Problems Of Recruitment In Nigeria Civil Service English Language Essay

Introduction

The prosperity of a country lies in the improvements made for the comfort of majority of its citizens. Equality based rights protection is the basic requirement of the citizens. Number of structures and institutional factors combine together to define a map for the government and a social relation between government and its people is maintained. Due to this, government is obliged to provide best material (personnel).This paper argues that if Nigeria government wants to achieve success in government and administration, then implementation of rational recruitment and selection policies, is very helpful to address this problem. Nigeria government must be capable to absorb the highly qualified, technically competent and committed persons that would help the Nigeria government and its administration to achieve the goals.

Discussion

Efficiency and effectiveness of public or private sectors depend upon the caliber of the administrative center. Induction of competent labor is not by chance rather by articulated recruitment exercises.

Recruitment is a set of activities used to obtain a sufficient number of the right people at the right time from the right places (Nickels et al. 1999).

To fulfill human resource plan of workplace, it requires the selection of those persons who can meet the needs of that workplace. Recruitment process starts by specifying the requirements (numbers, skills and time frame) of human resource. These requirements are the result of job analysis and activities of human resource development. After this initial process of job specification description, next phase is the recruitment process. Qualified candidates are asked to apply for the jobs. At this stage recruitment authority requires to devise the selection tools. Selection tools help in sorting out the best qualified persons.

The essence of these recruitment activities is for the organization to appoint the best applicant with the right ability, temperament and willingness (Mullins, 1996).

The Nigerian federal civil service system emphasizes uniformity, standardization, and transparency in recruiting competent applicants. (Babaru, 2003).

Despite these efforts it is perceived that Nigeria recruitment process lacks transparency and equity, and making difficult to recruit best applicants for available jobs. Inadequate and invalid standards are the causing factors for evaluating the job candidates. Other factors involved, those influences are the technological, social, political and economic demands. This paper examines to identify the prevalent problems affecting the Nigeria recruitment process.

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To investigate into the problems of recruitment process in Nigeria, many questions need answers. Problem investigation can help to find the answers of the questions. We need to know that what are problems affecting the recruitment process in Nigeria. When we have investigated and find the problems, then know the causes of these problems. It needs to know the external and internal sources used for the recruitment by the Nigeria Federal Civil Service Commission. Are Job specification and description utilized in the Nigeria recruitment process?

The rationale behind this study is to create a solid basis for Nigerian federal civil service to make standard and objective recruitment decisions by appointing the right applicants into the service and accurately matching them with position classification. A good recruitment exercise enhances productivity. It also reduces cost as it reduces labor turnover rate and employee dissatisfaction (Nwachukwu, 2000).

To analyze the problems of the recruitment in Nigeria, a survey was conducted to find the major three reasons of recruitment problems. Majority of the responders of this survey indicated, that increasing pressure form the applying candidates is the major problem, affecting the recruitment process in Nigeria by the Federal Civil Service Commission. Thousands of the candidates submit their applications for a few posts. This survey also identified other issues which also create problems for the Nigeria Federal Civil Service Commission in recruitment process, as lack of independence of federal civil service commission and long term military era.

Because Nigeria is a multi ethnic country and issue of representation of all ethnic remains unanswered.

In Nigeria Federal Civil Service Commission delegates its functions and activities to recruit low grade jobs to ministries of Nigeria government. FCSC lacks control over the ministries and they employ the people without adherence of policies and procedures. This indicates that why most of the federal service servants are recruited through informal sources. It results that incompetent applicants are recruited in federal departments; they make the system to be unproductive. Over staff in these ministries is another problem that is result of the activities and functions of delegation recruitment. Due to functions and activities of the delegation there is no effective implementation of recruitment plans and control mechanism in Nigeria federal service. Although Nigeria laws supports the FCSC to exercise its authorities independently, but ministries have directly affects on this FCSC. Therefore it is easier for those ministries to influence the recruitment process of the FCSC. It is too observed that members of the commission are being influenced by the executives of the government, their friends and their close relatives. These influences affect the independence of the commission; it discourages the competent applicants for their selection in federal services. Another problem associated with the lack of independency of FCSC is that recruitments are induced to system. On this occasion commission requires to plan to get its objectives. But in Nigeria human resource planning is a neglected area due to influence of the external bodies as ministries. Within these problems FCSC cannot recruit the right persons and right numbers at the right places.

