By Tunji Olaopa

A former senior Canadian permanent secretary once graphically described a “permanent secretary”: “While governments and ministers come and go, the permanent secretary remains the permanent custodian of permanent problems.” This statement constitutes a very apt historical overview of the conception of the permanent secretary, and the function the office was designed to perform in public administration. The office of the permanent secretary has been the subject of many reforms in administrative history. A significant plank in the reform of the concept and the office of the permanent secretary is how the concept evolved historically in the first place. Without an adequate historical understanding of the emergence and historical trajectory of the concept, there is really little that can be achieved in reforming it. In this sense, to “reform” is to cast a long eye back into the past as a means of understanding how something emerged and how it could be rehabilitated in line with its emergence and conception. This is what this piece promised as public education and reform insight.

The permanent secretary has come to play a critical role in his or her capacity to straddle politics and administration for the purpose of achieving good governance. In a presidential or parliamentary system of government, the minister is chosen by the government and provided with a specific portfolio that determine the ministerial responsibilities to the public. The minister’s locus of operation is the ministry which constitute a segment or sector of the national economy. Thus, while the minister is the political head of the ministry, it is to the permanent secretary, the administrative head of the ministry, that the full responsibility of administering the ministry in line with the governance philosophy of a country devolves. The permanent secretary sits at the top of the public service on the boundary between political power and public administration. The “permanent” in the idea of the “permanent secretary” is owed to the British and their conception of the idea of the civil service as a permanent feature of government.

The late 18th and early 19th centuries were period of intense political activities that were reconfiguring Britain. There were numerous wars and political upheavals, coupled with the issue of the English Reformation, the Glorious Revolution, as well as several troubles having to do with the British Empire. And these political activities raised issues of governance, government and administration. On the one hand, was the whole issue of the constant changes in government. This led to a logical and reasonable inquiry into how to determine some permanent dimension of government that will make for stability in the flux of succession and change. On the other hand, it was also a period when there was an emerging and intense discourse on the relationship between politics and administration, and how the two should be perceived in the understanding of governance. These two critical issues led to the urgent need to deal with the problems associated with changes in government. Essentially, the attempt was to lay out the meaning of continuity in governance, even as one government is succeeded by another.

In other words, it was becoming increasingly clear to the Crown and to all those in politics and adminis- tration that there was a need to keep determining, as part of the running of govern- ment, who was to stay and who was to go when governments come and go. And the nature of the British monarchy had a lot to do with the changes that were brewing. The reason derived from the undue influence that the British Monarch was exerting on politics, and especially on the legislative functioning. This influence manifested in two ways: (a) the King often impose his administrators on the House of Commons in order to get sufficient supports for his policies; and (b) offices were awarded as patronage to members of parliament. To reduce the influence of the Crown therefore implied, for instance, placing a limit on the political activities of minor office holders. The political strategy was thus not only to limit the influence of the King on the legislature but also to calibrate the emergence of a non-political but tenured and very efficient civil service that will permanently succeed each government, and on whose neck would rest the responsibility of governance continuity. Thus, as the officials who were gradually removed from political activities became more non-political, they also increasingly became more permanent. It then became increasingly impossible for any of these administrators to lose their positions on political grounds.

It takes little reflection to immediately see how the flux of political complexities implies that the minister could not ever hope to combine the political demands of handling a ministry with the administrative challenges. It was within this administrative reflection on the non-political civil service  that  the  concept  of  the ‘civil servant” was first used. Two administrative  events  in 1854 led to this. The first was the Northcote-Trevelyan Report; and the second was the Macaulay Committee on the Indian Civil Service. Within the complexity of administratively sustaining the British Empire and its many challenges, both reports had one singular objective: to create a critical mass of civil service officials who will be well trained in character and learning as to provide a top flight support for executive policymakers. The East India Company needed more of civil, rather than military, servants. And it is within this establishment of the permanent civil service that we can situate the emergence of the permanent secretary and its permanence.

