relations.

• National Honours and Related Matters and, any other duties that may be assigned by the ultimate political leadership.

6.2. Functions of the Office of the Head of Service –[HOS]

The functions of the Head of Service amongst others include responsibility over the affairs of the following administrative duties of the state:

• Implementations of government decisions by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

• Coordination of all service matters generally.

• Handling matters of recruitment, appointments, promotion and discipline of career officers in conjunction with Civil Service Commission.

• Protecting or guarding the integrity of service rules and regulations, ethics and norms.

• Training and staff development.

• Grading and Pay, and Establishment matters generally such as personnel records.

• Deployment of staff to different areas of the service as may be called for from time to time.

• Pensions and service welfare matters.

• Looking after labour matters such as dealing with labour negotiating council or committees.

• Allocation of vehicle and other logistics to enhance the performance of MDAs and their staff and, any other duties that may be assigned by the political leadership of the state.

6.3. Functions of the Civil Service Commission –[CSC]

The functions of the Civil Service Commission haveremained clear and steady over the years within the administrative landscape and terrains of the Nigerian state. This has been largely due to lack of the constant alterations and political determinism which have characterized those of the SSG and HOS. These functions include amongst others:

• Recruitment and appointment of staff and,

• Promotion and discipline of staff.

It is important to note the fact that, the seeming pyramidal or hierarchical nature of these three critical super-bureaucracies –[Office of the Secretary to Government; Office of the Head of Service and; the Civil Service Commission] notwithstanding, the strength of one - (Office of the SSG) – of them through political leverage over the others – (Office of the HOS and, the CSC) - constitutes the latter’s’ advantage over the former – (i.e., the office of the SSG). The HOS enjoys a semblance of permanence in office over the SSG to some extent in that the latter is more political than administrative. While the tenure of the SSG is actually tied to that of a given Executive and, may hardly in some cases continue beyond the first term in case the Executive gets a second term in office, the other institutional super-bureaucracies –[HOS and CSC] – are not usually or always victims of this political exigency due to certain statutory stipulations. In other words, the latter do and usually in most cases survive such expedient political considerations due to statutory requirements. However, out of the three institutions only the CSC to some extent enjoys a fixed term of office which may not always be easily slaughtered on the altar of political exigencies despite the fact that their appointments are made in most cases, on the basis of political consideration. This notwithstanding, we have seen cases where the Executives tampered with such appointments prior to the completion of the stipulated tenure and, such actions led to litigations.

Given these variations in the conditions of services of these tripodic super-bureaucracies, the only way to constantly avoid and/or survive the premature political onslaught or annihilation from the Executives in most cases is for them to collaborate so as to positively move governance forward through efficient, effective and responsive service delivery. This is more so in the sense that:

the three are in coordinate partnership and not in subordinate partnership. Maintenance of smooth relationship is easier to handle in subordinate partnership where one authority necessarily has to defer to a higher authority in the chain of command. But where authorities are at par as in coordinate partnership, greater care is ever needed not to rock the boat unnecessarily or rub the other partner on the wrong side. Situations had occurred where the office of the Head of Service clashed with the Civil Service Commission in unnecessary tussle. This should never have been so if all parties were sufficiently conscious of the ethics of their relationship. They are cooperating and not competing offices[63].

While emphasizing the need for this collaboration we are however, not unmindful of the difference in the expectation tied to the functional purviews of the tripodic bureaucracies. This is more so in view of the fact that the Office of the SSG is both political and administrative and does not fully fall within the matrix of the traditional values and criteria of public administration because it is both heard and seen unlike the Office of the HOS and its functionaries who are only heard and not seen in line with the orthodoxy of public administration⁴ not minding the currency given to the political character of public administration. While the Office of the HOS and its practitioners are only seen but not heard, the CSC is the gatekeeper that determines who enters or does not enter the public service (civil service). It has the same pedigree in terms of political appointment into office like the SSG. Even though the determinism involved in the emergence of the HOS is to some extent political its political consideration is guided by civil service rules and regulations which are not really applicable to the other two. However, it should be stated that the political consideration involved in the emergence of the HOS seemed to have been diminished by the introduction of competitive examination as one of the critical requirements for the appointment of Permanent Secretaries and the HOS.

