ABSTRACT
In Africa, public servants have consistently played a major role in the processes of policy initiation and execution. This chapter aims to trace the impact of colonialism on administrative behavior and analyzes the policy-formulating and discusses roles and relationships which prevailed during Nigeria's First and Second Republics and under different military regimes. British administrative practices and conventions bear considerable responsibility for the particularly active involvement of higher civil servants in public policy making which one encounters in anglophone Africa. Higher civil servants have acted as central and often dominant participants in the policy-formation process since the early stages of Nigeria's political history. The direct involvement of public servants in the policy-making arena reached its zenith under General Yakubu Gowon. The policy-formulation process did differ from that which prevailed under General Gowon in that the new rulers often based major decisions on the reports and recommendations of appointed commissions or panels.
