Artificial Intelligence and Public Service Delivery: A Panacea for Global Governance Challenges Using the Nigerian Experience

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly presented as a transformative tool for addressing longstanding governance challenges, including bureaucratic inefficiency, corruption, poor transparency and weak citizen responsiveness. Yet whether AI can genuinely serve as a panacea for these challenges within a large, institutionally complex federation such as Nigeria remains an open empirical question. This study examined artificial intelligence and public service delivery as a panacea for global governance challenges, drawing on the Nigerian experience. Anchored on New Public Management (NPM) Theory and Digital Era Governance (DEG) Theory, the study adopted a descriptive survey design. A population of six hundred (600) public servants was drawn from five (5) selected federal public service institutions and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) spanning offices across Nigeria's six geo-political zones, out of which five hundred and fifty (550) copies of a structured questionnaire were administered and five hundred and thirty (530) were completed, returned and found usable, representing a 96.4 per cent response rate. Data were analysed using mean, standard deviation and chi-square statistics. Findings show that the extent of AI adoption in Nigerian public service delivery was moderate, concentrated mainly in digital communication, records management and citizen-facing chatbot platforms, with more advanced predictive-analytics and automated-decision applications far less diffused. AI adoption was found to have a significant positive effect on the efficiency of public service delivery and a significant positive effect on addressing global governance challenges such as transparency, accountability and responsiveness in the Nigerian public service. The study concludes that while artificial intelligence cannot on its own resolve Nigeria's governance challenges, it represents a substantial enabling tool that, when combined with institutional reform, adequate infrastructure and human-capacity development, can meaningfully strengthen public service delivery and governance outcomes. It is recommended that the Federal Government sustain and scale existing AI-in-governance initiatives, invest in civil service AI literacy and establish clear regulatory standards for AI use in public institutions.