CHALLENGES OF HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1       Background to the Study

The 1999 Constitution defines the Civil Service of the Federation as ‘service of the Federation in a civil capacity as staff of the Office of the President, the Vice-President, a Ministry or department of the Government of the Federation assigned with the responsibility for any business of the Government of the Federation’’ b(part iv,318 (1). The civil service of the federation is the organ of the government that is responsible for the implementation and execution of Federal Government policies, programs and decisions; they are often regarded as the fourth tier of government. Their roles and functions are so crucial and indispensable that no government can do without them.

The Nigeria civil service is an important institution of the state, which affects the lives of the citizens daily. It is essential to modern life because of the roles it plays in ensuring that the policies and programs of government are translated into action and brought to reality. Ezeani (2004:188) highlighted that “the civil service remains a vital instrument for rapid socio-economic development of any nation, for any meaningful development and achievement to take place, the civil service must be properly positioned and equipped”.

In view of the above, for civil service to achieve her objectives, the personnel have to be fully developed and equipped properly. This view is supported by, Moscher in Nwizu, and Nwapi (2011:15) who formulated four propositions about the civil service:

The decision and behaviour of the civil service have tremendous influence upon the future and development of our society, our economy, and ur policy.

·       The great bulk of decisions and activities by government are determined or heavily influenced by administrative officials.

·       The kinds of decisions and activities the officials take depend upon their capacities, their orientations and their values.

·       The attributes depend heavily upon their background, their training, education and other  current associations

From the above we can deduce that Civil Service can tremendously influence the development of our society, economy and policy, the same Civil Service determine most of the government actions and inactions, the performance of Civil Service is also dependent on their capacity and competence which is equally dependent on their background, training, and education. The implication of the above is that Human Capital Development must be given priority in Nigeria Civil Service

This view is supported by Theodore W. Schutz (1961) who sees human capital to refer as the stock of productive knowledge and skills possessed by workers. He believes that human capital is like other capital that can be invested through education, training and enhanced benefits that would lead to an improvement in the quality development of a nation: that in order to get the best of human capital and in view of the fact that no nation can develop higher than the human capital base of her Civil Service, then the need for development and continuous development of this human capital become a sine qua non for national development.

According to Onah (2014:188) “Human Capital Development, refers to a process that relates to training, education and other professional initiatives in order to increase the level ofknowledge, skills, abilities, values and social assets of an employee which will lead to an employees, satisfaction, high performance, and eventually increase in organizational productivity”. Human Capital Development is all about investing in personnel training and growth to ensure that the total objectives and organizational, goals are met Yesufu (2000:321) in Ojbolo: opined that the essence of Human Capital Development is to ensure that workforce is continually adopted or upgraded to meet the new challenges of its total environment. This implies that those already on the job require re-training, re-orientation or adaptation to meet the new challenges, Ijaiya (2004:34) sees Human Capital Development as a process of acquiring and increasing the number of people who have the skills, education and experience which are critical for the economic and the political development of a country. According to him, Human Capital Development is therefore associated with investment in man and her development as creative and productive resources.

Human Capital Development henceforth is concerned with the development of human resource in an organization. Development means improving the existing human resources in the organization and helping them to acquire new capabilities required for the achievement of the corporate as well as individual goals

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