New Nigerian Newspapers Online Edition

One of the major problems that grossly characterized the Nigerian civil service is gross irregularities that are politically based. The importance of civil service cannot be over-emphasized, and its restructuring cannot therefore be underestimated. For government plans and policies to succeed, the fingerprint and input of civil service is very necessary. This is because the civil service provides the policy framework and institutional mechanism that implements government policies. It is therefore, necessary to ensure political neutrality of the civil service.

The civil service is important in the life of every nation because it is a body or a department in the executive arm of the government responsible for the execution of the policies and programmes of the government. The civil service and civil servants perform purely administrative and executive functions, which entail formulation and implementation of government policies. The civil service is divided into departments and each department carries out specific functions. The departments called ministries are headed by ministers or commissioners who serve as both the political and executive head. The Armed Forces, the Police, public corporations and government-owned companies are not included in the civil service but are collectively called public service and their workers including the civil servants are called public servants.

In Nigeria, there are federal and state civil services, of the 36 states having their own. The civil service remains intact no matter the government in power though there may be slight modifications in Nigeria civil service. This change affects mainly the permanent secretaries who are the administrative heads of the ministries with a new nomenclature of directors-general who will now swim and sink with the government that appointed them. It is as a result of the fact that the success or failure of a government depends mainly on the performance of the civil service.

The Nigerian civil service is structured in line with the British civil service into the Administrative Class, Executive Class, the Professional or Technical Class, the Clerical, Class and the messenger or Auxiliary Class. It should be noted however, that restructuring the civil service does not necessarily mean making it very different (in structure) from that of the British civil service, which we copy. Restructuring it in this sense means the government of President Yar’Adua should make an administrative shake-up and clean-up in the civil service, and rid it of political interference, tribalism, bureaucracy, bribery and corruption, among other things.

It would be recalled that the evolution of the modern civil service in Nigeria can be traced generally to the close of the World War II. Specific landmark events in the evolution started with the Lyttelton constitution of 1954, which was a response to the independence movement, and forces of regionalism and ethnicity. By this time, the need for the establishment of regional governments and consequently, regional civil services was recognized and accepted. This period also marked the beginning of the process of dismantling the colonial civil service in Nigeria, which hitherto as in all other British colonies then, was composed of two broad classes the senior service, covering all posts reserved for the Europeans and the junior service, embracing all posts to which Nigerians were appointed (Abdulsalami, 1990).

Gorsuch report of 1954 recommended the division of the service into four broad classes corresponding to the general educational standards of the time. These were the sub-clerical and manipulative, clerical and technical, executive and higher technical and the administrative and professional classes. The system was claimed to have been modeled on the civil service which existed in Britain.

During the period of decolonization, however, the public service began to undergo some significant changes both in its complexity and in the responsibility assigned to it. In 1948, for example, there was a general directive from the colonial office in London to the colonial governments instructing them to expand the tasks of government to include reforms of local governments as a means of mobilizing the local human and material resources for socio-economic and political development. Along with this development, there was the expansion of the bureaucracy and establishment of public corporation. The high hopes raised by nationalist, the euphoria generated by independence to achieve accelerated social and economic development of the country and the availability of more resources especially oil windfall in the 1970s, greatly contributed to the expansion of the size and responsibilities of the civil service bureaucracy.

At the federal level, for example, in 1960, there were only 12 ministries with a total bf 60,000 staff. By 1978, the number of ministries, and staff strength had risen to 25 and 187,000 respectively, and by 1984, the number of employees stood at 302,000. The break-up of the country into 12 states in 1967, and then 19 in 1976, also contributed greatly to the expansion of the civil service in the country.

The phenomenal growth in the size and responsibilities of the services and in particular, the realities of the social, economic, and political situation within which it operate have made the institution become embroiled in many serious problems e.g. redtapism, rigidity, corruption, nepotism, ineffectiveness and inefficiency, conservatism etcetera. These challenges posed for the civil service have made it a subject of many inquires by the government, all in an attempt to improve it. Such inquires include the Gorsuch Report (1954), the Adebo Commission on the Review of the Salary Structure of the Civil Service (1971), the Udoji Commission (1974), the 1988 Civil Service Reforms and the Ayida Panel (994).