7. The Contemporary Trend in Ekiti State, Nigeria.

Competitive examinations as one of the critical requirements for appointments and promotions of the staff in the Civil Service were actually evoked in Ekiti State in 2010. This was done in respect of the appointment of the state’s HOS and Permanent Secretaries. The requirement was extended to the education sector in the course of the state’s quest for a more robust and sound education of its people. This was done through competitive examinations for the old and new School Principals in the state prior to appropriate placement, deployment and, redeployment. Thus, Ekiti State offers a good example in the revamping of the civil service as a critical engine of the state in line with the orthodoxy of rational bureaucracy and its imperatives of hierarchy of authority, impersonality, technical competence, specialization, discipline and, meritocracy which were swept away by previous inglorious reforms.

With its contemporary focus which has a perfect symmetry with the currents of public administration in the 21^st century, the political and extra-systemic considerations which have fatally crippled the public service have diminished or been completely dismantled in the state. As a matter of fact, in its quest for efficient, effective, results-oriented, professional, dedicated, knowledgeable, competent, accountable and financially prudent civil service and servants, the Ekiti State government in addition to its reincarnation of the critical criteria of orthodox bureaucracy in its civil services, introduced in 2010, measures for achieving “strong implementation capacity” of the state’s civil service “through the Civil Service Transformation Strategy (CSTS)”[41].

The rationality of the state’s philosophy and thinking along this line was predicated on the belief that the major instruments for achieving its 8-Point Agenda of: participatory and accountable “governance, infrastructural development, modernizing agriculture, education and human capital development, health care services, industrial development, tourism and, gender equality and empowerment” is to do away with a “civil service characterized by intense politicisation, limited efficiency and effectiveness and low morale”[64],[41]. While the requirements and task associated with this new thinking remain largely daunting, “it is not an insurmountable challenge” from the perspective of the political leadership of the state[65].

The main goal of the CSTS in Ekiti State is “to transform the civil service through critical institutional changes, re-engineering of management systems and processes, and restoring merit, professionalism, and competence, into a value-based and results-oriented institution within eight to ten years”[41]. Thus, it is predicated on the following key result areas:

• Effective governance of the civil service;

• Organizational efficiency and effectiveness;

• Professional and results-oriented civil servants;

• Ethical and accountable workforce with a changed work culture;

• Improved competence of civil servants; and

• Improved public financial management[64],[41].

The evocation of the competitive examination as one of the requirements for recruitment and promotions in Ekiti State is in perfect conformity with the traditionalism of the civil service which was jettisoned in Nigeria through the policy blindness of the military reformers in exchange for a civil service characterized by mediocrity and limited efficiency and effectiveness, low morale and productivity. This traditionalism which takes civil servants as “administrators paid for implementing the policies of national governments” was predicated on “the implementation of the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms in the second half of the nineteenth century” which signalled the origin of the civil service as a modern bureaucracy[66]. These reforms at that time and beyond ensured that:

• Entrance to the civil service was by competitive examination, both for the administrative (highest) and executive (intermediate) classes. Promotion was also on merit.

• The civil service became a life career and hence a profession for the educated to enter into

• The tasks of civil servants were divided into intellectual and routine. This meant that departments developed as hierarchic: those drawn from the administrative class filled senior policy advice positions; those from the executive class filled positions defined by their superiors; and those on clerical grades-the least intellectual-carried out routine work.

• The civil service as a permanent institution of government developed an ethos of political neutrality, willing and able to advise and serve elected government of any party programme[66].

The foregoing clearly and closely mirrors Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy. Max Weber, the German Sociological writer, was the foremost exponent of the bureaucratic theory of organization. As a matter of fact, his theory has definitely become the blue print for the analytical consideration of the organizational landscapes both in the public and private sectors of almost all polities or political economies of the world.

