THE CONUNDRUM AND CONTRADICTIONS OF HUMAN RESOURCE ADMINISTRATION IN CONTEMPORARY NIGERIAN CIVIL SERVICE: A FOCUS ON ENUGU STATE CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION

Abstract

Human resources are the bedrock of any human organization. It is the strength of a nation. The success or failure of any human endeavour is fundamentally dependent on the functional disposition of the human beings found in such arrangement. Consequently, businesses, governments everywhere in the world, have come to terms on the relevance of proper factoring of employees in their daily schedules. Thus, the imperative of efficient human resource administration in government business, to maximize productivity levels and achieve national development. However, in the case of Nigerian civil service, various good intended human resource management strategies seem not to have properly addressed the issues of staff development and productivity. More disturbingly, in particular, favouritism and nepotism are insidious and sinister factors that cataclysmically impinge on staff recruitment, staff placements on job roles, promotion, selection for training, dismissal, and so on. Therefore, using the Enugu state civil service commission as a population of study, this paper seeks to link between the fallout in human resource administration and the productivity level achieved so far. The paper adopts quantitative mechanism and analysis of questionnaire generated in the research field. Accordingly, we argue that poor service delivery in government businesses are generally as a result of inefficient staff administration. We conclude that efficient human resource management, ridding of godfatherism syndrome, nepotism, favouritism, etc, replete in staff administration are key ingredients for greater productivity and qualitative service delivery.