The Civil Service and Service Delivery in Rivers State (Nigeria) in 2015-2023: A Comparative Perspective

This study examined the role of the civil service in public policy implementation in Rivers State, Nigeria, from 2007 - 2023.  The Ministries selected were: Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture. The theoretical framework adopted was the Bureaucratic Politics Model as propagated by Graham T. Allisson between the 1950’s and the 1960’s. Data were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. The primary sources were from oral interviews of some serving and retired Permanent Secretaries and Directors/Heads of Department in the selected Ministries, while secondary data were obtained from publications, annual reports, news magazines and bulletins, as well as brochures from selected Ministries. Interviews were carried out with a total of thirty (30) retired and serving officials. Findings from this study showed that the Rivers State Civil Service operated in line with the stipulated regulations guiding it, but there were some sort of discrepancies between the two administrations under study on the use of civil servants in policy formulation and implementation, hence the observed inconsistency in policies of successive administrations. Based on the findings, this study recommended amongst others that Permanent Secretaries should be statutory members of the Rivers State Executive Council; the Rivers State Government should establish an administrative Training Institute to train and re-train senior civil servants in the State.