Contemporary thinking on the subject matter of bureaucracy and its place in organizations is without any doubt predicated on the classical work of Max Weber in that his “analysis of bureaucracy which was first published in 1922” remains the “most influential statement or pronouncement and point of departure for all analyses on the subject” up till today[67]. The core of Weberian bureaucratic theory deals with the explanation of bureaucratic (formal) organizations as exemplified by the fact that:

Weber used an “ideal-type” approach to extrapolate from the real world the central core of features characteristic of the most fully developed bureaucratic form of organization. Weber’s “characteristic of Bureaucracy” is neither a description of reality nor a statement of normative preference. It is merely an identification of the major variables or features that characterize bureaucracies[67].

According to this theory, the features/characteristics of bureaucracy include “hierarchy, promotion based on professional merit and skill, the development of a career service in the bureaucracy, reliance on and use of rules and regulations, and impersonality of relationships among career-professionals in the bureaucracy and with their clientele”[68]. As a matter of fact:

Bureaucracy has emerged as a dominant feature of the contemporary world. Virtually everywhere one looks in both developed and developing nations, economic, social, and political life are extensively influenced by bureaucratic organizations. “Bureaucracy” is generally used to refer to a specific set of structural arrangements. It is also used to refer to specific patterns of behaviour-patterns which are not restricted to formal bureaucracies. It is widely assumed that the structural characteristics or organization properly defined as “bureaucratic” influence the behaviour ofindividuals-whether clients or bureaucrats-who interact with them[67].

The predominance and prominence of the bureaucratic theory of organization notwithstanding, the theorists within the open model stream (along the evolutionary trend of organizational theory) have been very critical of the Weberian bureaucratic theory. The open model criticism of this theory has been summed up thus:

Open model theorists dislike the rigidity, the inflexibility, the emphasis on means rather than ends, and the manipulative and anti-humanist overtones of Weberian bureaucratic theory”. However, the criticisms of the Weberian theory have on their own been criticized in turn, because they “often have been overdrawn and certainly have not been levelled with Weber’s own social context in mind[69].

The need for the continuous applicative sustenance of these imperatives of Weberian bureaucracy in ways conducive to the pursuit of good governance makes the type of collaboration in perspective here indispensable within the landscape of any state’s civil service. The positive multiplier effects of such collaboration on the policy and governance processes of a nation like Nigeria can only be taken for granted at the perils of the state.

8. The Benefits of Collaboration

Through collaboration the sate and its citizens will benefit immensely in that the super-Bureaucrats will be able to safe the state from the clutches of some problems which can completely wreck her engine of development and they will be able to call for urgent actions by ways of solutions and policy redirection. This is particularly so in that in dealing with policy initiation, formulation and implementation, the super bureaucrats in the tripodic super-institutions will increasingly and jointly become aware of the three major alternatives or grounds –[provision of a policy; best known alternative and; absence of a policy] - for policy evaluation. They will also become soundly knowledgeable about the applicative utility of the criteria –[efficiency, effectiveness, equity, adequacy, feasibility, ethics and technology] - against which public policy can be evaluated. Thus, becoming equipped with the competence to constantly distinguish policy input (PI) from policy output (PO) within the framework of policy analysis and public policy hierarchy and, the quadrupled categories –[political policy, executive policy, administrative policy and technical policy] – involved[70]. By so doing they will be able to constantly rescue the state from the deep waters of economic mismanagement and wastage and, in the process enhance national development and the pursuit of national aspirations and responsive and responsible deliverance of public good to the people.

Through the same collaboration our super-Bureaucrats will equally be able to s d the leaves of the cancerous factors associated with disruptive or conflict ridden administrative landscape of a disorganized bureaucratic ecology. From the collaboration avoidance of the abuses in the public and financial sector of the nation’s economy and adoption of optimal strategy for effective management of the economy will automatically become part of the values of the public service. As a matter of fact, it will confer on the bureaucrats the capacity to:

• Identify the causes of government’s fiscal problems and development a multi year forecast of revenue- yielding capacity as well as that of the demand for it services.

• Develop a “list of priority rankings for all government programmes, projects, services and benefits so that high- priority items could be retained or augmented and low-priority items could be reduced or terminated.

• Design an integrated strategy to generate new resources, improve productivity, and ration services so that both revenue and expenditure sides of the budget could be neatly balanced[71],[72].

