TABLEOF CONTENTS
Content Page
Title page i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract v
Table of Contents vi
List of Tables ix
List of Figures x
List of Appendices xi
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem 2
1.3 Objective of the Study 3
1.4 Research Questions 3
1.5 Hypotheses 4
1.6 Significance of the Study 4
1.7 Scope of the Study 5
1.8 Operational Definition of Terms 6
1.9 Overview of Chapters 6
CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1. Conceptual Review of the Study 8
2.1.1 Attitude and Perceptions 9
2.1.2 Attitudinal Change 11
2.1.3 Attitude to Work 12
2.1.4 Attitude and Performance 13
2.1.5 Job satisfaction 14
2.1.6 Job satisfaction and Work Performance 14
2.1.7 Organisational Commitment and Work Performance 15
2.2.Historical Background of the Nigerian Civil Service 15
2.3. The Nigerian Civil Service Reforms 18
2.4. Structure and Responsibilities of the Civil Service 20
2.5. The 1975 Great Purge of the Nigerian Civil Service 21
2.6Measures Established to Reinforce the Civil Service 21
2.7.0 The 1988 Civil Service Reforms 24
2.8.0 The Major Problems of the 1988 Civil Service Reforms 28
2.9.0 The Lagos State Civil Service 32
2.10.0Empirical Review of the Study 35
2.11.0 Theoretical Framework of the Study 38
2.11.1 Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory 38
2.11.2 Equity Theory 40
CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research Design 42
3.2 Population 42
3.3 Sample size and sampling Technique 42
3.4 Method of Data Collection 44
3.5 Sources of Data Collection 44
3.6 Instrument for Data collection 44
3.7 Validity of the Research Instrument 45
3.8 Method of Data analysis 45
3.9Ethical Consideration 45
3.10 Post Research Benefit 46
CHAPTER FOUR: DATA ANALYSIS, RESULTS AND
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
4.1 Presentation of results and data Analysis 47
4.2 Test of Hypothesis 80
4.3 Discussion of Findings 84
CHAPTER FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Summary 89
Content Page
5.2 Conclusion 90
5.3 Recommendations 91
5.4 Limitation of the Study 92
5.5 Suggestions for Further Studies 92
REFERENCES 93
APPENDICES 105
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
4.1 Questionnaire responses Rate 47
4.2 Distribution of Respondents by Sex 48
4.3 Distribution of Respondents by age 48
4.4 Distribution of Respondents by marital status 49
4.5 Distribution of Respondents by working Experience 49
4.6 Distribution of Respondents by Job Status 50
4.7 Distribution of Respondents by qualification 50
4.8 Distribution of Respondents by ministry 51
4.9 Responses to Question1 52
4.14 Responses to Question 2 57
4.20 Responses to Question 3 63
4.26 Responses to Question 4 69
4.32 Responses to Question 5 75
4.38 Analysis result for Question 1 81
4.39 Analysis result for Question 2 81
4.40 Analysis result for Question 3 82
4.41 Analysis result for Question 4 83
4.42 Analysis result for Question 5 83
LIST OF FIGURE
Figure Page
3.1 Tri- components model of Attitudes 10
LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix Page
I Letter of Introduction 105
II Questionnaire 106
III List of Ministries in Lagos State 110
IV Lagos State Government Department and Agencies 113
V Sample Size Determination 118
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- Background to the Study
It is the duty and responsibility of a democratic government to provide protection for the citizens through the creation of armed forces to keep the citizens of the country safe from internal and external aggressions. The government also owes it a duty to provide public services by ensuring that at least the minimum need of the citizens are met such as education, health-care and other infrastructural facilities including the provision of economic stability through employment and favourable trade environment (Gomez, 2014).
It must, however, be understood that government is an artificial person who is required to carry out its functions through physical people. In Nigeria, therefore, we have the Legislative arm of government which makes the laws for the good governance of the citizens. These laws are to be implemented by the executive arm of the government while the judiciary is saddled with the responsibility of adjudicating and interpreting the laws made by the legislature.
In carrying out its duties, the executive arm of government relies on its civil servants. Civil servants are employees of government whether at federal, state or local government level, who are engaged primarily to assist the career politicians (President, Governors, Ministers or commissioners) in formulating and implementing government policies. Based on their knowledge and experience, they provide professional and technical advice on the policies being made by government. As such, the importance of the civil servants in assisting the government to deliver quality service to the citizens cannot be overemphasized considering the fact that they advise the government on matters of policy formulation and decision making. Once the decision has been made, it is their duty to also implement same. It must be noted that the success or otherwise of any political leadership is measured by the electorate through the level of amenities and socio-cultural infrastructures provided for the use and convenience of the citizens by the leadership. Yet, it is the civil servants that the political leadership makes use of to provide these amenities. If the civil servants do not deliver effectively, it is the political leadership that the electorate hold responsible. The best policy statement by the political leadership is not better than the paper on which it is written until it has been successfully implemented. And that is the specialty of the civil servants. It is therefore in the best interest of the political office holders to ensure that the civil servants are encouraged to develop the right attitude towards their work.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
In the distribution of functions under a democratic system of government, it is the responsibility of the executive arm of government to implement the programmes of the ruling political party. In carrying out this all important responsibility, the executive arm relies very much on its civil service. The Lagos state civil service which was established in 1967 is not an exception in this case. The state’s civil service can be referred to as the engine room of the government. The service, being a permanent arm of the administration vis-à-vis the ever changing political leadership, and being blessed with experts in virtually all fields of endeavour, is ably equipped with the wherewithal to provide the much needed essential data and critical information that enables the government to make informed decisions and policies. After the policy decision has been made, it becomes the responsibility of the civil servants to effectively implement same. The Lagos state civil servants are therefore “powerful and strategically positioned” in the scheme of things. As such, the success or otherwise of the political leadership is a flection of how effectively the civil servants carry out their duties. The political slogan during the Babatunde Fashola Administration in Lagos state had been “Fashola is working; Lagos State is working!” The slogan bears witness to the fact that the government programmes were adjudged by the citizens to be well implemented to their satisfaction. But the fact is that the Fashola that was seen to be working was actually doing so through the state’s civil servants who were giving him the much needed support and were working in tandem with the state government’s objective of quality service delivery to the electorate. Considering the assessment of the Nigerian civil service by Arowolo (2012) as an institution riddled with “corruption, inefficiency, favouritism, nepotism, kick-backs, mismanagement, mediocrity, etc., one begins to wonder how the civil servants under the Fashola Administration were able to assist the government to achieve such success.
It must be noted however, that how well these civil servants carry out their duties depends to a large extent, on individual personal disposition. This means the type of attitude they have (whether positive or negative) towards their work, the level of their job satisfaction, and the extent of their commitment to their employers (the state government). All these, in the long run, bear a relationship to how effective their service delivery will be. It is the respective individual performance that ultimately culminate in the overall achievement of the Fashola Administration. There is therefore a perceived relationship among the attitude to work of the Lagos state civil servants, the level of their job satisfaction, the extent of their commitment to their employers and how effectively they deliver service to the citizens of the state on behalf of the political leadership. It is this perceived relationship that constitute the gap in knowledge which this research sets out to fill.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The main objective of the study is to find out the correlation between the attitude to work of civil servants and political leadership performance in the selected MDAs in Lagos State. The specific objectives are to:
