The Dilemma of Premature Bureaucratization in the New States of Africa: The Case of Nigeria

Abstract

The main thesis of this paper is that the apparent failures of bureaucracies in the new and developing states of Africa, far from being concomitants of dismaying negligence and outright incompetence, are, in fact, glaring manifestations of the dilemma of premature bureaucratization. It is impossible to speak of bureaucratization in African states without reference to those gradual, often times painful, but sustained and systematic separations of administrative processes from the Royal Households and personal loyalties of the nineteenth century Western Europe consequent upon tremendous societal changes that were occurring at the time. It was a process of injecting rationality and efficiency into administrative activities (Bendix, 1968: 208). This process was accentuated with the advent of the Scientific Management School of Organizational Theory, which appeared early in the twentieth century. From then onward, the prescriptions for modern administrative organizations have been oriented toward a classical conception of rationality. The scientific management school, led by Frederick W. Taylor (1911), was concerned among other things with the motivations of workers, whereas the administrative management school, led by Luther Gulick and L. Urwick (1937), made organization structure their central theme. Following the examples of these two schools of organizational theory, the literature on organization management has tended to emphasize a high degree of control and efficiency, achieved by means of an elaborate network of impersonal rules and order. Organization men are seen as possessing high instrumental capabilities for goal attainment. In other words, the organization men possess all the relevant information and knowledge as regards causes and effects. This element of perfect knowledge discounts possibilities of errors and uncertainties resulting from the indeterminate environment of the organization. Organizational rules, orders, and structures are both necessary and sufficient conditions for organizational efficiency.

Rejecting Continuity and Rupture

“…The accountability between ruler and ruled th at existed in the pre-colonial period was removed from the struc tures of power, a feature that remains today and is illustrated by the fact that the state in the immediate post-colonial period was viewed as 'a stranger govern m ent with foreign forms of operation' (Ottenberg 1967:37) and working for it still seen as 'white m an's work' (Njoku 2005;Okoli 1980). The situation was also difficult for Nigerians working in the colonial adm inistration who, in effect, operated in two separate systems and had to try and get by in both (Cohen 1980), a situation Ekeh (1975:100) has described as the greatest difficulty fac ing western-educated Africans.…”

Are One-Best-Way Models of Effective Government Suitable for Developing Countries?

“…(from the 1830s), initiatives in the 1870s, the 1883 Pendleton Act introducing meritrelated hiring processes, the 1939 Hatch Act prohibiting political activities by federal employees, the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and even more recent reforms at the local level (quite recently in cities like Boston and Chicago) and even in federal government. Okoli (1980) identifies long evolutionary processes like this as crucial to the development of model bureaucracies. He compares these evolutionary processes with reforms in the developing world that involved quick, forced adoption of new systems which could only be adopted in a dualistic sense.…”

Bureaucratic Morality in Africa

“…The basic assumption of course is that the modern bureaucracy has been prematurely introduced into Africa. Its values and institutions are, at present, inappropriate to African conditions (Moris, 1976;Okoli, 1980). As for prescriptions, this school is usually pessimistic, believing that only time and appropriate action-either by individuals or social structures-can bring about the desired change in bureaucratic norms.…”