Welfare Administration and Soldiers’ Performance in the Nigerian Army (2014-2024)

This paper evaluated the influence of welfare administration practices and Nigerian soldiers’ morale in observing their core objectives as the cradle of national freedom. The study focused on major reasons why insecurity pervades regions of the nation Nigeria: ascertained the factors that hinders soldiers’ from discharging their defensive responsibility, investigating rational behind insurgents inflicting more casualty on Nigerian army, to determine why soldiers’ are embarking on mass retirement and to find out how soldiers’ perception of army leadership value affected their performance in the theatre axis. This paper applied descriptive design to ensure in-depth description of the phenomenon (quantitative method of research), and the data is both from primary and secondary source. This paper adopted best practice and best fit theory as the key model, based on the factors that comprises both economic and human relations that permitted soldiers’ to actualize their dream, which equally engender effectiveness of soldiers to consolidate their performance and make the nation called Nigeria habitable, where developmental activities can take place and this was supported with three other theories: equity theory, acceptance theory of Chester Barnard and Herzberg’s motivational theory. This thesis work arrived at these findings: the study shows that, there are welfare packages in Nigerian army that are on black and white, but barely accessible by soldiers’; it was equally discovered that inadequate administration of welfare and poor leadership engendered poor defensive networks that escalates insecurity around the affected region in the country, and the study revealed that soldiers’ perception of maladministration of welfare leads to decline of allegiance to defend territory, wealth and people of Nigeria. Recommendations that can improve welfare administration and soldiers performance: professional administration of welfare include setting up independent body to oversee the implementation of welfare packages to soldiers may revive the fighting spirit, and introducing varieties of welfare packages as practiced in Metropoles may go a long way to revive the soldiers’ morale to rise to defensive and offensive capacity required of them; if the best practice and best fits theory is strictly being adhered to.

Welfare, Administration, Performance, Nigerian Army

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