And so, the more administrative challenges became more complex and complicated, with all the attendant wars and empire business going on, the more it became necessary to have “men of business” as they were then called, or “under-secretaries” who could be in charge of the continuity of administration between one government and the other. Matthew Lewis, the deputy secretary at the War Office was the first civil servant whose person and responsibility embodies the meaning of a permanent secretary. As deputy secretary at War in 1755, Lewis did not resign with his chief but instead replaced him, and he subsequently held that position under seven secretaries at War until he retired in 1803. And when, in 1805, George Harrison filled the post of the newly created assistant secretaryship, the reason given for this creation was the need for a “permanent officer” who will be in constant attendance on administrative issues that required urgent and immediate execution. In 1830, Lord Grey became the British prime minister, and asked Sir John Barrow to continue as the secretary in the Admiralty department. Barrow’s occupancy of the office of the under-secretary was what led to a change of name from “under-secretary” to “permanent secretary”.

The permanence of the permanent secretary therefore came about essentially as a reference to his/her tenure beyond the life of any particular government. It was also a major template that determined the consolidation of the emergence of the constitutional bureaucracy as a solid feature of the British civil service. And so, this is the historical precursor to the consolidation of the politics-administration distinction, one of the most defining distinctions in the understanding of public administration. This distinction is meant to insulate the public servant from politics by delineating the purely administrative matters and officials from political ones, especially in terms of professionalism, recruitment, responsibility, and policy process. The public servant is then circumscribed by a legal-rational authority which privileges written rules and procedures. Each position in the bureaucracy has its duties and rights, which are clearly defined; rules and procedures are laid down to determine how the given authority is to be exercised. Bureaucracy therefore promises a stable organisation, despite the fact that politicians which the public servants serve come and go.

In a presidential system of government, like Nigeria’s for instance, the president and the governor on the one hand, and the minister and commissioner on the other are expected to facilitate the strategic policy agenda and direction of the government. But it is to the permanent secretary that the responsibility of mobilizing the resources available to the ministry to implement the strategic policy blueprint in ways that will translate into tangible governance dividends, especially infrastructural development for the citizens. So, the permanent secretary functions in three different capacities—as chief policy adviser, chief administrative or operations officer and the accounting officer.

To be able to adequately function in these capacities, it is assumed that the public servant who will become a permanent secretary must have a strong multidisciplinary (or generalist) competence garnered from long experience and service-wide institutional memory. Consequently, appointments and deployment of permanent secretaries rely on the bureaucratic feature of hierarchy (especially from the pool of existing directors) and democratic sensitivity to representation (deriving from, say, Nigeria’s federal character principle).

Critical to understanding the office of the permanent secretary is the competence the occupier brings to the office in finding a model of relationship that allows him or her to adequately maneuver the tightrope between politics and administration in working with the minister as the political head. Such a model of relationship must facilitate being responsive to the minister while also remaining independent of him or her politics. It is with this in view that the public administration literature has calibrated four models that are found in such relationships as, one, the traditional, with strict legal boundary drawn between policy and administration; two, the hybrid community model where policy and administration roles are mixed; three, the politicized model, which integrates the two roles as with ‘spoilt systems’; and four, the adversarial conflict-ridden model where both are never in agreement.

This is where we conveniently arrive at the apt description of the permanent secretary as the permanent custodian or permanent problems. And this is also the point at which contextual administrative matters creep into the understanding of the status of the permanent secretary and how they are appointed or recruited. For instance, Nigeria’s administrative reform history points significantly to Decree 43 of 1988 that politicized the post of Permanent Secretary. This politicization signals that the politics-administration is not always water-tight—political considerations often creep into the appointment of a permanent secretary. Thus, whereas the recommendation for such an appointment ought to come from the Head of Service, and ought to give consideration for technical competency in policy development, leadership management, ICT and other core bureaucratic knowledge, such technical recommendation is often undermined by the politics of appointment.

The logical implication of this politics is that the ability of the permanent secretary to speak truth to political power, especially concerning the significance of policy choices, designs and implementation, is eroded. Thus, permanent secretaries are no longer emboldened to do this because their survival and professional fulfillment are now largely contingent on political patronage. They are therefore under constant pressure to give priority to the preferences of ministers and commissioners rather than to what they believe is the right and professional policy choices to make. And essentially, this is how the history of a crucial concept like that of the permanent secretary leads us to the understanding of how it should be reformed to ensure that it continues to perform the task it was created to perform. The permanent secretary plays a key role in Nigeria’s experiment with democratic governance.

• Tunji Olaopa is a retired federal permanent secretary & professor of Public Administration/Public Policy, National Institute For Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos. tolaopa2003@gmail.com • tolaopa@isgpp.com.ng

By Abiodun Komolafe

Not unexpectedly, ‘End Special Anti-Robbery Squad’, aka #EndSARS, protest has been crippled and, its campaigners’ wings, clipped. No thanks  to  various crude  measures  employed by those who  have mastered  the art of  mass disinformation, propaganda  and  violent  repression of just causes  in Nigeria. May God rest the souls of the yet-to-be-identified number of martyrs for positive change in Nigeria. May God heal the wounds of Nigerians!

