CHAPTER ONE
1.0  INTRODUCTION
1.1     Background of the Study
The productivity and survival of any organization depend largely on the quality of its employees and how much they are able to align themselves to the goal and policies of the organization. One of the major problems facing Nigeria civil service is how to manage the personnel by successful government in Nigeria. This is particularly important because of the level of indiscipline in Nigeria civil service is found to be responsible for low productivity in government’s desire to achieve higher living standards for the people (Adebayo, 2001). Batty (1974) argued that effective management of organizational workforce is possible only if manager adopts the correct approach to motivation, the giving of instructions and where necessary, discipline, and this requires high level cooperation from the workforce. Effective discipline depends not only on sound leadership and a good personnel policy but also on the full cooperation of employees to such policies of the organization. In a situation where the employees are not in conformity with organization rule and regulation and set standard, there will be poor performance and low level of productivity. Arowolo’s view (2010) is in line with this argument when he observes that the lack of total regard for ethical standard and rule and regulations throughout the agencies of government and civil service in Nigeria is a serious drawback. This is because civil service is one of the machinery of government saddled with the responsibility of implementing the will of the state. There is no doubt that in any dispensation in Nigeria be it military or civilian the civil service is looked upon to provide certain fundamental services for the smooth running of the government of the country. It will be worthy to note that the executive arm of the government whose responsibility is to implement all the governmental programs rely heavily on the civil service to perform this important function. However, because of the abysmal performance and indiscipline in the civil service, the civil service has been attacked by renowned administrators, bureaucratic and academicians. Unfortunately, despite the fact that much is expected from this organ of government the lackadaisical attitude with which the civil service performs its duties has generated a lot of heat for both past and successive government in Nigeria.
The origin, structure and performance of the contemporary civil service in Nigeria are highly traceable to colonial administrative formation. Civil Service in Nigeria has its origins in organizations established by the British in colonial times. The Nigerian Civil service is a body of government employees entrusted with the administration of the country, and mandated to carry out the policies of the government of the day. In other words, it is the body of civilian employees of any level of government, not subject to political appointment and removal, normally hired and promoted largely on the basis of competitive examination. Bade (2009).  Major reasons for staff indiscipline in the public sector include mismanagement of conflicts, lack of better understanding of conflicts, their root causes, early signs or indicators, dynamics and the manner in which they can be prevented, brought under control and eventually resolved by the organization (Kankwenda, 2002). Yahcioglu (1996) opines that “people get involved in acts of indiscipline because their interests and values are challenged or because their needs are not meant.
Ani (1991), observes that a good number of our public servants believe that the public service belongs to our then colonial master, and as such they throw control and discipline in the service to the winds. Certain organizational factors such as control and discipline have been found by management experts and scholars to be a veritable instruments for addressing this problem of ineffective performance in the public bureaucracies. The Nigeria civil service is one of the organizations that have witnessed a variety of demeanors from the employees of the civil service units. Some of the offences that are common in the civil service include; unexcused absence, leaving without permission, dishonesty, deception of fraud, willful damage of property/ materials, fighting, insubordination, falsifying of records and so many others.
Johnson (1996:324), maintained that “every employer must have means to remove those who do not contribute to its mission”. If this is the case, the researcher is of the view that the civil service in the present time is experiencing terrible misdemeanor from its employees to the extent that the disciplinary methods or procedures seem to have no effect on them. If it has, why does the civil service have cases of frauds, truancy, absenteeism, lateness, and other general misconducts? Does it mean that control and discipline have no more relevance to the effective operation of the civil services? If it has, what effects have them on the system in the contemporary Nigeria society?