Generally, public service is designed as an agent of fruitful change and development in the state. Recently, most developing states have fashioned their public service in a style to drive and invigorate their backward economies. Successive scholars have noted that the public service in Nigeria failed to measure- up with their counterparts across the globe because it lacks in transparency and accountability. This study interrogates the root cause(s) of the Nigeria’s economic woes, persistent unethical comportment, erosion of values and poor accountability in the contemporary public service in Nigeria. We consciously fused the social contract, public/common good, good governance theoretical slants to explain our thesis. We averred that accountability of public officials is inevitable to boost and sustain both developed and developing economies. We illustrated that, the success and/or failure of any country are largely attributable to its public service. However, we observed that to ensure sanity, progress and development in the public service, code of ethics, values and accountability are tripartite essentiality and that the institution of enforcement mechanisms is always crucial in achieving this. Nevertheless, the manifestations of deepening attitudinal decay, mindful abuse of official codes and principles and hysterical stealing riddles the public service of today. Many of the over-dozed reforms and the enforcement of multifarious disciplinary regimes have not appreciably shielded public servants from the vagaries of its own undoing.

Generally, public service is designed as an agent of fruitful change and development in the state. Recently, most developing states have fashioned their public service in a style to drive and invigorate their backward economies. Successive scholars have noted that the public service in Nigeria fa...