Synthesis of the Missions of Specific Government Agencies in Nigeria: Institutional Coherence, Synergy, and Mandate Overlap

Abstract

In Nigeria, the government agencies are very important in the formulation, implementation and service provision as part of the public policy. Nevertheless, the high rate of the rise of ministries, departments, and agencies has brought up the issue of institutional coherence, inter- agency synergy, and overlapping of mandate. This paper discussed missions and statutory requirements of specific government agencies in Nigeria with the view of evaluating the level of institutional congruence, cooperation and functional duplication. The research design assumed was descriptive and exploratory and depended solely on secondary sources in form of policy documents, which can be accessed by laws, official agency reports, government publications, and other academic texts. It used qualitative content analysis and descriptive forms of analytical methods to compare and contrast agency missions, measure institutional coherence, measure inter-agency synergy and locate mandate overlap. The results showed that there were high overlaps and ineffective coordination between agencies especially those in the public health sector, anti-corruption sector, leading to duplication of services, inefficiencies, and lack of accountability. In contrast, agencies that had well-defined mandates and elaborate coordination frameworks had greater institutional intelligibility and efficacy of operation. The research results in finding that to achieve better governance results in Nigeria, it is necessary to better define the mandates of various agencies, enhance inter agency coordination structures, and change the institutions to be more efficient and effective in terms of reducing redundancy and creating synergy among the government agencies.

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