Public Service in Nigeria: A Drain into Demise
By Taiye Olaniyi
World over, a nation's public service should ordinarily be a place of pride, a conglomerate of people, an intellectual watershed, and a factory for policies formulation, communication, and implementation.
Public administration finds fulcrum in the nation's public service because it becomes a hybrid, now the hyper template for the formulation of ideas by personalities, for personalities, the populace, citizenry on the admixture of policies to suit politics, governance, and government of the day.
The concern in an ideal public service lies in its orientation for systematic, systemic, and structured policy criteria on a long-term basis yet adaptable to certain mid and short-term measures.
Policies and guidelines are to help the array of personalities in public service to advance the course of good governance for government at the tripartite levels of the federal, state, and local government.
Not to be distracted from this their major role of sequencing good policies for the good governance of the country, public servants must be "apolitical" in every respect.
Public servants in a sane clime are recruited, employed, promoted, advanced in career progression, and disengaged and/ or retired according to rules and regulations spelled out in their conditions of service.
When employed, there is always that administration, sort of pledge to be loyal to the "Oath of S1ecrecy" and all that can help build honesty, responsibility, accountability, and all that can guarantee serving one's country at whatever levels as good citizens and as public servants.
There are laid down rules that used to pull and push pride in working for the government and retiring without an iota of blemish.
The moment personalities in politics, the political powers they wrestle with, placate and wrest, the moment politics and politicking entered the public service terrain every other thought, words, and conduct are bastardized along with crude politics, politicians, and their crudeness of actions.
The moment politics of religion, tribal, ethnic, partisan, and material acquisitions got to public service, every policy of government started getting rudderless, aimless, and unbecoming of what should be "good policies, good governance".
Politicians of all sorts introduced office politics, politics of filthy acquisitions, backbiting, gossips, sliding tackles, and total decadence of public policies with ripple effects on the operation and calamitous failures of even the private sector of the nation's economy.
Public administration no doubt deserves dosages of dynamism and dynamics in international best practices.
But when politicians and politics inclined individuals are made to head parastatals and allied government agencies, in particular, only the interests of the individuals concerned, their " godfathers" and political party(s) would be the object of focus.
In such parastatals and agencies of government, the careerists suffer in career progression, no more aspirations for the future, hopes get shattered, fears of politicians turn administrators continue to grow and family fabrics get turned into shreds.
Does it then mean politicians are better than public servants in public administration and national consciousness?
I say capital "No" because, without excessive access to filthy money by many politicians, their concern for the nation would be least in their hearts, and human capital development to meet the changing trends in public service surely moisturized.
I remembered as if it were yesterday, the humility personified and managerial acumen of late Abubakar Musa Argungu, a one-time Postmaster General of the Federation who as a seasoned public servant turned the fortune of the Nigerian Post to that of a chequered history, and that of Nigeria nation in trending glow amidst comity of nations.
Because of his achievements in the postal industry worldwide, Baba Olusegun Obasanjo GCFR as President and Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was so convinced of this humble but very fantastic humane, human personality and thus used part of Argungu's paper presentation as a template to advance the course of change in public administration in Nigeria's public service.
Thank God Son of Man along with other "Senior Citizens", including many of our current staff of the Post were privileged to be part of the winning team.
One of the Post, still, part of the beautiful family of the Post worldwide till death do us part one by one, many, many years to come.
A comparative analysis with colleagues also in other government ministries and agencies, many who are today like Son of Man as " Senior Citizens " keep thanking God for being able to serve Nigeria our country so happily, creditably and meritoriously without an iota of fiendish pollination nor pollution by politics and politicians.
We are retired, never tired but ever shall remain vibrant including never to suffer "Waist pain" the only prayer Ordinary Ahmed ISA usually offers in " Embelembe eeeee Olololo" human rights radio program of Brekete Family.
Our sadness however lies in what the future holds and what fortune, fate, and misfortunes loom round the corners and terrains of public service in Nigeria.
Secondly, why should politics be allowed to subject public service to future nothingness?
Why should the politicians either as CEOs and/ or board members be allowed their perceived superiority of advantages over and above the generality of honest but suffering public servants in Nigeria?
No doubt several public servants too, dance to tunes and dictates of office politics.
They overtly or covertly help the politicians to swindle and help ruin the ethos and ethics including policies of government as highlighted in systemic public service policy criteria, but then, can the thorns of today planted in fields and barns yield happiness and joy tomorrow?
Think about the aforementioned as now the public service drains into demise.
Note too, a philosophy in truism as once intoned by General Muhammadu Buhari during his military regime.
According to Buhari / Idiagbon :
" The present generation of Nigerians and even the upcoming ones have no other place to call their home.
Nigeria belongs to all and we must all remain here to salvage it together ".
God Bless Nigeria.
Taiye Olaniyi, a retired Postman from the Nigeria Postal Service, is based in Lagos.