Paper long abstract:

This paper is a comparative assessment of the distribution of ministers and the implication for policy adoption and implementation for socio-economic development in Nigeria and Indonesia in the period 1966-1998. Both countries share certain structural similarities such as having an abundance of crude oil that confers relative importance for revenue generation and mobilization; both have large population sizes as well as diverse ethnicities among other things. However, comparisons of some indicators of growth (GNP per capita, improvement of living standards, increasing life expectancy and reduction of infant mortality rate) from the late 70s to the 90s show that while Indonesia experienced development, Nigeria regressed. This implied that somehow the policy choices of Indonesia worked better than Nigeria. Therefore this paper explores the degree of administrative efficiency measured by the extent of stability of government ministers (measured as proportion retained, replaced, rotated, as well as the quantity with military background) and the association to policy choice and long term development.

In Indonesia, there was a long period of stable leadership under General Soeharto from 1966 to 1998; cabinet reshuffle consistently took place on a 5-year basis with some old faces retained to permit some continuity in scheduled change. In the same period, Nigeria experienced eight heads of state and analysis of data collated for Nigeria from annual publications of “Africa South of the Sahara” showed that there was a relatively higher turnover of ministers. Public office holding was unstable as some ministers held positions for as little as three months. During the Babangida regime (1985-1993), ministers were rotated or replaced on a yearly basis. The shortness of office duration in Nigeria implied that respective ministers do not have enough time to digest their mandates and come up with plans that tie into the federal/state government strategic plans and business plans. Effective achievement and monitoring of target goals could not be ensured. The recruitment process of ministers was also symptomatic of ethnic background; only a few ministers occupied their positions on expertise, knowledge, and/or professional experience, which had negative impact on policy choice and outcomes. Glaring conflict between meritocratic assumptions and affirmative action principles in process of appointing ministers resulted in misguided rotation and disengagement from office. It was also discovered in Nigeria that the extent of prior citizen input to ministerial nominations was nil and selected ministers seem not to have independent choice in implementing workable strategic plans. Each new minister also felt compelled to undertake new initiatives and projects rather than build on those of the past office holders.

Nigeria’s underlying political and social system is complex and this has yielded continuous concern about how interests are represented and benefits distributed. Ethnic communities jealously evaluate who gets what in the distribution of the fruits of power, and the mammoth stakes in the prebendal game intensified ethnic political consciousness for appointments in federal bureaucracy.

By and large, the stability of Soeharto’s regime and his relatively consistent commitments to growth in Indonesia reveal a marked contrast to the sporadic tenure of Nigerian leaders and their strategies of clientalism, distributional politics, and economic predation. In Nigeria, political instability resulting from frequent changes of government and ministers was a factor that encouraged initiatives with high short-term returns resulting in relatively lower pace of development compared to Indonesia.