The recent case of the Clerk of the Senate, Ibrahim Dauda El-Ladan, who defied his retirement and performed official duties at the Senate plenary once again highlights the untoward trend in which officers in the public service who attain their statutory retirement age or number of years in service as stipulated are somehow retained against extant service rules and regulations.
The civil service rules state that once an officer reaches the age of 60 or clocks 35 years in service, depending on whichever comes first, that officer is due for retirement.
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In the particular case of El-Ladan, the National Assembly Service Commission, (NASC) had written asking him to proceed on retirement from February 9, this year. But El-Ladan in defiance of the order went ahead to perform official duties at the Senate on Tuesday, February 15.
We recall that this is not the first time such is occurring in the National Assembly. The former Clerk of the National Assembly, Alhaji Mohammed Sani-Omolori, had to be firmly eased out after he had decided against service rules to stay beyond his retirement.
This is a throwback to a similar case in 2017 of a retired permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Dr Jamila Shu’ara, whose tenure was controversially extended after her statutory retirement age. The approval for her extension which was reportedly given by President Muhammadu Buhari, raised a lot of concern which compelled the House of Representatives to summon Dr Shu’ara and Minister of Education Adamu Adamu to explain the situation.
Since then, a number of similar cases have occurred during the present administration which call to question its commitment to reforming and repositioning the civil service for optimal performance.
Notable in this regard are the cases of the current Accountant General of the Federation and other officers of the civil service who are still in office after they are supposed to have retired from service.
From the civil service, this trend has disturbingly become system-wide to include the military and paramilitary forces in the country. Thus was the prominent case of the immediate past service chiefs whose continued stay in office long after the expiry of their service period in the armed forces caused a lot of concern and condemnation from the Nigerian public. Similar cases of the chief executives of the Federal Road Safety Corps and the Nigeria Immigration Service also deserve to be mentioned in this regard.
This has expectedly, raised concerns about the sanctity of the civil service rules and regulations and the morale of civil servants which form the bedrock of government service delivery in the country.
It is worthy of note to recall that civil service reforms were started by the President Umaru Musa Yar’adua administration when he directed that civil service officers who spent eight years as permanent secretaries or directors must retire. This was among one of the recommendations by the Oronsaye report which unfortunately has not been implemented strictly as we have seen in the cases mentioned.
Quite disturbingly, in all these cases, it has been observed that the approvals for these infractions of extant civil service rules emanated from the presidency. This is incongruous as the presidency is to be at the forefront in strictly upholding and enforcing the statutory rules of public service and ensuring compliance by all ministries and agencies under it. Where the president—any president—feels he still requires the services of any civil servant, the right thing to do is to effect the retirement of the official according to the rules, and then retain them by some other arrangement.
It bears reminding that the civil service is the nexus of the country’s entire administrative system which generates and implements ideas and policies for national development. For the civil service to function effectively in the manner expected of it, its rules of engagement must be strictly adhered to. Retirement of civil servants as at when due is a matter of law, not convenience.
In a situation where, as we have seen, the presidency engages in acts that negate civil service rules, this will engender low morale among the civil servants, discourage merit and ultimately lead to poor service delivery. It must also be pointed out that this trend which leads to stagnation is a recipe for corruption as those within the system, for fear of not getting to certain positions, could attempt to amass wealth illegally.
We, therefore, call on the government to take steps towards reversing this unhelpful trend. The government must do this in the overriding interest of insulating the public service from acts detrimental to its primary role as the engine room for policy formulation and execution in the country. And it should start now by asking all those who ought to have left office to do so immediately.
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