There are opinions for and against the emergence of #EndSARS and how the protest, which started as a ‘decentralized social movement’ against police brutality in Nigeria, ballooned into a huge inferno, represented in every nook and cranny of the country. Whether or not the problem of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) as a unit of the Nigeria Police Force should be heaped on its progenitors’ dream is immaterial here. In any case, those who hold the view  that #EndSARS is prolonged may also have forgotten that, days into the struggle, nothing suggested that the Federal Government was seriously willing to engage the agitated and frustrated youths. The earlier tacit response of government was due to the influence of international rights agencies and foreign countries.  The protest assumed a larger than life posture and an institutional affront, which depicted, graphically, the pervasive disconnect between the rulers and the ruled. Put differently, #EndSARS revealed that the existing system or order was not working. Police brutality was just the needed trigger.  So,  #EndSARS  has  only come to canvass the need to overhaul the current system. The regrettable thing is that other  extraneous  factors eventually crept in. The  local  and  domestic  politics  of  each state ultimately had  an  agonizing  burden  on the essence of the protest.

Take the #EndSARS protest in Osun State as an example. It’s an irrefutable truth that the extraneous factors, which define its internal politics, were uniquely different from the goals and objectives of the protest. The fifth columnists that infiltrated the crowd also had a diametrically opposing agenda. Unfortunately, it was beyond the capability of the genuine protesters to sift through the mix-multitude. We had an army of unemployed youths, who joined. So also were idle students, because schools were shut down. In the same vein, there were adults, who’re unemployed; and some agitated parents, who, more or less, have lost hope. They, too, joined. Ditto for the foot soldiers of the opposition parties, who felt that ‘Osun #EndSARS’  has presented a viable opportunity to actually make an incursion and cause distress to the government.

Read Also: #EndSARS: The cost of protest

Internally, there were aggrieved and disgruntled elements within the ruling  party,  especially, those, who, allegedly,  were not only waiting for the opportunity of an  implosion but have perhaps become willing and ready tools in the hands of the restless opposition! Also, the ruling party could not honestly affirm that its paradise was trouble-free. Reports indicate that the harmony it presently enjoys is not too far from that of the graveyard.  With all these groups and their varying agenda, the possibility of anything happening, from any angle, and, at the slightest opportunity, could not be ruled out.

Let’s face it: the reported assassination attempt made on the life of Osun State governor was nonsensical. To the good people of Osun State, such an act was not only atavistic, it was evolution throwback! The bitter truth is that people don’t quite understand what it means to be a governor, let alone the custodian of the essence of the state. If they do, they would see Gboyega  Oyetola  as  an  institution and the symbol of the sovereign powers of the state.  It’s  therefore  abominable  that an attempt  would  be  made on the life of a sitting governor. This affront  should be redressed, even, if it’s only for the sake of posterity.

But then, wither the place and the efficacy of the state’s security intelligence network in this saga? In saner climes, most of those  who  partook  of the “assassination attempt” on the governor would, by now,  have been caught.  The source  or sources of their weapons would  also  have been identified and apprehended.  The DNA   of   the   man  who  lodged an axe in the  door of  governor’s car  would have been  known by now. It’s because  punitive sanctions   have  become a scarce  commodity in our clime that the culture of crime has been on the increase. Until these knotty issues are sorted, nobody is sure of anything.

By the way, what are the objectives of  #EndSARS and what actually led to the ruination of the purity of the noble cause? Yes, we had SARS because the safety of lives and property of Nigerians  were  threatened  by armed robbers, social miscreants and the likes. Similarly, #EndSARS  emerged  as  a result of the corruption,  mismanagement and  bad  governance in Nigeria. From what we have all seen however, if we are talking of ending SARS due to illegality, is public looting an antidote to government’s failure? Are current events not pointing in the direction of reinventing SARS?

Whichever way, it is now apparent that fake news can actually destroy a whole society. For instance, some hoodlums razed Oriental Hotel in Lagos, thinking that it’s Bola Tinubu’s property. How do we explain that, especially, now that the truth about its ownership has come to limelight? Unfortunately, insurance doesn’t cover arson. So, who covers for the loss of Oriental Hotel, and how do we explain the looting of government and other private business interests?

