My laptop was on and booting furiously getting set for this piece when news filtered in that the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo had approved the appointment of 21 Permanent Secretaries who were successful in the exams. It had been a form of closure to the anxiety that had been brewing over the government’s effort to fill the vacant posts left by the departing Permanent Secretaries. The Directors that emerged victorious were among the 300 found eligible to go through the rigorous three-phased exams. They should be elated and rightly so having triumphantly passed through the proverbial eye of the needle. This fresh set of Permanent Secretaries, are also pioneers of sorts, being the first to have gone through this process within the life of this administration.
Readers would recall that one of the first actions taken by this administration was to cancel this process of appointment that was initially introduced by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2009 at the prompting of Steve Oronsaye whom he had appointed the Head of Civil Service of the Federation in June that year. Oronsaye had initiated a civil service reform programme that promulgated tenure and exams as a means of promotion for all Directors seeking to be Permanent Secretaries. Actually taking promotion exams had been the norm in the Federal Civil Service but it used to stop at the point of becoming a Director. The Permanent Secretaries were appointed from the pool of Directors on the basis of a combination of appraisal reports emanating from the Head of Service and the Federal Civil Service Commission ending up with an approval by the President.
As the title – Permanent Secretary – implied, the tenure was unlimited, though subject to a cap of 60 years of age or 35 years of continuous service, whichever was earlier. The new element that was introduced into the scheme of service by the Yar’Adua Government was the tenure of maximum of eight years. As for the Directors they were to be subjected to exams before they could rise to the post of Permanent Secretary. Everything looked neat and tidy and would have won the plaudits of all those wishing for a merit-driven civil service. After all this was an addition to the scheme of service whose time had come. It had been in use in many public services all over the world and Nigeria would not be reinventing the wheel by adopting it. Even then exams and tenure have always featured in the career progression in some of our public services particularly in the Armed Forces giving a shine to the quality of our Colonels, Brigadiers and Generals, who could hold their heads high and beat their chests anywhere in the world.
However, it was the untidy implementation of the reform programme that made it so controversial and finally ruined and wrecked it. In the first place, when President Yar’Adua approved the programme there wasn’t the caution of a pause by the operators to think through its implications particularly how it affected the lives and careers of those who were to be directly affected initially. The Permanent Secretaries and Directors that had already done eight years were summarily given only three months to tidy up their affairs and retire. Additionally even those who were notionally promoted and had not accumulated the required eight years were asked to proceed on retirement. Many of them were aghast that a nation they had given the best years of their lives would end up treating them so shabbily. They were unprepared, many had mortgages on their houses running into millions of naira, had children in schools and other commitments. Yet they were cruelly let out to the doghouse to howl out their frustrations.
In retrospect it would have been tidier to allow those who were already in office to continue and be allowed to retire on the scheme of service they started with, in effect, to serve out in accordance with their terms of engagement. After all majority of them would have left in not more than three years. Instead there was a frenzy of activities to clear away those Permanent Secretaries and Directors and quickly replace them. Many of them kicked privately. Unfortunately as top civil servants there were limited avenues of loud protest. Some even wrote petitions to the President. Sadly before the President could review his orders, he fell ill, was flown out of the country and never recovered.
The untidy implementation continued unabated as both the office of the Head of Service and the Civil Service Commission persisted in their bid to retire the officers using their notional dates of promotion. By October 2009 the first batch had gone and many were lined up to go. The resistance among those to be affected grew in size with a few approaching the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General for intervention. The Attorney-General wrote and admonished the Civil Service Commission and requested them to set aside their parameters and use one that would be more in tune with the law and equity. The Attorney-General’s view was that tenure should reflect the actual period an affected Director held to such a position. Despite this learned view of the Attorney-General, the government went ahead unfazed and continued with a gung-ho zeal to send more Directors and Permanent Secretaries into untimely retirement.
Finally one of the Directors went to the National Industrial Court in December 2013 and obtained judgement to the effect that the tenure policy as implemented was a nullity. This emboldened more Directors to disobey calls for retirement on the basis of notional dates of promotion. The last straw was what the Daily Trust exclusively reported on 27th January 2014 as a sit-tight drama of 45 directors in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who refused to retire on the basis of notional dates of promotion despite directives by the Head of Service. In the end the Government had to recant and allow them to remain in service.
While all these brouhaha was going on the federal government had in March 2011 inaugurated a high-powered committee to review the reform processes in the Nigerian Public Service under the distinguished leadership of a former Head of Service of the Federation, Adamu Wazirin Fika. The committee which had members many of whom were tested technocrats such as Amal Pepple, another former Head of Service, a former Minister, Dr Aliyu Modibbo, former Permanent Secretaries, Francesca Y Emanuel, Musa Magaji, Ammuna Lawan-Ali, Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed and the present Chairman of Federal Civil Service Commission, J O Ayo among others. One of their recommendations to the Government contained in the final report they submitted in September 2012 was the abrogation of the tenure policy basing their reasons on its violation of the rights of those affected to serve in accordance with the terms of their engagement and the fact that its implementation had introduced a rapid turnover of senior officers and depleted the service of competent and experienced hands. The Jonathan government that appointed the committee hesitated to take action on these recommendations. However this government immediately took action on assuming power and halted the implementation of the policy.
Probably after deep thought, backed by the intervention of the National Council of Establishment, the government found it convenient to re-introduce the policy. Let’s pray that there would no more policy flip flops on tenure and exams. The policy should be allowed to mature and filter to the states and local governments. A merit-driven civil service is in the interest of everyone as those who would be seen to be in the driving seat would be persons that have been adjudged to be the best and the brightest. It would now be left to the Head of Service to be alert and keep a wary eye on those hawkish elements who could hijack the process to settle personal, regional, ethnic or religious scores.
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