{"id":16263,"date":"2026-11-12T18:15:56","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T18:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/reforms-must-outlive-political-tenures-to-deliver-lasting-impact-aig-imoukhuede-foundation-businessday-ng-2\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T18:15:56","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T18:15:56","slug":"reforms-must-outlive-political-tenures-to-deliver-lasting-impact-aig-imoukhuede-foundation-businessday-ng-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/reforms-must-outlive-political-tenures-to-deliver-lasting-impact-aig-imoukhuede-foundation-businessday-ng-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reforms must outlive political tenures to deliver lasting impact \u2013 Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation – Businessday NG"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026says weak implementation holding back reforms<\/strong><\/em>\n<\/p>\n

Public sector reforms must be sustained beyond the tenure of individual political officeholders to deliver lasting impact, the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation has said, emphasising the need for continuity across successive administrations.\n<\/p>\n

The foundation said real transformation takes between 10 and 20 years, making it essential for governments to build on existing reforms rather than abandon them when political leadership changes.\n<\/p>\n

Chioma Njoku , head of programmes at the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation speaking at a press briefing on Thursday in Abuja, ahead of the launch of the foundation\u2019s Public Sector Reform Playbook said Nigeria did not lack reform ideas, noting that ministries, departments and agencies already had strategies, frameworks and committee reports, but had struggled to translate them into lasting improvements in public service delivery.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cReal transformation takes 10 to 20 years. And that is longer than anybody\u2019s election cycle. And that is why the work has to be handed on carefully from one president to another, from one set of reformers to the next,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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According to her, several government reforms have started successfully but failed to endure because of weak institutional continuity and the influence of informal political networks.\n<\/p>\n

She cited the Oronsaye Report, submitted in 2012, which recommended reducing the number of government agencies and eliminating duplication, but whose implementation was not approved by the Federal Executive Council until 2024.\n<\/p>\n

Njoku said the foundation\u2019s independent review of public sector reforms, commissioned in 2023 and completed in 2024, where citizens identified political patronage, corruption and weak public participation as major obstacles to sustainable reforms.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNigeria does not have reform ideas, as we well know. The public service has repeatedly promised reform, and unfortunately repeatedly struggled to deliver it in a way that lasts. They aren\u2019t about missing technical knowledge. They don\u2019t complain that government did not know what to do. What they complained about was power, trust, and the ability for government to follow through\u201d, Njoku said.<\/p>\n

She said 89 percent of citizens and private-sector respondents interviewed identified political patronage and corruption as major barriers, while 71 percent of career civil servants said politicians quietly abandon reforms they campaigned on after winning elections.\n<\/p>\n

The review also found that only 10 percent of citizens interviewed had high or very high trust in government institutions, while 77 percent said ordinary people and civil society organisations were rarely consulted during policy design.\n<\/p>\n

Explaining the challenges, Njoku said Nigerian public institutions operated within two environments: a formal system governed by laws, procedures and merit-based rules, and an informal system shaped by patronage, political loyalty, family, ethnic and religious networks.\n<\/p>\n

She said the informal environment often overpowered formal institutional rules, influencing recruitment, contract awards and whether reforms succeeded or failed.
\u201cThe practical lesson is that a reform that only strengthens the rules and ignores all of these informal networks will be absorbed, diluted, or simply bypassed,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

Njoku explained that the Public Sector Reform Playbook was developed to help reformers understand these institutional dynamics and navigate the political and administrative challenges that affect implementation.<\/p>\n

According to her, the 17-chapter guide covers reform diagnosis, design, stakeholder consultation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, as well as strategies for sustaining reforms beyond changes in leadership. It also contains an annex on adapting the framework to state and local governments.\n<\/p>\n

She said the playbook provides practical tools, including templates for reform planning, a master checklist covering the reform process and a maturity model to help institutions assess their progress and identify gaps.\n<\/p>\n

The foundation also drew on five case studies covering immigration, the business environment, ports, treasury management and taxation, alongside experiences from Rwanda, Kenya, Egypt, Mauritius and C\u00f4te d\u2019Ivoire.\n<\/p>\n

Njoku said the guide encourages reformers to identify achievable early results, involve citizens and relevant stakeholders from the beginning, protect reform funding and measure progress transparently.\n<\/p>\n

She urged government officials, reform teams, civil society organisations and development partners to use the playbook and provide feedback to improve future editions.<\/p>\n

According to her, reforms should be treated as national projects rather than the personal achievements of individual political leaders, requiring successive administrations to build on the work of their predecessors.<\/p>\n

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Businessday NG<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026says weak implementation holding back reforms Public sector reforms must be sustained beyond the tenure of individual political officeholders to deliver lasting impact, the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation has said, emphasising the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}