Bureaucratic Corruption And Service Delivery In Nigeria: The 21st Century Dilemma Of The Nigerian Public Service

The fundamental raison d’être of the public service is efficient service delivery to the people. Recent trends portray an unprecedented pressure translating into increased demand for services that are specific in nature and strictly designed to meet both individual and collective desires. The success of government globally depends on the performance of the public service to provide satisfactory services that lead to trust and confidence building as corresponding responsiveness on the parts of the citizenry and government respectively. Public Expenditure Tracking Survey (PETS) Reinikka,[1] and the Quantitative Service Delivery Survey (QSDS) Chaudhury and Hammer,[2] have established the place of institutional weaknesses in the promotion of corruption in the public service. The paper uses a documentary (non-empirical) method. Based on the method adopted, it concludes that tragically, the escalating level of public sector corruption in Nigeria has succeeded in crippling service delivery. This has metamorphosed into a wide vacuum of trust deficit, heightened crises of confidence for the bureaucrats, the service itself, and the corporate existence of the nation. Drawing on this, we recommend for a holistic and integrated internal institutional control mechanism to stamp out corruption in the entire public sector, thereby accelerating effective service delivery that aptly meets the yearnings and aspirations of all Nigerians in the 21^st century.