The Super-Bureaucrats through the benefits of collaboration will be able to deal with questions like the under-listed ones and provide answers to them in their quest for fiscal solvency of the state:

• What activities are mandated? That is, what services and benefits are required by law? This question is intended to sort out activities that are “musts” from activities engaged in by habit or custom.

• What activities can be terminated? This question focuses on activities that are not mandated and may have low public support.

• What additional revenues can be raised? Where can user charges and fees be instituted and raised? Where can uncollected taxes be collected? What services can be sold to other government units? What grants can be obtained from the federal government, the state, or private sources?

• What activities can be assigned to other service providers? This question helps identify services that can be shifted to other units of government, contracted out at lower cost, shared with other governments, provided by the private sector, or “co-produced” with client participation at lower cost.

• What things can be done more effectively? This question addressed the broad area of productivity improvement. It should help generate alternative approaches to delivering existing services, changing organizations and using technological improvements to reduce costs.

• Where can low-cost or no-cost labour be used? Where can positions be reclassified and downgraded? Where can tasks be simplified, paramilitary jobs be manned by civilians, and paraprofessionals and volunteers be utilized?

• Where can capital investments be substituted for labour expenses? At a time when labour expenses comprise 70 to 80 percent of many agencies’ budgets, labour-saving technologies can yield substantial savings; this question seeks to identify opportunities for such savings.

• Where can information gathering methods be installed and improved? Good information can improve financial forecasts and account for the direct and indirect cost and the benefits of service alternatives.

• Where can demand be reduced and services rationed? Because many public services are free, they are often squandered. This question addresses the possibility of using fees and other means (e.g., eliminating low-usage hours in some public services and smoothing out peak hours in others) to reduce demand and pare down the availability of some services.

• What policies can help strengthen the economic base and promote economic development? This question addresses the link between economic development and government policies and underscores the importance of private-sector investment decisions for public-sector fiscal solvency.

• What arrangements can be made to identify and strengthen the leadership of this process? This final question underlies all others. Without able leadership the process of guiding a government through a fiscal squeeze may turn out to be haphazard and self-defeating. Decision-making structures that facilitate interest aggregation and build consensus are likely to reinforce leadership and help ease the adjustment to constrained budgets[71],[72].

Through the inter and intra agency/institutional collaboration “the poor economic performance that led to the “worsening of the poverty level in Nigeria, (which) has been traced to various factors” can be properly addressed with concrete solutions. Not only this, through it the effectiveness or otherwise of public policy and its formulation can be explored for improvement. Through it, distinct policy objectives can be set to include:

• The provision for social goods, or the process by which total resource use is divided between private and social goods and by which the mix of social goods is chosen. This provision may be termed the allocation function of budget policy. Regulatory policies, which may also be considered a part of the allocation function of budget policy. Regulatory policies, which may also be considered a part of the allocation function, are not included here because they are not primarily a problem of budget policy.

• Adjustment of the distribution of income and wealth to assure conformance with what society considers a “fair” or “just” state distribution, here referred to as the distribution.

• The use of budget policy as a means of maintaining high employment, a reasonable degree of price level stability, and an appropriate rate of economic growth, with allowance for effects on trade and on the balance of payments. We refer to all these objectives as the stabilization function[71],[72].

The need for unity of objective in the governance and policy processes through collaboration in the quest for balanced resources mix and effective curtailment of administrative constraints is decipherable from the context of today’s complex international political system and its economy because:

The international political economy has become incommensurably more complex than it was forty years ago. In those days, international relations could focus centrally on inter-state relations in a highly stylised world where security, not international trade, was the dominant trade, was the dominant force, international financial flows were modest and it was presumed that governments were still regarded as the main brokers of international affairs. It is no longer credible to work on the basis of such premises. There are numerous new actors on the scene, and many new dynamics. Together, their power and authority have outstripped the power of nation-states and their interactions are becoming ever more complex. The internationalisation of production, the proliferation of transnational corporations, the burgeoning of alliances, partnerships and other collaborative linkages – not only between firms but between communities and governments – all are casual evidence of these trends. These new complex realities have not yet generated a commensurately complex conceptual framework that is capable of guiding the analysis or explanation of the evolution of our new complex world. This is, in part, ascribable to the denial of the fact that these new realities have transformed the world economic game. But it is mainly due to our poor stylisation of our global – national – local hierarchical system[73].

