Why Policies fail: A study of Nigeria

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UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE STUDIES
MPA-602 PUBLIC POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION
STUDENT NAME: SOLOMON SAMUEL ADETOKUNBO
STUDENT NUMBER: 201502535
LECTURE: DR. BASHI MOTHUSI
TERM-PAPER TITLE
WHY POLICY FAIL: A STUDY OF NIGERIA

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INTRODUCTION
In modern day society of the world, both in developed and developing countries, problems and
challenges, of various dimensions, cuts across different sectors (health, agriculture, education
etc.) making life difficult for members of the public most especially the mid-level and low-class
citizens. In order to provide solutions and address these problems, the government of the day
formulates and implement policies to help promote the social welfare and well being of citizens.
The word ‘policy’ is an equivocal term, which various scholars have given different definition
and interpretations based on the context it was being used. Public policy is a set of interrelated
decisions by a political actor or group of actors concerning the selection of goals and the means
of achieving them within a specified situation where those decisions should in principle be
within the power of those actors to achieve (Jenkins, 1978; Howlett, 2003 p.7). In another vein
(Thei Gurts, 2011, p.14.) opined differently that public policy is ‘a choice that government
makes in response to a political issue or a public problem. He further argued that this choice is
based on values and norms, thus public policy can be said to be the mechanism or tool that
government makes available to help meet up with needs and demand of the public at specific
times. Policy formulation is only the first step in the right direction, bulk of the responsibility lies
at the implementation phase, before a policy can be considered to be a success or the opposite.
Governments throughout the world seem cursed to suffer periodic policy failures. A modest list
would include the Poll Tax and Child Support Agency (UK), home insulation program
(Australia), response to the global financial crisis (Iceland), ‘No Child Left Behind’ (USA),
Guantanamo Bay detention camp (USA) and Public Health Records reform (Canada).
(McConnell, 2014, p.2.). Even in Africa the International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural
adjustment programme (SAP) can't be said to have been a success as it didn’t meet up to their

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expectations of the recipient country and only brought about more problems for them.
This term paper therefore, seeks to explore the reason why problems are still prevalent after
government formulate and implement public policies and programmes in resolving challenges
faced by the society. Attempts will also be made to look at public policies initiated and
implemented in Nigeria, yet the problems still persist and the cause for this.
BODY
Understanding why Policy fail, itself is an arduous task as a result of the complexity process
involved (formulation stage to the implementation stage) and the multi-actors (politicians &
bureaucrats) involved in the decision making process (politician & technocrats).
A policy fails if it does not achieve the goals that proponents set out to achieve, and opposition is
great and/or support is virtually non-existent. (Allan 2010, p.356). One a public policy fail to
meet its short or long term goals and function in line with its objective it is said to have failed.
(Allan 2010, p.354). noted that public policy can fail in three perspectives, process, programme
and politics. The triple p technique. A lot of government get it right at the process stage, which
is also the policy formulation stage, and fail at the programme or implementation stage; it can
also be likened to a political failure if producing damage to governments’ key political success
aspirations,
Nigeria is the most populated black Country in the World; the country’s population, which
increases at a very frightening rate, in addition to inefficient governance solution has been major
problems for socio-economic policies implementation over the years. Inefficiency is produced
when the central level is unable to coordinate and animate the lower levels and provide them
with adequate technical and administrative support (Mantino, 2013 p. 231). From barely over 68

