AN OVERVIEW OF SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL SERVICES IN NIGERIA BEFORE AND AFTER INDEPENDENCE

Before independence, social welfare in Nigeria was community-based and rooted in extended family and kinship systems. Colonial rule disrupted this traditional structure and introduced formal, but unequal, social services aimed at social control. After independence in 1960, Nigeria saw a shift towards government-led social welfare programs, but they were often inconsistent and failed to address underlying social problems. Nigerian society has witnessed a sequential progression from a traditional society to a modern society with a certain level of advancement in the institutions that make up the social system. To be sure, social, political, economic, religious, educational and family institutions have undergone a series of stages of development and change. For example, the Nigerian economy has moved from agriculture-based to oil-bas which has helped to increase the gross domestic product (GDP), purchasing power propensity and national income generation. The researcher employs the use of modernization theory upon which the research is based on. Modernization refers to a model of an evolutionary transition from a pre-modern' or 'traditional' to a 'modern' society. When mode increases within a society, the individual becomes much more important, eventually replacing the family or community as the fundamental unit of society. In its most sophisticated variants, modernization theory explains modernization by reference to the onset of the process that Talcott Parsons refers to as structural differentiation. This is a process which may be triggered in many different ways, but which is most likely to be initiated by changes in either technology or values. The paper point out the over view of social change and social services in Nigeria from pre-modern to present modern society especially in improving people living standards in Nigeria. The paper also posit that social change and social services constitutes the gateway to national development.