Given the foregoing, and, the “need to accelerate development” and, and achieve a wider distribution” of the gains of government, such a collaboration must be striven for. It is equally imperative in view of the challenges of the expected authoritative allocation of the scarce and critical societal values or, the determination of who gets what? when? Where? How? and Why? among the various competing groups or interests within the polity. Within the context of this collaboration “the choice of policy instruments, methods of implementation” will be improved. Thus, it is important to pursue it given how economic and non-economic forces interact in the process of a nation’s quest for balanced policy orientation vis-à-vis economic and political development in the context of National objectives.

As a matter of fact the attainment of the collaboration in focus here would make it possible for a flawless determination of “how socio-cultural and political development contribute to economic development and, are, in turn, determined by it” thus, allowing for a unifocal though, mutually useful pursuit of multidimensionally beneficial public policy for the citizenry. Thus, the absence of such collaborative relationship can lead to decline in the nation’s economic growth rates. It can also lead to politically painful and sensitive trade-offs -[“inherent in mixed economic systems”] - like:

• The choice between inflation or unsatisfied public demands for goods and services.

• The choice between providing services through tax-supported bureaucracies or through market arrangements.

• The choice between attempting to provide equal health, housing, and educational opportunities to all citizens or (in effect) rationing opportunities to those who can afford to pay for them.

• The choice between spending for national defence or spending to alleviate the hardship of the poor, the sick and the underprivileged (i.e. the dilemma of “guns vs. butter”)[71].

A cursory look at Nigeria’s budgetary policies in recent times would reveal to liberated minds the state of the Nation’s economy vis-à-vis the foregoing trade-offs, The collusion of political realities with economic necessities in most polities constitutes compelling forces on leaders to face these trade-offs collaboration irrespective of the consequences.

These aside, the “gap between the needs and expectations of citizens and government employees for government services and benefits and, the inability of the economy” to meet these demands which have been described as “fiscal “stress[71], further necessitate the need for the unity of political and economic objectives which will be attainable through inter and intra agency/institutionalrelationship/collaboration in most polities of the world. The necessity to avoid both macro-political and macro-economic policy conflicts that are likely to arise from the multiplicity of goals and objectives further compels collaboration among these policy players of the government in terms of the pursuit of a nation’s political and economic objectives.

With collaboration policy objectives would be streamlined to enable government and its bureaucrats to recognize and make available needed legal and institutional framework for nationally beneficial goals which have been referred to as impetuses[71],[74] that include:

• Provision of a range of public goods and services, especially infrastructure, which will enable the economy to run smoothly.

• Establishment of clear and consistent economic policies which, in addition to eliminating bureaucratic inefficiencies, will also build private sector confidence. The greater the level of private sector’s trust and confidence in public policies, the greater the likelihood that the rules of economic behaviour will be honoured.

• Establishment of public confidence through properly adhered guidelines, accountability and probity in the public and private sectors. The absence of public confidence in the government and its policies will lead to legitimacy and acceptability crises.

• Provision of a framework from which the intended and unintended outcomes of economic policies are backed up by welfare safety nets for the not-so-priviledged members of the society.

The richness of Nigeria’s endowment in terms of physical and natural resources necessitates her ability to cope with administrative constraints, and, achieve a hybrid of economic and political objectives because the tapping and utilization of such resources need the kind of symmetry that is usually associated with such collaborative relationship among the public bureaucrats at the super-institutional levels like the ones under reference here. With effective collaboration the defects which have constantly crippled the governance and policy processes in Nigeria will be removed: Some of such defects include:

• Target setting based on educated guesswork without detailed project studies.

• Violation of planning rules by those who made them.

• Inadequate/incomplete studies on plans.

• Erratic and non-coherent policies on the needed directive or policy focus of each plan.

• Payment of lip-service to plan discipline i.e. fiscal indiscipline, violation of sectoral allocations, Father Christmas spending philosophy.

