If you ask me how successful the implementation of the policy is, I will say it is successful. Yes, it was greeted with mixed reactions, but I think in anything that you do, your goal should be for the service and not for the selfish. So you should ask yourself what tenure is supposed to be and what the purpose is. And to answer that question within this context, I will say it has served the purpose. Today, morale is high in service; the service has been completely ventilated; vacancies have been created; people are being trained. At least 4,000 people have undergone training since we started last November. But the question is why we brought tenure in the first place. I don’t know whether you have the service chart approved by the Civil Service Commission and also in our public service rules. Other things being equal, one should put up a minimum of 27 years to become a deputy director. Now, if you look at the rule which says you either retire when you turn 60 or you have put in 35 years in service, whichever comes first, by the time you spend 27 years and you are a deputy director, you have eight years to go. So the eight years that was introduced did not just fall from the tree, it was well calculated.
But what did we have? We had a service where we had people who had put in 14 years in one position, at one level. We also had permanent secretaries who had put in 10 to 12 years and still had 6 years to go. That should tell you that something was wrong somewhere. So if you didn’t follow the chart it means that some people must have come in somewhere. Those who decided to come into the service were now being short-changed; morale was now low and that was why the service was not delivering, people were not happy. In fact there is a particular case I keep citing, about someone who graduated in law in 1975 and called to the Bar in 1976. But as I speak to you now the fellow is still a deputy director. Then someone who graduated in law in 1987 from the same university with that fellow, called to the Bar in 1988, had become a director since 1995. So what do you say to that? It is injustice.
I can also tell you that at least two directors have said to their bosses that they were erroneously promoted and they want to revert. So one other thing tenure has done is, if I want to favour you, you have a choice to say no, I don’t want it. If we had actually followed laid down rules, it will not be necessary to introduce tenure. So tenure is now checking those who would want to dangerously overtake their pairs. So for me I’m very satisfied that tenure has served its purpose.
But if you ask me would you want to see a modification as we go forward, I will say that no rule will ever be static. It is a dynamic society, today the tenure is 8 years but if tomorrow they decide to change the chart to say you must spend 5 years or even two years then the 8 years may no longer be there. But that is what it is today.
And if you ask about high fliers, we can also look at that but that will be a situation that we have to study because the fact that I’m very brilliant and competent should not mean that I should be exited simply because of tenure.
So to me one should look at that aspect, at any point in time you may bring in rules to address specific issues. Therefore to put it succinctly tenure has served its purpose and service delivery is now better. The question before is why were we not delivering? It meant that we were putting people in positions that they were not fit for.
One major criticism against the tenure policy is that experienced hands would be lost. Don’t you notice that this has taken a toll on the service since you started implementing the new system?
There is no toll at all. If we say experience hands left, why were we not delivering? We were not delivering and as far as I know, I’ve been in service for a while, civil servants were always abused. We were not delivering because first, morale was low. They knew that you were bringing people they knew were not fit to be their bosses. That is not to say that every one of them was bad, but at this point in time service delivery is better because people are happy.
There are stories about people who were retired now being recalled. For instance, there is someone who was retired but has now been recalled to work for the Nigeria at 50 Committee. Doesn’t that indicate that things have gone really awry with the policy?
I will not want to discuss that matter. In fact, it’s a question of opinion. Dr. Kaugama retired normally. He was not affected by tenure, which is the factual position. He is a man I respect but the question is, did you look in the system to find out whether somebody can do this sort of assignment? This question is not for me to answer. It’s not because we do not have people who can deliver. That is the reason I said I did not want to talk about that. As far as I am concerned, within the civil service today, vacancies can occur but Dr. Kaigama is not doing something for the civil service, he is doing something for the public service. They are two different things.
There is also the question of whether the tenure policy is legal against the background of existing civil service rules which say you retire either at 60 or when you put in 35 years in service. What would you say to this?
Let me say that civil service rules are not enacted upon; they are dynamic and that is why you continue to make rules and regulations as situations demand. Many years back the retirement age was 55 years. In the appellate court, the retirement age was 60 but the year that Justice Uwais was going to retire was the year that the retirement age for judges in the appellate court was increased