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million in 1980 to 150million in 2010; by October 2011 National population commission in
Nigeria reported that the Country’s population had reached 167 million. The rapidly growing
population, which calls for greater concern, is one of the key problems that is like a cankerous
worm to public policy in Nigeria.
In Nigeria only a small percentage of the Country’s population enjoys more from the country’s
natural wealth. It is on record that such a nation will perform very poorly in terms of good
governance and control of corruption, as reported by the Corruption Perceptions Index of the
World Bank Governance Indicators (Marshal, 2009; McConnell, 2014, p.7.), perhaps maybe its
because, each succeeding regime/administration put up policies that satisfy selfish interest far
and above the notion of ‘common good’. By ‘common good’, it refers to what a person cannot
obtain by himself but receives as a result of the power or influence attached to their name, while
the essential purpose of all authority is established within a society is to serve the common good,
characterized by justice, peace and security (Minnerath, 2008; Ihemeje, 2014, p.1.)
Policy failure or success is seen differently, those in governemt who are the ruling party see it as
successful while the opposition party sees most policies as a failure. The only neutral and
objective eyes are that of the public who can sometimes be bought over by the protagonist of
such policy to discredit the government; this then leads the pubic to being subjective.
Often times in Nigeria, good policies are initiated and formulated by the government but the real
problem lies at the implementation phase where the policy starts to take a turn totally different
from what has been stated at the initial planning and formulation stage, this ultimately leads to
the failure of public policies to achieve their set target goals, objectives. when this happens it
brings about failure to enhance the country's standard of living and alleviate the peoples
problems which was the clear intention.

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(Mankinde, 2005, p. 63-69.) contributed to this when he wrote that there are usually wide gaps
between formulated policy goals and the achievement of those goals as a result of ineffective
implementation in almost all facets of public administration in Nigeria.
(Mantino, 2013 p. 231) pointed out that policies fail not only when they show spending
inefficiencies, but also when they do not meet the planned objectives and are unable to use the
rules and governance structures which have set up during the programming phase. Policy fail in
three specific conditions: a) very inefficient governance solutions; b) poor design of policy
measures; c) dominance of «extractive» coalitions at local level.
Several policies that have failed to achieve its objective have been formulated in the past by the
different government administration in Nigeria, including National Accelerated Food Production
Programme (NAFPP) 1972-1973, Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) 1976-1980, Green
Revolution Programme (GRP) 1981-1983 (Olaoye, 2010, p. 83.). More recently we have the
National Economic Empowerment And Development Strategy (NEEDS) 2003-2007, Subsidy
Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) 2012-2015 and the National Health
Insurance Scheme (NHIS) 1999 -till date.
NEEDS POLICY – 2003-2007
NEEDS was a fulgent policy birthed by the administration of former President, Olusegun
Obasanjo, to tackle the worrisome problem of poverty. (Ikeanyibe, 2009, p. 203).
The NEEDS policy was aimed at developing Nigeria, including harnessing of human resources
on the natural resources of the country to produce goods that could be used to satisfy the physical
and economic needs of the international and local community, in other words, NEEDS was
initiated to promote the achievement of National goals. NEEDS sets ambitious macro-economic
targets for Nigeria. Real Gross Domestic Product grew 8.6% in 2003; in 2004, it was expected to

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grow 5%, 6% for both 2005 and 2006 and 7% in 2007. From 2003 – 2007, 5% annual reductions
were expected and a total of three million new jobs were projected (Obisanya 2015). One of the
highlights of the policy elements of NEEDS was the public reform, which was instituted as a
result of the size of the civil service. The plan was to restructure, reduce and retain civil service
as the main engine of service delivery as to bring about elimination of waste and efficiency also
free up resources for investment in infrastructure and social services by government.
SURE-P 2012-2015
The Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) was received with open
arm by many Nigerians and seen as a laudable project. SURE-P is an economic intervention that
reduced the amount of subsidy paid on petroleum products, especially the premium motor spirit
(PMS), these funds were expected to be channeled into a combination of many programmes to
promote and provide quality life-changing development to the benefit of Nigerians and alleviate
poverty through provision of critical infrastructure and safety net projects.
The SURE-P has been described by many as a drain pipe on Nigerians economy after it failed to
meet up with its objective and defend the 180 billion naira fund it received from the government
in 2013 for the implementation of project (Okwudili & Emmanuel 2014, p.9). As published in
the Punch Newspaper of November 29, 2012, members of the National assembly while
deliberating on the activities of SURE P, were of the view that the programme is a mere waste of
the financial resources of the country and should be scrapped as it hasn’t fulfilled its stated
objective in reducing unemployment or improvement of infrastructures in the country. In
addition the SURE-P employment programme also marginalised the people with disability
“PWD”, in the little employment it was able to provide.