• Corruption and its attendant capital flight which, combined, has consistently aided the truncation of the nation’s development of a self-reliant economy.

• Non-recognition of higher-level management as an indispensable skill.

• Expansion of the public service without corresponding expansion of skills.

• Paucity of statistical values that is, non recognition of statistical data as the indispensable basis of planning.

• Neglect of true Academics in the scheme of things based on their erroneous categorization as theorists.

• Constant disarticulation in the progress reports of yearly or periodic national Development plans and, the need to constantly review existing plans.

• Planning beginning and ending only on papers.

• Lack of real commitment to free Nigeria from its status of a “trading-post economy” which former President Obasanjo, as a Military Head of State, called it in 1977 during the launching of the first International Trade Fair in the country[71],[72],[75].

9. Additional Necessary Conditions for Genuine and Productive Collaboration in Ekiti State

The benefits attributable to collaboration among the super-bureaucracies and their functionaries in Ekiti State can be better harnessed if certain reorganization can take place within the state’s civil service. What to do in this regard at least as part of other concrete measures forms the core our synoptic analysis in this section.

Without any negation intended it is our contention here that the attractiveness of collaboration as an ingredient of good governance, efficient and effective service delivery within our democracy notwithstanding, its workability; sustainability and; productivity in terms of responsive policy inputs and outputs; institutional viability and stability is dependent on certain tradeoffs and compromises. These on their own, are contingent on the ability of the state to reorganize its various agencies and institutions vis-à-vis the expected fine-tuning and reduction of apparent areas of economic and administrative wastages associated with the avoidable crippling overlaps among several of the State’s Parastatals. This is necessary in view of the existence of a plethora of such overlapping Parastatals performing almost the same functions within the state (Ekiti) public sector thereby serving as tunnels for economic wastage and plundering of critical resources.

Specifically it is recommended that the civil service should be transformed such that overlapping functions are reduced to the barest minimum to allow for genuine cooperation/collaboration. Through this reorganization the financial management system will be improved with its attendant positive consequences for developed and improved revenue generation since the revenue generation agencies will equally be strengthened through transparency; healthy budgetary process; accountability; prudent management of resources; reduction of fiscal stress and fiscal crises; integrity in bureaucratic conducts and its accompanying reduction of bureau-pathologies; and changed leadership.

This reorganization will not be problematic if the willingness required for it is not idiosyncratically ostracized by the relevant actors of the state. More importantly, the blue print for such reorganization which, in the case of Ekiti State, is explainable within the matrix of the 8-Point Agenda of the government that came into office in October, 2010[64] should be the brainchild of all and sundry including the super-bureaucracies and their functionaries serving as the technocrats.

Without any doubt, the ball is in the courts of the super-bureaucrats within the super-bureaucracies in Ekiti State particularly the tripodic ones. Once these levels of the administrative machinery of the state inculcate the values of dedication to duties; results-orientated professionalism and, collaborative relationship irrespective of the trade-offs and costly compromises they require, the civil service in the state and, indeed, in Nigeria will regain its loss glory and enviable position in the scheme of things vis-à-vis the administrative landscape and its constantly slippery topographic terrains. Through such dedicated professionalism, self-confidence, knowledgeable and results-oriented dispositions our civil service and servants of today –[as institutions and people saddled with “heavy and multifarious burdens”] - can be equally described, appreciated and praised the way Chief Obafemi Awolowo appreciated and glowingly described the Western Region Civil Service and Servants of the 1950s when he stated thus:

Our Civil Service is exceedingly efficient, absolutely incorruptible in its upper stratum, and utterly devoted and unstinting in the discharge of its many onerous duties. For our civil servants, government workers and labourers to bear, uncomplainingly and without breaking down, the heavy and multifarious burdens with which we have in the interest of the public saddled them, is an epic of loyalty and devotion, of physical and mental endurance, and of a sense of mission, on their par. From the bottom of my heart I salute all of them[76],[41].

