Bureaucratic politics and policy development: Issues and challenges

The paper examined the institutional interface of politics and administration in the public service in Nigeria; it also assessed the effects of the interface on service efficiency in Nigeria with a view to identifying the benefits or otherwise the interface of politics and administration, and assessed the role of bureaucracy and national development in Nigeria. Secondary data were collected mainly from relevant textbooks, official documents of various ministries, reports and proceedings papers. The findings revealed that the public bureaucracy in Nigeria is expected to play a leading role in the socio-economic transformation through innovation and social engineering. The need to take appropriate action is for designing, building and sustaining an effective and efficient administrative machinery in national development. The paper concluded that public bureaucracy is a catalogue of failed policies and development projects. The inability of government bureaucracy to deliver the much needed services to the citizens and the resultant decline in the standard of living of the people may be held by the same as a conclusive evidence of a failed Nigerian state.    Key words: Bureaucracy, politics, policy and development.