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NHIS 1999 TILL DATE
The lack of quality, affordable and effective health care structure in Nigeria necessitated the need
for the formulation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) policy. After the flagging
off of the scheme, NHIS gave itself a target of ten years (2005 – 2015) to achieve universal
coverage (Abdul Jalil 2015). According to Abdul Jalil, for the government to achieve this
objective, NHIS rolled out many schemes and programmes to the formal sector in both private
and state government establishment including programmes for students of the tertiary
institutions. To cover the informal sector, programs such as voluntary contributor’s scheme,
community based social health insurance scheme and MDG-MCH (Millennium Development
Goals - Maternal and Child Health) schemes were also flagged off.
Dr. Dogo mohammed, the brainchild behind the master plan for the implementation of the
National Health Insurance Scheme policy was appointed as the pioneer chief executive of NHIS.
Under the formal sector, he was able to achieve close to 90% coverage for the federal civil
servants and a meagre 5.5% of the state civil servants (only Bauchi and Cross rivers) and about
2% of the entire local government employees. Dr. Mohammed started well and in his first
administrative year performed brilliantly and put up the structure necessary for the flag-off of the
scheme. one of the many lapses of his tenure was the failure to address the fundamental issues of
inequities and disparities among different populations in Nigeria. His administration
implementation framework failed to put the necessary financing scheme to cover the informal
sector where over 70% of Nigerians belong to, in addition to that his tenure was also
characterized by trails of controversies and discord with the executive arm of government.
In 2013, Dr. Sambo Abdulrahman succeeded Dr. Dogo and was not able to sustain the tempo at

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which Dogo operated. He managed the scheme with no clear cut objectives and ended up
employing over 700 new staff without even knowing what to do with them, which ended up
yielding no commensurate increase in the productivity output of the large workforce. During
Sambo’s tenure no significant progress was made on the universal coverage.
By the end of 2013 in November Sambo was replaced with, Dr. Femi Thomas. According to
Abdul Jalil, His coming from the state government civil service evidently lacked clear
understanding of the objectives of the scheme. During his first year he was introduced the mobile
health insurance and primary pupil’s health insurance schemes, in addition sensitization
workshops on the newly introduced schemes, no meaningful progress was made. His tenure
witnessed big spending on personal costs and improper investments. Femi Thomas practiced
gross act of misconducts including purchases of cars, landed properties and improper award of
contracts etc. The Nigeria Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are still
investigating his case.
REASONS FOR POLICY FAILURE
1) NEEDS: NEED’s policy had good intention at the beginning but the objective was short-
lived due to numerous challenges that faced it; one of the many challenges was the leadership
problem which rigmarole NEEDS. The policy lacked the necessary framework to ride on as a
varying interest between the politicians and bureaucrats, which caused clashes and delays in
implementation. The administrative head of NEEDS over ambitious and set targets that was not
feasible for the policy which made the administration next administration led by Late President
Musa Yar’Adua administration to dump the policy and birthed the Vision 20:2020 and the seven-
point agenda. (Obisanya 2015) rightly pointed out that a perpetual problem with Nigerian
leaders is their inability to understand that real reform requires systematic policy initiatives and

