Recruitment and Selection in the Nigerian Public Service: Nature, Challenges and Way Forward

Aim: To identify the irregularities of recruitment and selection exercise in the Nigerian Public Service being the government’s tool for increasing the workforce and filling in the vacant positions of those who left the service.

Study Design: This paper adopts a qualitative research strategy using comprehensive document review.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted within the context of Nigeria Public Service from July to November, 2013.

Findings: It was identified that sentiment and other primordial issues like ethnicity, nepotism and favoritism are given more consideration in terms of employment than merit. This adversely led to labour turnover and increased costs of governance. The major challenges identified are constant political interference which manifested out of the desire of the politicians to get their relatives in the service; recruitment purely based on skills rather than good attitude and the principle of federal character that further compounded the problem in the form of ethnic balancing.

Conclusion: In order to refurbish sanity in the exercise, the Nigerian Public Service should lay more emphasis on meritocracy irrespective of applicant’s background and/or affiliation and the issue of political obstruction should be brought to a halt. Candidates to be considered for recruitment should have good and moral attitude in addition to skills and recruiters be accorded the desired independence and freedom as this will enable them to use appropriate methods of conducting the exercise in order to get it right.