The role of new public management (NPM) in enhancing the system of public administration in Nigeria

The need for transformation due to inefficient nature of the traditional public administration necessitate for the adoption of New Public Management (NPM) ideas. It has been pointed out that originating from the developed societies such as UK and the US, the NPM model of governance has not only spread to other capitalist nations but also embraced by the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Nigeria as a transitional society is not exceptional. During the last two decades when the application of variants NPM techniques and practices become a global phenomenon, Nigeria also responded by engaging actively into NPM reform initiative practices with the view to achieving greater efficiency in the public sector. This paper seeks to examine the role of NPM in enhancing Nigeria's public administration. The paper begins with an in-depth analysis of the concept of NPM, this was followed by an overview of Nigeria's Public administration. However, the paper highlighted the comparison between NPM and traditional public administration as well as the role of NPM in improving public administration in Nigeria. For the purpose of this article, emphasis was focused on the secondary source in which data was generated from online articles, published and unpublished text materials. The paper relies heavily on literature review and employed content analysis. Finally, the paper recommends among other things that emphasis should be focused to restructure the traditional public administration, ensures appropriate application of the NPM reform initiatives and the idea be fully implemented.