The civil service met in 1974 by the Udoji Commission was almost a caste-like system: the career structure means that a civil servant is recruited at an early age into the service with an implied promise or life career during which he works his way through the hierarchy of the service, this promise of a life career means there is an assurance of life-long employment which can be terminated only by mental or physical incapacity or the commission of a criminal offence.

The structure is closed because it has no adequate provision for the admission of outsiders (no matter how qualified and experienced the persons may be) into the higher grades of the hierarchy. Such a career and closed system does not provide enough incentives for changes, modernization or the achievement of excellence and can lead to inbreeding and obsolescence. Obsolescence affects riot only the structure but also organization and management.

In its report, the Udoji Commission made far-reaching recommendations for making the civil service a result-oriented system. It recommended introduction of Management By Objective (MBO), Project Management and Programme and Performance Budgeting. The Political Bureau (1987) notes that the above recommendations of the commission was not accepted by government and therefore, not implemented. The 1988 reforms, like the Udoji Commission recommended that emphasis in the civil service should be on management rather than on administration. The former arrangement (administration) tended to favour the generalists over the professionals.

However, it is worth noting that the closed career system which the civil service has hitherto been, is likely to continue, as there will be very few instances where direct appointments will be made to higher positions, (GL 11 and above) from outside. Most of what is going to happen with such positions is that they will be filled through promotions or what a personnel management expert calls ‘selection from inside the service.’

The phenomenal growth in the size and responsibilities of the civil service has produced such a diffusion of power that the task of central direction and coordination has become extremely difficult (Abdulsalami, 1990). The office of the Secretary to the Federal Government, which is formally responsible for the co-ordination of all activities of ministries and departments of government and for ensuring the efficiency of the same, Udoji noted, was not adequately equipped to perform the role of either, coordination or overseeing the efficiency of the government machinery. This situation has led to problems such as red-tapism, rigidity and conservatism, inefficiency etc. The commission noted this problem but no concrete action was taken. The office of the head of service was reintroduced in 1999 to coordinate the activities of the various ministries. The Udoji Commission met a civil service ridden with corruption and made the following indictment:

* We live in a society in which corruption is generally believed to be and no doubt widespread ... it is unrealistic … for Nigerians to say that government will eliminate corruption completely from its public service, but it must make it one of its prime objectives to control corruption...

* The 1988 reform took a tough stance on accountability by saying that the accountability of an officer shall not cease by virtue of his leaving office as he may be called at any time after leaving office to account for his tenure. This sounds like a pious homily.

Before the 1988 reforms, the minister or commissioner was the political head of the ministry while the permanent secretary was the administrative head as well as the accounting officer. A situation in which the administrative head of the ministry is the accounting officer rather than the political head has tended to frustrate many noble projects of the government. As accounting officer, the administrative head often placed unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles to quick execution or such projects.

The 1988 reforms made the minister or the commissioner both the chief executive as well as the accounting officer of the ministry. The minister as the chief executive would be in total control of men, materials and money which are critical inputs in the management of the organization. As accounting officer, he would also be responsible and accountable for administration, personnel and finances of the organization.

In prescribing these functions for the minister, the task force was evidently aware that his efficiency and output may be impaired because of too much responsibility. So, it recommends that he should delegate a substantial part of his functions to the permanent secretary who in the new structure would be director-general. This arrangement has since been restored to the old order following the recommendations of Ayida Panel in 1994.

The Nigerian civil service was divided into broad segments, namely, the administrative and professional cadres. The permanent secretary headed the former at the apex, who were the executive, the clerical and the sub-clerical officers. The latter was needed by professionals who might be engineers, doctors, agricultural officers etc, who reported to the political head of their ministries through the administrative officers. Below them were the technologists technicians and those engaged in manual operations.

It was from the group of generalists that permanent secretaries were normally appointed. The permanent secretaries were heads of the various ministries and as such, they were the principal advisers to the ministers and commissioners. Technically, this means that the professionals who headed the divisions in a ministry were under the permanent secretary. This relationship between the administrative cadre and professional cadre had generated a considerate degree of acrimony in the service because the professional cadre resented their subordination to the administrative cadre. This tension was affecting morale and productivity of the service. Officers progressed within their cadre and rarely moved from one to the other. When they did, they usually suffered a loss of seniority. This situation did not motivate the best deployment and utilization of available scarce manpower.

