Nigeria: Bureaucracy, Democracy and State Potency

opinion

IT may be proper to start by warning against any undue admiration for the system that produced our recent widely acclaimed political successes. There has been a most astonishing conspiracy of silence to maintain the illusion that the Nigerian system has come of age. Many commentators have tried, with unconscious humour, to put the best positive complexion on the development. It is however important that we continue to seek or work for clear proposals to streamline the machinery of government.

Public administration in a democracy is required to be more efficient than our present prognosis indicates or foretells. It should be likened to the success of the great joint-stock companies, the success of which depended on a due mixture of special and non-special minds - "of minds which attend to the means, and of minds which attend to the end."

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