STRUCTURAL CONGRUENCY AND THE BANE OF ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS IN NIGERIA

The length and the bread of the interaction between Administrative institution and ecological forces operating within its ambiance is a topic which has generated a considerable amount of empirical inquiries and theoretical speculations within the field of Public Administration, wherenumber of models and frameworks were advanced by scholars in attempt to established a sound theoretical footing to that aspect of Public Administration. One of such models is the Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verbais’s Structural Congruent model which asserted that the development of an Administrative system is dictated by its own history, economic structure, beliefs pattern andpolitical system. The Structural Congruent model explain changes in bureaucratic evolvement in terms of changes in political culture. The model therefore, explores the unique features of bureaucracy in developing nations and its suitability in understanding variations in administrative behavior across nation-states in the sense that each society has its own social and cultural qualities which individually and collectively influenced and shaped its administrative systems. This paper attempt to analyze the conceptual relevance of the Structural Congruentmodel in explaining the predicaments of the Public Administration reforms in Nigeria. The paper argued that the bane of Public Administration reforms in Nigeria is premised on the fact that the forces emanating from the environments such as norms, values, sectarianism, ethnicity and schism plays greater role on bureaucratic institutions than the ideas generated from manpower training and development efforts of the successive government in the country. Therefore, administrative behaviour in Nigeria is a product of the Public official’s environment not theschool or training he/she received.