CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR

CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC SECTOR (A CASE STUDY OF ENUGU NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT, ENUGU)
 
ABSTRACT
Since independence (196) till date, the Nigeria society has been undergoing transition with unavailable and unusual step by transformation process that effects all sectors of Nigeria society.  The public sector organization been deliberately and hurriedly reformed to avoid the pit falls of the past.  Recently, erratic decision are been made, new programmes are established and the old ones are re-established with new strategies in an effect to receive a new social order.  In achieving this social order, a number of reforms are introduced into the public sector organizations and these (reforms) tend to be prone to one form of organizational crisis to another, regard to Nigeria public sector. These crises arise out of uncertainties or inadequacy of organizational resources.  These could be as a result of power disorientation of employees in an organization and the employee rejection of management and authority’s reform. Any such crisis is capable of disturbing the realization of the organization objectives.  An important step is to ensure success in the realization of public sector organization and to understand the dynamics of crisis in public sector are always involved in the crisis management.  In conclusion, we can see that there are no effective tools for crisis management in Nigeria public sector.  For this singular reason, the Enugu North Local Government (ENLG) was chosen to give a clear picture of public sector organization whose administration have not been able to act as autonomous part of the central government in Nigeria.  In this study, were have been able to identify few of the numerous crisis that could hit the ENLG and ranked them in the order to profitability in developing a crisis management more for use by organizations in the public sector of the Nigeria economy.  The researcher used historical research, survey and descriptive static in computing the data for this study.
 
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1       Background of the Study:
Public relations play a vital role between an organization and its public. Its practice aims at establishing a two-way communication, seeking common ground or areas of mutual interest and establishing understanding based on truth, knowledge and full information. It is that indispensable bridge that fosters co-operation and understanding.  With increasing intensity, the civil society is rather active than passive in the affairs that concern them. Similarly, organizations are more socially responsible in their business undertaking in reference to public opinion.  The reason is not far fetched. Today’s organizations, no matter how pretentious they are, are aware that they need to build dependable relationship with their publics. However, it is obvious that no matter how hard an organization attempts to project her image, occasions arise when crisis develops and threatens the very foundation of the organization concerned.
Public relations have myriad of definitions. The British Institute of Public Relations (1994) defines it as deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish mutual understanding between an organization and the public. The Mexican definition which was as a result of International conference held in Mexico City in 1978, says, Public relations practice is the art and social science of analyzing trend, predicting their consequences, counseling organization leader, and implementing planned programmer of action which will serve both the organization and the public interest. Harlow(1976) defines it as distinctive management function which helps establish and maintain mutual lines of communication,