On the whole, while the logic or central focus of #EndSARS might have been the same nationally, it’s important to note that each state’s focus manifestly reflected its own peculiarity. So, #EndSARS is just like the melting point for all the agitations of different kinds of people and nationalities. It is the voice of a nascent social movement in its embryonic formation stage. Its message is a clarion call for the restructuring of the country from its present terrible and wicked amalgamation.

That looting took place simultaneously in multiple states across the country showed a pattern formation. It depicted a clear establishment of lootocracy. What we need to know therefore is what has led us to this pass. Presently, #EndSARS has exposed the poverty index in Nigeria as a fluke. It has shown that all the figures being brandished are nothing but ‘per capita of lies.’ Unfortunately, it seems as if those in charge of governance in this country lack the requisite skill needed to gauge the barometer of the people’s anger.

May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria.

By Tony Iyare

Many, including this writer, are miffed with the appointment of a new 71 member cabinet in conflict ridden Somalia. Not many also share the optimism by its Prime Minister, Mohammed Hussein Roble, who says his newly appointed bloated cabinet will “strive to tackle the country’s most pressing issues,” particularly the smooth running of the envisaged parliamentary and presidential elections, slated for 2020 and 2021, as well as insecurity

One can hardly glean the benefit of the one month consultation and brainstorming that preceded the brewing of a cabinet filled largely with old faces that smirks more like some old wine in new bottle, comprising 27 Ministers, 27 Deputy Ministers and 17 State Ministers. In what looked more like a re-circled cabinet, more than 50 per cent of the members of the dissolved cabinet including the Deputy Prime Minister, Mahdi Mohammed Guled alias Khadar, Foreign Minister, Ahmed Issa Awad and Finance Minster, Dr Abdurahman Dualeh Beile, are back.

Roble was appointed by President Mohammed Abdullahi Famarjo on September 17 to replace Hassan Ali Khaire, whose cabinet lost the confidence vote in Parliament on July 25. The lower house of Parliament later endorsed him on October 23rd with his new cabinet that includes 8 women, 4 minsters, a state minister and 3 deputy ministers.

It’s strange why Roble has not taken a cue from Famajo, also a former Prime Minister who had to resort to a near shoe string cabinet, which he pruned from 39 to 18, when he took over on October14th, 2010 from Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who resigned the month before following a protracted dispute with President Sharif over a proposed draft constitution

Roble himself neither evinces a deep political experience nor grasp of governance. He was born in Hobyo in October 1963 and hails from the Reer Hilowle, Sacad, Habar Gidir subclan of Hawiye, like the first Prime Minister of Somalia, Abdullahi Issa. He received a BSc in Civil Engineering from the Somali National University, and later attended the KTH Royal Institute of Technology where he completed an MA in Environmental Engineering and Sustainable Engineering. Before entering politics, he served as the member of International Labour Organization and environmental engineer.

No doubt, the task of rebuilding infrastructure, tackling insecurity and reining in some semblance of governance remains critical for Somalia. But one hardly shares Roble’s delusion that a country with a GDP of $4.7 billion in 2018 and $7.7 billion in 2019 and a budget of $459.5 million in 2020, up with $130 million more than the previous fiscal year, needs a 71 man cabnet to manage its affairs.

Since 1991 that Siad Barre was overthrown, Somalia has been in the throes of conflicts and control by different militia groups which has taken slices of the country. Although international effort which brokered the roadmap leading to the formation of the Transitional Federal Government 2004 and other transitional institutions have been active to re-establish stable governance, the Islamic militia groups still maintain their hold of much of the country.

Located in the Horn of Africa and bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, the Indian Ocean to the east, and Kenya to the southwest, Somalia has the longest coastline on Africa’s mainland. Its rich terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains, and highlands. Hot conditions prevail year-round, with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall.

Somalia has an estimated population of around 15 million and has been described as Africa’s most culturally homogeneous country. Around 85% of its residents are ethnic Somalis, who have historically inhabited the country’s north while ethnic minorities are largely concentrated in the south. The official languages of Somalia are Somali and Arabic. Most people in the country are Muslims, the majority of them Sunni.