Federal character principle is a quota system and quotas are seen by employers as an unsavory strategy for rectifying the effects of past or present unfair discrimination (Cascio, 1986).

Major problem with the recruitment process in the Nigeria is that the principle sacrifices merit in favor of quota. Political influence is another problem in the fair recruitment process of FCSC. In Nigeria northern part of the country is backward in the education, but most of the political leaders belong to this area. It is observed that people from the northern area of the country are placed in federal civil services because of the employment of the federal character principle.

In Nigeria military has ruled for 28 years. Due to irrational reforms of military rulers and their deliberate politicization of the federal civil service, no achievement made during this military regime.

The military administrators aggravated the failures of Nigerian state rather than address them (Olowu et al., 1997).

Informal sources and connections are the serious problems in the recruitment process of FCSC. People recruited through the connections and informal sources constantly depend on these sources for their promotions, advancement and transfers. Why does junior staff rely on the informal sources? Reason behind this factor is that junior staff is school leavers and desperate job hunters. Therefore they use all the sources to get employed. To find the solution of this problem, a professional body should be organized in the recruitment exercises to bring the independent transparency. Applicants put pressure to grab jobs because of pensionable jobs in Nigeria. In this way pressure increase on the FCSC. Poverty in Nigeria is due to different ethnic discriminations found in the Nigeria. If poor people of North Nigeria are given appropriate opportunity without prejudice, they will get prosper and get out of poverty. Nigeria government fails to provide the jobs on equality basis. Because Nigeria has been in the hands of military rulers for a long time, during this period people of Nigeria have been ill-treated. Major issue is the very poor remuneration package of civil servants. Communication requires the best skills of networking. ICT is the major role player in the improvement of a country. In our case, people of far away areas do not know about the jobs status in Nigeria. They have no good sources to connect with other areas of the country. Especially in the northern areas of the Nigeria basic communicating sources are not available. In Nigeria NCC is responsible for registering and licensing the private telecommunications concerns. NCC ensures the provision and operation of the network services such as Internet and paging to the private sector. New advancement in the networking has enabled the people to communicate with each other in the Nigeria. Advancement in the technology has improved the transmission in Nigeria since last few years. A company named Glo Network is currently laying fibers in Nigeria. However current scattered internet cafes will not benefit from this company in northern part of the Nigeria. So a true wide spread fiber optic backbone is required in Nigeria.

Conclusion and Recommendation

It is found that Nigeria FCSC is faced with the recruitment problems. This study has focused on the problems affecting into Nigeria FCSC as increasing pressure from the applicants. It emphasizes on the connection, informal contacts and inappropriate utilization of some useful sources of recruitments. Other problems to recruitment identification are, the military era and principle of federal factor, activities and functions delegated to ministries and overstaffing. These problems have created serious concerns for the FCSC to recruit the right applicants for the federal civil services. Suitable persons are not induced into the services due to political influence. It can be said that Nigeria recruitment system consists of the lazy, irrelevant professionals and incompetent people. Network technology advancement in the northern part of the Nigeria can avert the conditions of people living there.

Based on the findings and conclusion of the paper it is recommended that Nigeria government should formulate the laws for the private sector employees to give them job security. This will reduce the pressure for employment in federal civil service. Direct contacts for recruitment process with commission persons should be discouraged. Uses of internet, advertisement and other information must be equally provided to all citizens. Number of federal civil service commissioners should be increased to represent each state of federation. Low grade recruitment must be ensured on merit. Immediate priority is to reconsider the selection instrument in the federal civil service.