Many previous attempts to reposition and entrench values in the public service yielded nothing. So, the assurances given Wednesday, in Abuja, by Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, while inaugurating the Steering Committee on Public Service Reforms (SCR) sounded like another ventilation of gas that could not have raised any hope. The public service has suffered a serial debasement of its values, desecration of ethics and erosion of professionalism exemplified by crass incompetence and flagrant disregard for rules and regulations. The country yearns for the old order which witnessed the highest level of civil service discipline and professionalism; otherwise, the present administration’s much-touted transformation agenda would be nothing more than another slogan.
The 34-member committee has Anyim as chairman, with the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, (BPSR) Dr. Joe Abah, as secretary. Other members are drawn from across government MDAs. Inaugurating the panel, Anyim said the new direction for the BPSR will focus on updating and refreshing the national strategy for public service reforms. The committee’s mandate includes: providing technical leaderships, initiation of actions on reforms, monitoring and evaluation, implementation, generating feedback to guide review, interacting with donor agencies and other stakeholders and regularly updating the Federal Executive Council on reform implementation. The steering committee was first constituted in 2004, reconstituted in 2007 but last met in December 2008 until November 2013 when President Goodluck Jonathan directed that it should be reconstituted and approved the list. Government should therefore be more realistic and know from which standpoint it is raising people’s expectations this time around.
The civil service is the state, and the state, with all its attributions is incomplete without an efficient bureaucracy. Indeed, the civil service is the real driving engine of governance where efficient service delivery, discipline, integrity, political neutrality of public servants are sacrosanct – to enhance public confidence. These and other cherished values and ethics including loyalty and patriotism, probity and accountability, modesty and even tidiness in work environment make the civil service the place of choice for any nation’s best and brightest hands.
The Nigerian civil service had its moments of glory. Post-independence, it was a full-bodied bureaucracy steeped in the best tradition of diligence and rigor. There was efficient service delivery and civil servants, even at the lowest level, exuded commitment and shunned avarice. Material accumulation through corruption was alien and civil servants looked forward to a full career and a fulfilling retirement. But today, the civil service has been invaded by rent-seeking and prebendal forces that have lowered standards and undermined the vitality, integrity and cohesion of the institution. Recruitment and promotion have become a racket where quality and competence are sacrificed on the altar of greed and sundry vices. Indiscipline reigns and corruption rules.
Things move from bad to worse when ethnicity became the basis of recruitment as quality and competence plummeted. This was further aggravated by the quota system written into the constitution, which allowed all kinds of persons, qualified or not, into the service. Presently, Nigeria seems stuck to the past, without attempting real creative innovations to better the system. If anything, the consistent meddlesomeness of successive administrations has only put more nails on the coffin of the civil service. The result is a civil service that gives little service to Nigeria and does little good to its own image.
Difficult as it may be to pin-point at what stage the decline set in, the fact is that the problem predates the present administration. Being a problem now so entrenched, reforming the civil service today is akin to recreating the nation itself, and that is not for the faint-hearted. It requires strong political will and a president who recognizes that without a good civil service there cannot be good governance. Nigeria’s crisis of governance is certainly rooted in the absence of an honest, capable and efficient civil service. Its soul ravaged by corruption, its structure weakened by incompetence occasioned by life-long, gradual erosion of professionalism. A re-orientation and renaissance, therefore, is a necessity if the engine of government, which the civil service is, would run smoothly and efficiently. At no other time than now does the Nigerian civil service need such a rediscovery because the quality of the civil service is central to a nation’s development.
The key to reinventing the civil service begins with guaranteeing security of tenure for civil servants, doing away with party patronage in recruitment and mainstreaming of merit as the first criterion of recruitment. Secondly, there must be a zero tolerance policy for corruption in the service. Prosecution of bribe-takers and sanctions against the minutest infractions will be good signals. Also, the restoration of the autonomy of the Federal Civil Service Commission will allow the ideal civil service evolve, ensuring return of professionalism to the offices of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Head of Service. Above all, a gradual implementation of past positive recommendations will spare Nigeria the embarrassment of an incompetent and corrupt civil service.
The ban on civil servants from accepting chieftaincy titles and other sundry awards (till after retirement or disengagement from service) is another laudable step towards a rebirth. Civil servants are not politicians and, therefore, cannot be competing with the latter on acquisition of titles or on insensitive display of wealth, against common sense or service rules. There must be decency in everything they do as public servants and as professionals. Today, many top civil servants are not only shady businessmen; they openly participate in shady deals and are not ashamed to use the proceeds therefrom, to go for chieftaincy titles to assuage their vanities. With their ill-gotten wealth and obscene display of same through the practice of arranging social events especially weddings of daughters or sons in choice locations abroad, it is doubtful if Nigerian civil servants can lay claim to integrity and professionalism.
Because civil servants are part of a larger societal picture, the scenario painted by these developments should be seen as part of the tragedy of the country, going by the lifestyles of successive leaders who, by their words and deeds, encourage or even personify corruption. Service to the people or adherence to the oath of office is secondary. This laxity is also directly or indirectly flowing from the conduct of those in leadership positions who definitely have not been too exemplary role models. Presidents are most guilty for not sending the right signals. Olusegun Obasanjo’s fund-raising for his library while in power is an example. Jonathan’s acceptance of a questionable gift of a renovated community church in his village is another example of how not to entrench values in the public service. To say that the decadence has reached a level of crisis would be an understatement. It is a scourge which cannot be left unaddressed because this is the tragedy of Nigeria.