Volume 07 Issue 06 June 2024
1Oluwatusin, A. O., 2Abdulrasaq, M.O., 3Ajibola O. PeterAdu
1,2,3Department of Liberal Studies, The Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria
DOI : https://doi.org/10.47191/ijsshr/v7-i06-115Google Scholar Download Pdf
ABSTRACT
The Nigerian public service is one of the agencies of government saddled with the responsibility of carrying out the policies and programmes of government with the overall aim of providing good governance to the citizenry. Unfortunately, the public service has been shrouded in different forms of corrupt practices; this is in spite of different public service reforms put up by successive governments to reverse the negative trend. Corruption has greatly hindered the public service from enhancing the good standard of living of the citizens which it is supposed to do. This has disrupted public policies; resulted into misuse of resources and public fund meant to provide socio-economic development of the country and has also translated into other social vices bedeviling the country like insurgency, banditry, kidnapping etc. This paper adopted secondary data sourced from articles, conference papers, textbooks, etc. on corruption and good governance. It examines how corruption has hindered the Nigerian public service from enhancing good governance. The study found that, corrupt practices have been perpetuated by government officials in different forms ranging from bribe giving and taking, to inflation of contracts, diversion of public funds, kickbacks, delay in completing tasks and general abuse of office which manifest especially at the stage of policy implementation which account for mis-governance and low level of development in the country. The paper concludes that the scourge of corruption in the Nigerian public service could be addressed by ensuring that accountability and transparency prevails in public transactions by government officials. This can only be achieved with proper enlightenment on why and how the anti-graft agencies fight should become a collective effort; all institutions of the state should be strengthened especially the EFCC, ICPC and the judiciary.
KEYWORDS:Corruption, abuse of power, good governance, public service
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