The need to reform the Civil Service

President Buhari

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari recently retired 17 permanent secretaries in the Federal Civil Service and appointed 18 new ones. Although no official reason was given for the changes, it is believed that some of the permanent secretaries were relieved of their posts on account of alleged fraud that could compromise the president’s anti-corruption war.

We welcome and encourage any measure that will return the Civil Service to its past glory. Every effort should be put in place to also reform the service to make it play its pivotal role in the development of the country.

There is the need to evolve a pragmatic philosophy for the Civil Service. For this to take place, our civil servants must change their attitude to work. The present scenario where some workers come to work twice a week and yet collect their salaries at the end of every month does not augur well for an efficient civil service that is being envisaged.

Also, the bureaucratic bottle- necks that dog the service ostensibly fueled by corruption should be dismantled if the desired civil service must emerge.

The work ethics of the civil servants must change for the required integrity to be instilled. All those who have outlived their usefulness in the service should be shown the way out while new blood should be injected to rejig the service. The service should not be a dumping ground for people that could not get jobs else- where.

Time has come for bright and knowledgeable Nigerians to be engaged in the nation’s civil service. For some time, the politicization of the service could not allow it attract some of our bright minds and best hands.

It is regrettable that a fake medical doctor, who later rose to become the President of the Abuja branch of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), was employed in the Federal Civil Service for a nine years before the bubble finally bursts on the fraud.

While the need for national spread in the Civil Service is desirable, effort should be intensified to ensure that merit is not sacrificed on the altar of federal character. The Federal Civil Service of any nation must be composed of the best the country can boast of and not just anybody to fill the gaps.

To this end, every state of the Federation must bring its best eleven to the nation’s civil ser- vice. There should be no excuses. Nigeria can only develop based on merit and not necessarily on other political considerations.

We clamour for a return to a civil service that will produce in future the likes of Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Phillip Asiodu, Allison Ayida, Ahmed Joda and Sule Katagum.

No doubt, these are some of the best civil servants the nation had produced. They served their fatherland patriotically and left indelible footprints that defined different phases in the nation’s civil service.

If we really want to get back our civil service, there is the need to embark on far-reaching reforms that will make it connect with the vision and aspiration of building an egalitarian and prosperous nation.

The civil service should be in the forefront of the war against corruption in the country. Its workforce should serve as change agents in the new administration’s resolve to enthrone new work ethics that will emphasise zero-tolerance for corruption.

We need a new civil service that will eschew corruption in all its ramifications. For this ideal to be achieved, civil servants should be well paid.