Navigating identity and self-worth in the persona of the public administrator

By Tunji Olaopa

(Being Contribution to TOFAC 2026: An Intellectual Feast on identity Conference, held at the University of Jos, from 7-10 July, 2026)

One of the staples of philosophical ruminations that possesses universal significance is the subject of identity. When the philosopher asks, who are you, she is asking for the mapping of the boundaries of what constitutes the self. What does it mean to talk about the self of a person? What constitutes the identity parameters of that self? Is the self a being or a becoming? While many philosophers over the long existence of the philosophical enterprise have explore what the self could possibly be, so many others too, from David Hume and the existentialists to Buddhism argue that the idea of the self and its identity is an illusion.
And yet, despite philosophical approval or disapproval, identity remains a very potent concept in determining and nuancing human social relations. From sexual to ethnic identity, there are lots of conflicts and animosities that run on how people perceive themselves and others around them, especially in the agitation for political and sociocultural resources within a political space. It seems to me that the matter becomes even more cogent and problematic when we try to align the idea of the self with the self’s professional endeavor. This is a fundamental issue because it concerns how we manage roles within the expectations of the society. How do professionals, from the politicians to the public servants, manage their aspirations for themselves and the public perception of their significance? What happens if there is a conflict of interest between one’s responsibility to oneself and one’s responsibility to one’s profession and the society?

In the case of the public administrator in a postcolonial context, the situation becomes worsened. The persona of the public administrator and public servant in a country like Nigeria is a critical one because that identity is tied in with the postcolonial state of the country. And the public servant constitutes, as part of her persona, the embodiment of the state. In other words, the public servants and the public administrators are those who visibly represent the abject failure or high-performance of the Nigerian state, as the case maybe, to achieve viable and sustainable economic and infrastructural development, six decades plus years after independence. Indeed, part of Nigeria’s underdevelopment status is the inability of the inherited colonial bureaucracy to shake off its administrative debilities, especially those arising from distortions injected by military governance tradition, and take on the institutional capability readiness that could backstop democratic governance that would bring well-being to Nigerians. So, when we say the state has failed or is succeeding, it is technically the public service that is being rated in a significant sense.
Thus, when an average Nigerian confronts the public servant, they confront an ailing state that has not been able to provide stable electricity, sustainable road network, functional education, compassionate healthcare system, and so on. But Nigerians also see a public servant that capitalizes on the dysfunctional system to enrich herself. There is therefore a connection, for them, between the lack of capacity of the public service system and those who are in some systemic ways aiding that debilitation. We are therefore dealing with the public perception of the identity of the public administrator, the failure of the public services and the consequent erosion of public trust that comes from the public’s inability to trust that the government or its public servants can reform the institution sufficiently to achieve democratic service delivery.

The other side of the story is how the public administrator herself balances the demands of her own self and all the societal pressures on it, with the bureaucratic imperatives of being a public servant. This understanding of the tension goes to the very heart of the concept of professional conduct and ethics. The public servant must carry out her responsibilities within a very strict understanding and expectations of bureaucratic rules and ethical demands. And in the Nigerian context, she must do this with an increasing decline in self-worth that is facilitated by both pubic distrust and institutional limitations. All this possesses the potential to damage the professional self-worth of the public servant. In psychological terms, the public servant experiences the assault on his persona in two key ways. The first is the cognitive dissonance that comes from the aspirations of the public servant to serve the community and the nation and the hostility that comes from public distrust of that service. The second is the unfortunate internalization of this shame over a long period. The public servant most likely turns the hostility of the public into a form of self-stigmatization that turns a decreasing sense of self-worth to a decreasing sense of institutional efficiency.

This psychological tension confronted by the public administrator derives from the internal institutional and structural tensions that the public service in postcolonial Nigeria is facing. This system is constructed around the traditional Weberian understanding of the bureaucracy—impartiality, neutrality, anonymity, legal-rational structure and a hierarchical conformity to rules and regulations. However, the combination of the large volume of administrative tasks the bureaucracy has to achieve and the blind conformism that is demanded in doing, especially by the line officers eventually led to the transformation of the bureaucracy into a “great rock in the tideline”—an embodiment of bureaucratic culture that generates red-tapes and undermines institutional capability.
By the time the managerial revolution arrived, represented by the new public management (NPM), and the pressure began to build around the urgent need for institutional and administrative reforms to adapt the Weberian system to market demands, the public servants found themselves at the center of a transition that tasked and stretched their understanding of their traditional professional identity. On the one hand, the Weberian bureaucratic ethics demands that the public administrator’s persona is defined by conformity to rules, and yet the NPM insists that institutional efficiency requires a measure of risk-taking and discretionary capacity. On the other hand, she has to balance the tight rope between neutrality, personal or political opinions or partisanship and authentic self-expression that might lead to a conflict of interests with her administrative superiors.

At another level, and specifically within the Nigerian postcolonial administrative context, what I have conceived as bureau-pathology constitutes all by itself a fundamental and foundational source of professional and personal discord that diminishes the administrator’s sense of self and worth. Bureau-pathology works in two senses. One, there is the blind conformism that ensures that public servants adhere strictly to institutional rules and administrative methods as ends in themselves rather than means to performance and productivity. Thus, the public service holds on to existing skills and competences without the institutional willingness to innovate creatively. The brain power of the public service is therefore lost in the labyrinth of rules and regulations. Two, brilliant officials and officers feel compelled to hide their creative professional acumen and capacities in order to be able to advance in the system, rather than facilitating performance management and productivity. Bureau-pathology therefore constitutes a sort of rigid glass ceiling against which the bureaucrats must always seek a way out. Career mobility therefore stagnates or progresses to the extent that the public servant is able to navigate bureaucratic politics. The result is a deep and confusing questioning of one’s institutional value and career prospects—both of which infuse how a public servant eventually sees her persona and self-worth.

If there is a confusion with regard to career mobility and administrative value, there is an even worse fragmented identity that is induced by the administrator’s inability to determine where she fits in the public service system. This structural identity crisis comes from the famous generalists-specialists divide in the British administrative tradition inherited by the Nigerian public service. The generalist cadre is made up of those whose administrative capability is broad-based and not restricted to any specific expertise. Specialists are however those with specific expertise, i.e. engineers, doctors, financial analysts, digital technicians, economists, etc. The direct implication of this is a role or capacity confusion that derives from the weight that the institution gives either of the cadres. Within the Nigerian public service where the “cult of the generalists” is more dominant than the specialist cadres, such a role confusion becomes a significant barrier to an administrative persona oriented towards a capability readiness that calls on the professional expertise of the specialists.

It therefore becomes imperative that in a state like Nigeria, the reinvention of the persona of the public administrator must become one of the most fundamental objectives of institutional administrative reforms. Indeed, it must be at the center of transforming the capability readiness of the public service. This speaks most urgently to reforms in personnel and human resource that commences from the entry point assessment that must focus on merit and professionalism. In reforming the public service, institutional reformers need to target entry-level requirements and examinations that adapt the vision of the twenty-first century public administrator who will be tasked to take charge of aligning the new public service to strict and meritocratic entry assessment. Thus, it must be at the level of recruitment that the Nigerian public service must begin to determine and mold the persona of the public servant which is then further strengthened by the capacity building and career management knowledge pack and theory of change that the system is able to put together and implement. This ensures that the administrator takes a firm hold of her identity as the first condition in inserting herself willingly, intentionally and patriotically into the task of making democratic governance work for Nigerians.

*OLAOPA, Professor of Public Administration, is incumbent Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja.

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