Ethics and Accountability in Nigerian Public Service: Its Collapse and the Way Forward

This paper seeks to assess the ethics and accountability within which the public service in Nigeria operate since independence through the focus on accountability and control measures specifically designed to guard against abuse and misuse of bureaucratic power. It argues that these measures have failed to provide the service with the necessary ethical environment in the post independence period due to deliberate frustration by civil servants and the government hence resulting in unethical conducts, unbridle corruption and collapse of public service. The paper concludes that the only way to tackle unethical conduct in the public service is to tackle corruption at all level of the public service and expose it. Since the various control and accountability measure instituted in the constitution have been rendered in operative by the same people who are expected to work by them. The paper recommend that the public servant should be aware of the ethical values and standards as outlined in the civil service rules (CSR), political will to enforce those standards.