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that only well thought-out and coordinated policy actions can drive social and economic
development. One of the recurrent problems facing public policies in Nigeria is the lack of will
for political leadership to work in accordance with bureaucrats in implementing policies; in
addition there is also the continuity problem, every government coming up with their own new
policies instead of building on the existing policies they met on ground.
2) SURE-P: SURE-P failed to meet its objective even after gulping billions of Naira in
Nigeria, as a result of bad policy implementation which didn’t take some factors and variables
into consideration at the planning stage, which include rapid increase in the population of the
country, corrupt political & administrative leadership and people with disability (PWD).
(Okwudili & Emmanuel 2014, p.9) added that fast expansion of poorly equipped educational
institutions and insecurity in the country, which has continued to hamper both local and
international investment, drives bringing about a reduction in the prospects of employment
generation. Most international investors are afraid to come in and establish Industries to employ
Nigerians; even the locals are faced by economic heat from the government, which discourages
entrepreneurship drive in the country. The SURE-P initiative should have been a laudable
initiative had it planned for a good Public Private Partnership (PPP) which would have
encourage investment from local and international private organization which will create an
inclusive employment system and no tribe or state will feel marginalized.
3) NHIS: Part of the major challenges that has rocked the NHIS since inception has been
administrative leadership and problem of misplaced priority. The leaders appointed by the
government maybe didn’t understand their job description, so couldn’t function well.The
administrators of the scheme have focused most of their programmes more on those in the formal
sector leaving out those in the informal sector, who make up for about 70% of the country’s
population without a comprehensive plan. Corruption and Administrative
4) Misconducts marred the objectives of the NHIS and those that suffer it most are the

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informal class who make up 70% of the population, they are those who cant have qualitative
health access and cant afford to travel abroad like those in the formal sector. Corruption is
another factor that made the NHIS policy fail, the erstwhile boss was sacked due to financial
misconduct and laundering of $2.2 million dollars.
Policy failure is not a Nigerian or African phenomenon alone it exists even in most developed
countries of the World, examples include USA, the country’s policy against illegal immigrant
can be said to have failed, according to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) statistics published
on their site dated February 25th, 2015, there were 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants in the
U.S. in 2014 and it is important to point out that Mexicans make up about half of all
unauthorized immigrants (52%), though their numbers have been declining in recent years. There
were 5.9 million Mexican unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2012, down from 6.4
million in 2009. One factor that has led to this could be traced to the relationship that exist
between Mexico and USA, a stricter policy against illegal immigrants may endanger broader
policy goals between both countries such as the oil and natural gas supplies the US rely on
Mexico for.
CONCLUSION
The problem with the Nigerian development system lies not only within the policy formulation
but largely with the policy implementation. Often times both politicians and administrators
quickly forget that policy formulation is a means to an end. A policy formulated without good
implementation is dead; likewise a poor policy made not considering the interest of the public is
dead.
The challenges facing policies in Nigeria include bad leadership, population factor,

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mismanagement, poor implementation strategy and change in government.
Public Policies in Nigeria has failed largely as a result of programme issue as opposed to process
and political reasons. There are specific factors that explain why policies fail in the Nigeria
setting; this work highlighted the some key critical factors 1) bad leadership and inefficient
government solutions; 2) the population factor; 3) mismanagement; 4) poor implementation
strategy; 5) change in government.
Continuity in government policies is the key to socio-economic development and growth, every
leader and administrator should formulate and ensure that the policies are formulated and well
implemented so it doesn't die a natural death or not appeal to the incoming administration, they
should initiate public policies that can stand the test of time have great impact on members of the
public. If this is done it will promote continuity and policy adaptation by the incoming
government as opposed to the “dump and start afresh norm”. It is also very imperative that
policy makers carry out a SWOT (Strenght, Weakness, Opportunity & Threat) analysis of
policies at various times to measure the performance of public policies against its objectives and
goals, furthermore the Nigerian government should endeavor to improve through approaching
policies from a global perspective and taking cues and lessons across different socio-political
systems and environment.
With strong belief, I hope that the perspectives presented in this term paper will form a reference
point which will help other public policy students and professionals understand why policy fail
and recommended solution to experiencing a qualitative and effective policy formulation and
implementation.

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