The perpetual failure of public policies in Nigeria has become recurring and has brought about disastrous consequences to the system. Public policies are the building blocks of a nation and stands as the determinant of the growth of that nation. In the event of retrogression in the economic growth and non development of a country, the first thing to note are the kind of policies that have been put in place to ensure economic security.
There is a never ending blame-game between the legislative and the executive on who is truly responsible for this repititve cycle and nobody is ready to step up to the challenge and take the bull by its horns.
A response to this has left the system In a deplorable state and resulted to slap-dash policies. It is beyond necessary to have intelligent and well planned policies. Inorder to achieve this, the four stages of policy making has to be followed in it’s every detail. These stages are agenda setting, formulation, implementation and evaluation.
When a problem occurs, it means that a stage in this process was either omitted or overlooked, and it’s ripple effect is the ineffectiveness of that policy.
The legislative and executive are part of the three arms of government and the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria confers authority on the two arms of government in section 4 and 5 respectively. The legislature have the power to create laws while the executive enforces the law.
These powers justify the existence of these arms and it is through their powers that public policies may be effectively formulated and implemented. The legislature have failed to create policies that match with the social engineering of the people. It is disheartening that a trend of emulating foreign policies without giving it a proper measurement with the culture of the people and their values has become a habit of the legislature. This has left us with a number of policies that the people are unable to adopt and are left unrealistic and unachievable.
The executive has failed in the aspect of continuity of policy implementation. During a change in government, there is this tradition of abandoning the policies and projects of the past government and starting ‘afresh’. The executive should ensure that every policy that has been implemented should be executed properly whether it is a part of that government agenda or not.
Conclusively, the legislative and the executive should understand that the theory of ‘system thinking’ is what is needed to be applied. This means that policy making and implementation should be approached holistically. The both arms are to work together to ensure continuity and creation of effective policies. There should be surveys and deliberation taken before policies are formulated. Effective policy making is possible in Nigeria but instead of trying to become comfortable with the current system and live in a pool of ‘what ifs’. It is time to collaborate and work towards a common goal of political and economic growth and leave the whirlwind of stagnancy that is currently the Nigerian reality.