TITLE:
Corruption in Public Administration and National Development in Nigeria
AUTHORS:
Ofonmbuk Etido Atakpa, Charles Sylvester Akpan
KEYWORDS:
Corruption, Administration, Public Service, Bureaucracy, Development
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.11 No.6,
June
19,
2023
ABSTRACT: Although the facts of weak institutional structure, inefficiency, poor
professional standards, low productivity, a
culture of waste, over-bloated staff structure etc., have
been identified as problems of the civil service in Nigeria, only scant
attention has been paid to the debilitating effects of corruption. This paper
chronicled some of the annals of administrative corruption, vis-à-vis., their
impacts on administrative development in Nigeria. Adopting the qualitative
approach, the paper utilized the Market-Centred perspective as an analytical
guide and considered corruption, not just as the epicentre of the problems of
administrative development in Nigeria but also as the bane of the nation’s
development processes. Besides the plugging of corruption loopholes and the
institution of a more robust reward system for corrupt-free administrative
officials, the paper recommended stringent measures to restrain systemic
corruption, by making it a high-risk activity where perpetrators must be
apprehended, severely punished and dispossessed of corruptly earned monies and
property.