Everything is changing – sometimes perhaps too fast – and the public service cannot afford not to change. It must change and rise to the occasion, though it must be careful not to change too quickly; because in the process of this change, it is absolutely crucial that its fundamental character and characteristics must remain unchanged. We may need to reform the public service by modernising it, making it innovative and more competitive, but the seven principles of public life – selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership by example – must always remain unalterable. It must also remain politically neutral.
And as the service incorporates the new technologies, adopts new methodologies and ideas, profound changes in emphasis on aspects of its traditional role will become inevitable as inevitable as it grapples with the rise in arbitrariness, the ascendancy of corruption in the conduct of government business, continuing inadequacies in the system of compensation, as it shifts its focus from policy to delivery; and within this period on extensive review of the public service had been carried out with the result that anomalies have remained unaddressed.
These are some of the grave challenges facing Nigeria’s public service. But despite their gravity, they are not yet insurmountable; and, if properly handled, they can be turned into opportunities for a rebirth of the service, for a restatement of its raison d’etre, and for a renewal of its commitment to once again play its part in the national development planning process.
In the past, the public service played this role well: it advised the political leadership on matters of policy, it handled the task of policy implementation; and, in the process, it supervised the task of efficiently laying down the nation’s extensive infrastructure. The subsequent and cumulative effect of military rule on the public service, however, has not been salutary; and the reality is that the service has virtually been destroyed by the resulting corruption, and it is yet to recover from the arbitrariness of military fiat. It has been made to lose its focus and has almost been made to forget its purpose; and after the more devastating experiences of the more recent past, the service will certainly need time to settle down, get its acts together and redefine its purpose as it rises to face the new challenges.
In all this, perhaps the most daunting challenge to the service is that presented by the continuing and sustained desecration of its core values – integrity, merit, political neutrality and political impartiality – and the urgent need to restore the public service to its past glory.
The real task, therefore, lies in the need to develop and inculcate in public servants a level of commitment to these core values and to specific standards of conduct and level of discretion appropriate to the delivery of effective, efficient, impersonal, loyal service to successive governments irrespective of their political coloration.
A related and no less grave challenge facing the service is the issue of corruption and its effect on these core values. While corruption has been with us for a long time, its recent ascendancy is not unconnected with, but is directly traceable to, the abuse of the method of appointment and discipline in the service. As a well – known principle and as we have ourselves seen in the recent past, there will never be any question about it: so long as the power to appoint, promote and discipline public servants is exercised by anybody other than the public Service Commission, the result has always been uncontrollable corruption.
Indeed, it was for this very reason that Nigeria’s Founding Fathers found it necessary to keep the public service beyond the reach of politicians. They created a commission to act as a buffer between the service and the political class – to protect civil servants from political interference, and to create a conducive atmosphere in which they can advice on policy’ and its implementation without fear or favour. They made the public commission a constitutional matter and its emolument a first line charge on the Consolidated Revenue Fund so that the public service cannot be blackmailed or intimidated by the political executive.
It was only when this constitutional provision was ignored, that the floodgates of rot became let loose; and today the only way out of the current quagmire is to fight the corruption, reverse the politicization that has gripped the service and allow the Federal Civil Service Commission to exercise its powers of appointment, promotion and discipline in the public interest.
While it must be freed from political interference, the public service must remain utterly loyal to the government in power, though its goal must always be the defense of the public good and the protection of the public interest; because it doesn’t belong to the government, it doesn’t belong to any political party or interest group: it belongs to the people. And while still loyal to the government, the public service must act as an effective check on the proper exercise of executive power by the officials of that very government.
With its pivotal role in facilitating public policy making and engendering accountability, transparency and openness, the public service in a way serves as an additional check on the abuse of power by the executive. This role is so central to good governance that it is not possible to run a modern democratic government without an effective and efficient public service that offers solid advice on policymaking, delivers on implementation with demonstrable effectiveness, and enforces accountability in the control and management of public resources by the wielders of political power.
And that type of public service is what this nation must recreate and allow it the freedom and conducive environment within which to work. If the government listens and tries to implement the recommendation that will come out of this conference, a major step in the right direction towards restoring lost glory to the service will have been taken.
It is certainly not going to be an easy affair, but it is something that must be done; and perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that the future of this country may well come to depend on what will be said here today and over the next few days, and what is subsequently done about what is said here.