This, in itself, will propel the civil service and its practitioners as critical actors and players of the state to prominence and relevance in line with the thesis of today’s global village and its “mondialization” of the governance process in our democracies. This, in addition to other issues already articulated in this paper constitutes an invaluable benefit of collaboration like the other ones analysed above.

10. Conclusions

The issue of collaboration with reference to good governance, efficient and effective service delivery to the people within a democratic setting has been examined in this paper. In the process, relevant concepts of democracy, governance, institutionalism and public service were elucidated in line with core theoretical constructs.

The analytical consideration of these concepts as the applicative mechanisms for the practical pursuit of the agenda of the state was deemed appropriate as the take-off point for the realization of the goals set attainment in this paper. In the course of our analysis, these concepts and their understanding were revealed as the appropriate mechanisms for dealing with the complex relational threads among the various competing interests and groups within the state – as the macro political organism within which the citizens continue to search or struggle for self-fulfilment.

Against this analytical background or orientation, the issue of collaboration among the administrative institutions of government in the quest for efficient and effective service delivery within the boundaries of good governance and democracy was critically discussed. The discourse in this regard, zeroed in on the super-bureaucracies and their functionaries. The need for such collaboration; its benefits; what the Public Administrators should do to collaborate and sustain such collaboration, as well as the relevance of technocracy and other bureaucratic principles to the process were analysed.

The reincarnation of the orthodoxy of the civil service and what it actually entails as exemplified by the wider currency lately given to competitive examination as the major prerequisite for recruitment and promotions in the civil service in Nigeria and, particularly in Ekiti State has been identified in the paper as a healthy development. This analytical thinking in itself was predicated on the fact that the unhealthy tinkering with the administrative arm of the state in the past starting with the 1975 purge and its disturbing repeat in 1988 through uncharitable military arrogance was a disaster to the administrative landscape in Nigeria. It was contended that this development made mediocrity rather than meritocracy and technical competence the operational catechism of the civil service until the recent bold step which attempts to bring back the glorious days of the civil service. The extent to which this can be sustained is a matter of conjecture which is better left for the future and developments within the Nigerian administrative landscapes and political terrains.

Notes

1. This is a revised version of the Paper presented by the author at the 2-day Retreat for the Leadership and Functionaries of the Offices of the Secretary to the State Government, Head of Service and Civil Service Commission of Ekiti State held on Thursday, 5th and Friday, 6th January, 2012 at the Royal Park Hotel, Iloko-Ijesa, Nigeria. The author is grateful to the Ekiti State Government for seeking his expertise for the Retreat. This Paper, though, completely original in its own right significantly benefits from the various research works of the author and, the other papers and documents presented at the Retreat. These sources are hereby accordingly acknowledged.

2. Netherworld of Public (personnel) Administration is not a physical thing but a concept used in discussing a set of activities. Netherworld is an informal structure. It is a sort of invisible power or black market by which most of the criteria of Administration are circumvented. In other words, Netherworld is the informal process through which Administrators fulfill their expectations, needs or mandates which could have been otherwise impossible through compliance with the rules and regulations of (public personnel) administration criteria and personal goals (or values) of the administrators [77].

3. Political bankruptcy is an intermediate form of authority. It occurs when a government’s overloading of the economy is no longer confined to an issue of effectiveness, to be resolved within conventional electoral and administrative institutions. It sets of “double trouble, undermining content while making citizens increasingly indifferent to authority. A politically bankrupt government has not made citizens dissenters or rebels antagonizing them. Its ineffectuality limits the antagonism it can engender. Citizens withdraw their support from established authority without having confidence that any other regime would be better. Such a “broken backed regime” has its authority crippled rather than destroyed. Citizens may prefer the weakness of a bankrupt regime to the power of a coercive regime, but those who live under fully legitimate authority undoubtedly prefer government as they have known it to a political system in which government is ineffectual [23].

4. “public administration (lower case) needs to be distinguished from Public Administration (upper case). Public administration denotes the institutions of public bureaucracy within the state: the organizational structures which for the basis of public decision-making and implementation; and the arrangements by which public services are delivered. Public Administration, as a sub-discipline of political science, is the study of public administration by means of institutional description, policy analysis and evaluation, and intergovernmental relations analysis”[66].