By mid-2012, the insurgents had lost most of the territory they had seized, and a search for more permanent democratic institutions began. A new provisional constitution was passed in August 2012, reforming Somalia as a federation. The same month, the Federal Government of Somalia was formed and a period of reconstruction began in Mogadishu. Somalia has maintained an informal economy mainly based on livestock, remittances from Somalis working abroad, and telecommunications

With the end of the transitional government in 2012 and the creation of formalised government which later saw the creation of the Independent National Electoral Commission which organised the election that produced Famajo as President in 2017, it was heart warmng that the country was gradually getting back to the path of stable democracy.

But whether this is anchored on political and social realism is perhaps a different kettle of fish. It’s still some wonder why the political elite of this war torn country felt it was wise to settle for a bicameral legislature when a country like Senegal, one of Africa’s most politically stable countries had to do away with their upper house just to save money.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Somalia by 2012 had some of the lowest development indicators in the world, and a “strikingly low” Human Development Index (HDI) value of 0.285. This would rank amongst the lowest in the world if comparable data were available, and when adjusted for the significant inequality that exists in Somalia, its HDI is even lower. The UNDP notes that “inequalities across different social groups, a major driver of conflict, have been widening”.

Somalia’s economy consists of both traditional and modern production, with a gradual shift to more modern industrial techniques. According to the Central Bank of Somalia, about 80% of the population are nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists, who keep goats, sheep, camels and cattle. The nomads also gather resins and gums to supplement their income.

The World Bank says its economy has suffered as a result of the state failure that accompanied the country’s civil war. Interetingly, some economists, including libertarian Peter T. Leeson, have argued instead that state collapse has actually helped improve economic welfare, because the previous Somali state was largely predatory.

It may be premature for the international community to assume that Somalia which is still largely donor dependent, can be left to fend for itself including leaving it to take a path which may lead to a relapse into conflict. The 2017 work of Vanda Felbab-Brown, co-director, African Security Initiative and senior fellow, Foreign Policy, Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology, titled, “The Hard, Hot, Dusty Road to Accountability, Reconciliation, and Peace in Somalia: Amnesties, Defectors Programs, Traditional Justice, Informal Reconciliation Mechanisms, and Punitive Responses to al-Shabab,” should provide a guide.

“Since 1991, Somalia has been battered by undulating phases of a civil war playing out among the country’s many fractious clans, larger entities aspiring to statehood, warlords, and Islamist groups. State institutions, including the security apparatus, have experienced a profound collapse.

“Despite extensive international efforts for three decades to rebuild state institutions and stabilize the country, Mogadishu-based national governments have had limited operational capacity and physical reach into much of the country. Critically, they have been debilitated by parochial political competition among the country’s clans and powerbrokers.

“Thus, the official state has been mostly unable to deliver even a modicum of governance to local populations while battling strong and agile military opponents and separatism. Characteristically, the most effective, even if brutal, stabilizing actors in Somalia have been Islamist groups. More than other contestants for power, they have been able to rise above clan divisions and administer a uniform rule, protect marginalized minority clans, and deliver swift, predictable, and non-corrupt justice.

“Yet because of their connections to global jihadist movements, including active participation in vicious terrorism abroad and in Somalia, and significant human rights abuses, rule by the country’s jihadi groups has been unacceptable to the international community as well as resented by Somalis. Nonetheless, when international or Somali military efforts have liberated territories, clan infighting and discrimination have often broken out, and the state has often failed with adequate and equitable governance,” she argues.

Why Roble thinks that a bloated cabinet is what he requires to takle the problems of this near failed state is intriguing. Sometimes we tend to take our joke too far on the African continent. Experiencing multiple iterations of jihadi groups able to control large territories amidst state collapse, the government of Somalia is currently battling the Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen, commonly referred to as al Shabab, and its splinter faction, the Islamic State.

At its peak, between 2009 and 2011, al Shabab controlled most of southern Somalia, including Mogadishu. Since 2012, an international military intervention by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), composed of forces from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Djibouti, in combination with Somali clan militias and the vestiges of Somali national forces (SNF) supported by the larger international community, has succeeded in wrestling control of large parts of Somalia from al Shabab.

But since 2015, military efforts against al Shabab have stalled, the capacity of Somali national forces remains minimal, and AMISOM is reducing its presence. Meanwhile, al Shabab, because of its delivery of pan-clan governance, remains deeply entrenched and undefeated. So the prospect is for conflict to intensify and insecurity to worsen.

• Iyare, Communication & Development Consultant is also an International Relations Analyst