The Steve Oronsaye Report

The Steve Oronsaye Report formally titled the Report on the Restructuring and Rationalization of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions, and Agencies is a landmark 800-page public service reform blueprint submitted to the Nigerian government in 2012.

Chaired by Stephen Oronsaye, a former Head of Service of the Federation, the committee was tasked with tackling a massive, expensive problem: a bloated bureaucracy rife with duplicate responsibilities and inefficient spending.

Summary of Key Findings & Recommendations

The report exposed a federal civil service that had expanded far past administrative efficiency, draining national resources through hundreds of ad-hoc structures.
The core of the report focuses on streamlining operations by enforcing a simple principle: The government should not create a new body to perform functions that an existing statutory entity already covers.

At the time of compilation, out of 541 federal agencies (both statutory and non-statutory), the report recommended aggressive restructuring:

• Abolition: Scrap 38 agencies entirely.
• Mergers: Merge 52 agencies that had overlapping mandates.
• Reversion: Downgrade 14 autonomous agencies back to standard departments within ministries to increase direct accountability.
• Reduction: Cut down the total number of statutory agencies from 263 to 161.
• Funding Cuts: Discontinue government funding for professional bodies and councils, forcing them to self-fund.
• Workforce Right-sizing: Conduct management and biometric audits of nearly 90 agencies to eliminate ghost workers, eliminate redundant roles, and enforce merit-based promotions.

Notable High-Profile Recommendations

The report targeted deep structural shifts, including proposing the merger of anti-corruption giants like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), as well as integrating major media bodies like the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), and Voice of Nigeria (VON).

Conclusion of the Report

The primary conclusion of the Oronsaye Report is that Nigeria’s high cost of governance is fundamentally unsustainable and actively suffocates economic growth.

The committee concluded that if its restructuring recommendations were fully implemented, the federal government would save over ₦862 billion ($563.5 million) in just a three-year span (calculated against 2012 values), freeing up critical capital for infrastructural and social development.

The report concluded that true administrative efficiency can only be achieved when government structures are forced to “do more with less.” However, it explicitly warned that structural changes alone are meaningless without unwavering political will.

The Implementation Paradox: For over a decade following its 2012 submission, the report sat on shelves due to systemic political resistance, legal hurdles (as many agencies require legislative amendments to dissolve), and fear of public sector job losses. In recent years, severe inflation and fiscal pressures prompted the government to resurrect the document, initiating a formal legislative review to finally execute the long-delayed mergers.