Indications that information management at even the highest echelon of the nation’s public service is still trapped in the cocoon of obsolescence, manifested with the circumstances surrounding the exit from public service by Mr Danladi Kifasi, the immediate past Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF). Public knowledge about the processes associated with his due retirement from service after a most fulfilled career, was so mismanaged that it nearly or even landed the gentleman in undeserved swirls of controversy. The truth of the matter is that at his level as HOCSF, his movements including retirement has to enjoy the express, personal approval of the President, whenever it comes.
Born on January 1 1956, his terminal date in office is January 1 2016, when he will be 60 years old and shall retire mandatorily. In respect of this he was due for the mandatory three months pre-retirement leave this October. However just as public expectations often adopt a predatory mode with respect to matters concerning any Nigerian in high public office, media reports of this ordinarily routine issue were nearly spun out of context, due to the false information availed the erring media organ. For instance some reports stated that he was removed from office by President Muhamadu Buhari, for reasons that exist only in the realm of speculation.
Yet for friends and well-wishers of this distinguished career civil servant, who set high marks in his service to the country in various positions, he deserves a toast to his enterprise; especially with respect to his short but eventful tenure as Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF). Beyond any other consideration, rising to that enviable office alone, in the mine-infested and slippery Nigerian public service terrain, should attract accolades to Kifasi, or any other individual.
In another context, Kifasi’s exit is coming at a rather significant period in the life of this country, when the present reform minded administration is establishing its presence as well as governance structure, and expectedly will need the expertise and experience of seasoned officers to help stabilize the structure. But not to worry, the civil service has an in built mechanism for continuity in service delivery, the exit of any operative notwithstanding. This is just as they say it: “soldier go soldier come, barracks remain”. Thanks to providence it is not like the political terrain where the exit of a top gun like Kifasi, would most likely have unleashed an acrimonious succession fight.
With the appointment of another iconic bureaucrat in the person of Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita as Kifasi’s successor, the Buhari administration has availed itself the opportunity of starting on a new slate. The point cannot be missed that while the delay in appointing ministers lasted, the President was enjoying the benefit of elaborate face-to-face briefings by permanent secretaries and heads of MDAs, under the brief of Kifasi as HOCSF, and thereby acquired a trove of valid insights into the contemporary circumstance of the nation’s civil service. Armed with such an endowment and a crop of new ministers in tow, the administration cannot be better prepared for actualizing its vision for change in Nigeria.
This is just as with the interplay between the foregoing and the adaptability of a new HOCSF, the Buhari administration could not have been endowed with a better platform for launching its much expected reforms. Yet that is also where the new HOCSF will come under intense pressure as the political class will transfer the core challenges and stresses of the reforms to the bureaucracy. In essence task of the HOCSF needs to be seen as a catalyst or dignified whipping boy for the reform minded administration, depending on how Oyo- Ita defines and runs her strategy. The road for her to say the least, will clearly be rough.
Yet her brief, herculean as it may seem, is not insurmountable, as the road to success lies in asserting the spirit of the Buhari reforms in her immediate terrain – the nation’s civil service. And the earlier she pushes the core aspects of the reforms through the commanding of the system, the better for her and the country. Needless to state that she must hit the road running.
The civil service is the engine room of any administration, be such military or civilian or even a monarchy. And when reforms of the scale expected of the administration by Nigerians is put into consideration, it will not be business as usual with the Buhari dispensation. That is why the new HOCSF has to rejig the entire system for drastic adjustment to the imperatives of the new dispensation.
By way of encouragement, it is relevant to note that even as the general disposition of the public service structure may seem depressed, there are some bright spots of commendable enterprise with respect to service delivery in the public sector, which offer hope that all is not bad with the country. A typical instance is the pharmaco-vigilance programme of the National Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) where with the use of text messages fake drugs can be identified. Another plus is the recent innovation by the National Hospital Abuja which notifies patients through text messages about their appointment dates in the various clinics. As for the public power supply which has demonstrated marked improvement recently, the operators seem to have been delivered from the legion of demons that had plagued their operations, before the advent of the present administration.
The enterprise demonstrated by these agencies and many others too numerous to mention here, represents the framework on which will be built, the new Nigeria which the people are asking for, and which Buhari has volunteered himself as well as assumed responsibility to foster. And if the civil service has to earn the role of a partner in progress in this enterprise, the prospects of such will depend on the HOCSF, who will aspire to flow with the President, as a hand in a right-sized glove.
A key success factor for the HOCSF is the resolve to open up the public sector terrain for enhanced engagement of operatives with the members of the public. The point has been made in several fora that the over-bearing culture of secrecy in the nation’s public service has served more like a bane that has mitigated meaningful reforms in the service. While it served the interests of the colonialists of yore, its utility for Nigeria of today is in contention.
For instance, due to the overbearing culture of secrecy, vital processes like budget implementation in public service relies more on voodoo tactics of concealment and subterfuge; correspondences from members of the public to government agencies are acknowledged based on the discretion of the schedule officers and not on the provisions of extant rules and procedures.
Even as there is wide spread appreciation of deep seated incongruities in the service, their proximity to the top echelon may easily be overlooked by the authorities, hence the dilemma faced in Kifasi’s retirement saga. Oyo-Ita’s success story may start with identifying with the public expectation of accountability and information driven mindset right from her office. When the public is carried along by civil servants through appropriate information flow, the processes of governance become easier.
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