Obasanjo, Ezekwesili identify discontinuity as bane to public service reforms

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has identified discontinuity as the major bane to public service reforms in the country.

Obasanjo spoke on Tuesday in Abuja at a national workshop organised by the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation with the theme “ Rethinking Reforms: Why Many Reforms Fail in Nigeria and What We Can do About it.”

The former president highlighted five principal elements to reforms, which include the initiator of the reforms, the driver, the owner, executor, and the sustainer

While recounting his public service career, Obasanjo noted that “I had the opportunity to interact with some of our great men in public service and my experience is that any reform introduced must be continuous and it must be accepted and spread to the nooks and crannies.

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“However, the greatest bane of any public service reform is discontinuity. Any break in continuity means virtually the end of the reforms. One thing we must understand in Nigeria is that reform is a lifelong thing so reforms should be difficult in this country. It should be continual, as it is not a destination but a journey,” Obasanjo said.

Also speaking, a former Minister of Education, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili noted that importance of political environment is usually underplayed by technocrats, as the quality of politics drives the incentives of people who decide to stay or leave the public service

She added that “There must be consistency in government policy at all levels in improving the quality of life and for this purpose to be served, there is a need to reshape the civil service to be result driven,”

In the same vein, the outgoing Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan said “The Office of the HOCSF remains committed to sustaining and strengthening the structures established to drive innovation in the public service, in line with the policy thrust of the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021-2025 (FCSSIP25) in order to ensure continuity of reforms for better results.”

Earlier in his remarks, the Co-founder of the Foundation,  Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede said the Foundation was set up to provide technical assistance, funding and strategic support to reform the Nigerian Civil service and support them in key areas such as digitization, performance management amongst others

“So far he said over £2.9 has been invested in training of high potential civil servants and over 400 civil servants have received customized training to support reform projects,” he added.