THE THOMAS KEMPE PHENOMENON AND PUBLIC POLICY IMPLEMENTATION IN NIGERIA

Abstract

In Irish myth, Thomas Kempe is a mischievous ghost who sets homes in disarray leaving the inhabitants blaming each other. At the end of the day, no one takes responsibility for all that goes wrong. This is the problem of public policy implementation in Nigerian where public officers are seldom held accountable for policy failures that have thus become regular occurrences. Unlike in the Kempe folklore, ghosts are not responsible for these policy lapses in Nigeria, but a lack of commitment toward the common good by public servants. How can this trend be turned around for public sector effectiveness? While it is acknowledged that formalism, clientelism, ethnicity and similar ills contribute to the lethargy of public policy implementation, this study advocates that sanctions should be firmly and appropriately utilized to address this deficit. This study therefore recommends the effective use of sanctions and reward within the public service, as studies have shown that this encourages hard work and builds a merit-oriented system. The methodology for this study consists of the ex-post-facto for the research design, secondary sources for the collection of data, and thematic and social analysis, as the adopted research analyses.