Reconciling Innovation and Accountability: Artificial Intelligence Adoption and Public Sector Reform in Nigeria
Publication Date : 30-06-2026
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It’s a common assumption in the debates about public sector reform that innovation and accountability are contradictory – that faster decision-making enabled by technology must be at the expense of oversight and answerability to citizens. This paper challenges this assumption in the context of the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in Nigeria’s public administration using Socio-Technical Systems (STS) theory and the responsible-AI principles as articulated by the OECD (2019), UNESCO (2021) and European Commission (2023). Based on survey data from 200 public-sector and policy-adjacent professionals in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT, n = 108) and Plateau State (n = 92) and analysed using a 15-item Likert instrument (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78), the paper finds that 83.5% of respondents perceive AI-driven innovation and institutional accountability as compatible rather than competing objectives, and 72% dismiss the proposition that ethical safeguards hamper innovation. However, respondents identified a measurable discrepancy between endorsement at the level of principle of responsible AI use (means above 4.40) and confidence in adherence to the principle in operation (means 3.88-4.04), with a statistically significant difference between FCT and Plateau respondents on accountability-in-practice (chi-square = 18.37, df = 4, p < 0.01). In the paper, we argue that this pattern reframes the challenge of reforming the public sector: the objective is not to balance innovation and accountability but to close an institutional-design gap through intentional coordination of technical adoption and administrative reform. It proposes a convergent reform agenda on procurement policy, civil service capacity building and inter-governmental coordination and makes recommendations for public administration reform bodies at federal and sub-national levels. Keywords: Public sector reform; artificial intelligence; accountability; innovation; public administration; Nigeria.
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