Pages: (103-115 )
Abstract
The pervasiveness of public policy and the power it wields to
effect change in the system once it is armed forimplementation
cannot be over-emphasized. Public policy choices are notmade
in a vacuum, it involves all forms of politics in order to favour
the interest of some people within the society. This paper
therefore investigated the impact of politics on public policy in
Nigeria. Descriptive research design was adopted. The
population of the study consists of undergraduate students in
Department of Politicalscience öf tertiary institutionsin Lagos
State.Two (2)tertiary institutionsin Lagos State (University of
Lagos and Lagos State University) were selected for thisstudy.
A total of three hundred (300) undergraduates participated in
the study, one hundred and fifty fromeach institution.Themain
instrument for data collection was a validated questionnaire.
The reliability value of the questionnaire was 0.91. The data
were analysed using Chi-square statistical tools of IBM
Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS 21.0 version),
while simple percentage method of analysis was used to
analyse the respondents' demograhic data.The study found that
there is significance relationship between politics and public
policy in Nigeria and there is significant role of politics in
public policy in Nigeria.The study concluded thatsince society
is ordered, steered and directed towards desired ends by the
state through policies, therefore, policy becomesthe object, the
tool and the means of governance and the effect of politics in
public policy cannot be overemphasized. The study
recommends that there is need for government at all levels to
engage all the citizens in the process of formulating public
policy in order to ensure that all interests are keyed into the
policyformulationandimplementation.
Keywords: Politics, policy, public, democracy and government,