Politics of Recruitment and Selections in Rivers State Universities

Abstract

Educational institutions all over the world have come to recognize the importance of developing and maintaining a high-quality workforce in recent years. Tenaciously, the educational institution strives to utilize the best human resources in pursuing its short and long-term objectives. Regrettably, the influence of politics in the process of recruiting and selecting candidates in Rivers State universities has become a great source of concern to the stakeholder and the general public. Political meddling, nepotism, and favoritism have spread their unabated tentacles in the recruitment and selection of personnel in Rivers State educational institutions, as opposed to the use of the merit principle in such recruitment and selection. Universities have failed miserably in their role as a true agent of development which is primarily a matter of human nature attributed to politicization of recruitment processes which has resulted in several issues, including the recruitment of incompetent manpower into Rivers State universities. The long-term implication of the politicization of recruitment is educational decadence. The politicization of the recruitment process in the Rivers State universities led to the production of graduates who cannot contribute effectively to solving societal problems. In this scenario, the university has become an incubator of the societal problem instead of being the panacea and vanguard of problem-solving. Therefore, it is against this backdrop that this study was undertaken to examine the influence of politics in the recruitment and selection of staff in Rivers State universities from 2010 to 2020. The study was guided by three objectives with three corresponding research questions and hypotheses. The study reviewed relevant literature on the major variables in the study which include politics, recruitment, selection and job effectiveness. The study was anchored on Merit Systems Theory postulated by Max Weber (1922), Anthony Dawns (1967), and Bendix, R. (1967) among other scholars. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of the study consisted of the 2790 staff from the two Rivers State universities (Rivers State University, consisted of 1817 staff, while Ignatius Ajuru University of Education consisted of 973). A sample of 350 was derived using the Taro Yamane formula, a simple random sampling technique was further used to select staff from both universities. The instrument for data collection was a self-developed questionnaire titled; ‘Influence of Politics on the Recruitment of Staff in Rivers State Universities Questionnaire’ (IPRSRSUQ). The instrument is based on four-rating scale instrument items. Descriptive statistics (Mean and Standard Deviation) was used to answer the research questions, while t-test statistics was used to test the stated hypotheses at a 0.05 level of significance.  The study’s research questions and its corresponding hypotheses were able to demonstrate empirically that politics has a significant negative influence on the recruitment and selection of staff in Rivers State universities. Among the political factors, God-fatherism, “sons of the soil”, party stalwarts, and personal relations with the politicians have a significant influence on the recruitment and selection processes.  The influence of politics jeopardizes the meritocratic principle with a severe impact on staff effectiveness as well as the quality of graduates produced in the university. In this scenario, society is left to blink. The politicization of the recruitment process in the Rivers State universities led to the production of graduates who cannot contribute effectively to solving societal problems. Based on the above findings, the study recommended among other things that Rivers State universities should be granted constitutional autonomy. This will enable the various universities in Rivers State to be independent of the recruitment and selection processes. Thus, leading to the selection of qualified candidates for the job.