This generalist/specialist dichotomy has been targeted by successive civil service reforms during the last two decades for eradication. The Udoji Commission tried to resolve this conflict by evolving only one hierarchical structure (the Unified Grade system) into which every cadre should fit. There were 17 distinct ranks and range of salary is attached to each rank for the purpose of salary administration. Lowest category of grades (grade level 01 to 06) consists of the junior staff of the civil service; the messengers, typists, stenographers, clerks, craftsmen and artisans and technical assistants. The nest category of grades (grade level 07 to 09) consists of the supervisory intermediate and lower management staff including executive officers, technical officers, confidential secretaries and junior administrative officers. The third broad category consists of the middle management staff (grade levels 10 to 13) and this category performs the bulk of the administrative, and professional functions within the ministries and departments. At the top of the hierarchy is the upper management category (Grade levels 14 to 17). This category of staff constitutes the leadership group and they are responsible for the policy and general management. Thus a generalist and a professional could both be on the same salary grade level, say GL 16 or 17 this in theory, meant that anybody who qualifies could hold the post of permanent secretary in any ministry. In practice, however, most permanent secretaries were still drawn from the generalist’s cadre. Thus, even though the conflict had lessened, it was still a phenomenon in the system.

This conflict was finally erased by the 1988 civil service reform in which the service was professionals as every officer would make his career entirely in a ministry of his choice and he was expected to acquire the necessary expertise through relevant specialized training and experience.

From the above discussion, it is clear that the civil service occupies a very strategic position in the social-economic and political development of Nigeria. It is the most central of the institutions of government, which should ‘be’ the prime mover of the social and economic development of the country. It is also evidenced that there are serious problems, which have impeded its efficient functioning. For the civil service to play its proper leadership role in the new political system envisaged for the country, it must be re-oriented and restructured.

The 1988 Reforms had concentrated more on the intra-bureaucratic power or authority realignment aimed at ensuring clearer channels for easy communication flows and lines of authority that clearly define the locus of responsibility and accountability. This is likely, according to Abdulsalami (1990), ‘to facilitate decision making and thereby improve administrative efficiency and / or effectiveness.’ However, for better results, more comprehensive reforms are imperative to usher in modern management techniques, new attitudes that are change-conscious, and results and development-oriented.

The criticism that trailed the discarded 1988 reforms was enormous. On the vanguard was Chief Adebo who said that he preferred what existed before the so-called reforms to what exists now. This criticism among other things led to the setting up of the Ayida Panel in 1994 to review the existing system and, by December of the same year the interim report was ready. It suggested the dropping of the director-general title and the restoration of the old order. The full report was submitted to the government in 1996. Some of the recommendations in the report were serious enough to engage the attention of the nation’s ruling body (the Provisional Ruling Council) for almost a day.

A complete restructuring of the civil service is very necessary, and it does not necessarily mean reorganizing the institutional structure and hierarchy, changing the cadres or classes, or change their function among other things the most important restructuring in Nigeria civil service is ensuring its political neutrality since it is instrumental in social, economic and political development of Nigeria.

Political neutrality will ensure the remove of political victimization of civil servant who fail to dance to the political tune of ruling politicians, and appointments into the civil service will not be based on political loyalty but on merit if civil service is insulated from politics. Also, there will be continuity in programmes and policies of the civil servant if it is politically neutral, and corruption, nepotism and favouritim that are rampant in the civil service will be reduced to the barest minimum.

The government should first or all enforce the law that stipulates that civil servants that want to participate in politics should first resign their appointment with the civil service, Recruitment into the civil service should be based on merit, not on political appointments and therefore, ministers and commissioners should not be politicians, but technocrats.

It is also important for working conditions in the civil service to be improved so that civil servants should not be lured into political largesse. Political interference in civil service should be discontinued as the civil service should be given free hand to run its affairs. And finally, an independent body that should be responsible for the employment, promotion, discipline and dismissal of civil servants should be set up to free civil servants from manipulations of politicians.

TABITHA is an HND I student of Mass Communication in Kaduna Polytechnic