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Tag: Olaopa

  • How early years in Okeho impacted my public service – Olaopa

    How early years in Okeho impacted my public service – Olaopa

    The Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission ( FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has disclosed how his early years in Okeho, a community in Oyo State, greatly impacted his vision of public service.

    Olaopa made the disclosure in a goodwill message to the Okeho community as it celebrates the 2025 Okeho Day. The celebration which began on Sunday November 23, 2025 is scheduled to end today.

    In the message specifically addressed to His Royal Majesty, Oba Dr. Rafiu Osuolale Mustapha Adeitan II, the Onjo of Okeho, Olaopa felicitated him and the executives and all members of the Egbé Qmo bilệ Ökeho for not only putting this brilliant and communal programme together, but for also yearly facilitating the developmental progress of Okeho as a town that is breaking forth into national reckoning.

    According to Olaopa, Okehò holds so many memories for him. He said that it constituted a significant part of his upbringing and sociocultural heritage.

    “I am very lucky to have been born and raised within the confluence of Yorùbá cultural heritage located first at Ökehò and then later at Aáwę. Ori ní mo fi rìn wọ Okeho – it is a town that contributed a lot in defining the understanding of my root and where I would be today. I grew up in Isale Alubo, and got immersed in the deep cultural ferment at Ökehò that was representative of the Ali Mazrui’s triple heritage framework that brought Christians, Muslim and traditional Yorùbá together in deep communal relationship. I also had a one-year stint at Ökehò-Igànná Grammar School, and my deep Christian foundation began taking root from my Baptist grounding at First Baptist Church, Isia, Okeho”, he said.

    He noted that what specifically defined his vision of public service was derived from watching closely his father’s experience in public service. He recalled his father’s passionate commitment to his duties in Okeho as a sanitary inspector.

    ” It was a duty he took as a calling. I grew up, from 1959 to 1974, recognizing the passion of Babá W’olé W’olé (as my father was called then) for the health and hygiene of a town, and how that was one of the most basic and fundamental responsibilities that the government owes its people”, he said.

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    That exemplary commitment, according to him, has grown over time with the deep influence of legendary Ökehó sons and daughters he knew while growing up in that community. They included “the renowned Alhaji (Chief) Shittu Akanbi Gbenusola Olopoenia family and his immense industry and philanthropic sensibility. And when I eventually met Dr. Razaq Olopoenia- the Okeho indigene as my teacher at the Department of Economics, Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan – my deep impression about the family as a community exemplar became even more heightened. And so, from the Olopoenia to Prof. Segun Gbadegesin (emeritus professor of Philosophy at Howard), Mr. Moyo Ajekigbe (former MD of First Bank, Plc.), and many others, I picked the deep sense of commitment and diligence that has become the hallmark of my public service orientation and institutional reform advocacy.”

    According to Olaopa, a very significant dimension of his institutional reform measures is the need for a sound and functional educational framework that would serve as the fulcrum for communal, regional and national transformation. Thus, he is genuinely elated at the idea of the Federal University of Agriculture and Technology, Okehó (FUNATO) .

    He described this “as one of the foundational and fundamental bases by which our beloved town would again make its impact felt across the Nigerian national space. Such specialized universities have a unique place in Nigeria’s developmental quest for progress in a world that has started exploiting the benefits of the fourth industrial revolution. Such a specialized university in Ökehò translates into a deepening of the relevance of our town and Oke Ogun as a whole as an economic corridor that contributes to the Southwest’s and Nigeria’s desire for self-reliance.”

  • Olaopa urges Nigerian civil servants to emulate late U.S. Judge Frank Caprio

    Olaopa urges Nigerian civil servants to emulate late U.S. Judge Frank Caprio

    The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has urged Nigerian public servants to draw lessons from the life and legacy of Frank Caprio, the American judge celebrated globally for his compassion and integrity, who recently passed away.

    In a tribute on Saturday, Olaopa said Caprio redefined what it means to be a public servant, and his example challenges Nigeria’s civil service to rethink its role in governance and service delivery.

    According to him, part of the fundamental predicament of the Nigerian state is her inability to provide the mechanism that enables service delivery to the citizens as part of the government’s dividends of democratic governance.

    This failure, he said, is due to the dysfunctional state of the public services and also largely to the bad image of public officials who are the very embodiment of what government looks like.

    He said: “All over the world, the public servant is the person the public sees. She is the person that interfaces the state and the citizens. She is the embodiment of the government’s social contract with the people.

    Read Also: Olaopa seeks reform of discipline systems in civil service

    “The citizens do not see the abstract ‘state’; they see only the concrete civil servants that manage security, law enforcement, electricity, water, education, highway, healthcare, and other infrastructures on behalf of the government. The citizens saw Judge Frank Caprio. They see the Nigerian policeman at countless roadblocks. Or the Nigerian custom officials at the Seme Border. Or the medical personnel who is more religious than humane. Or the high court judge who is more materialistic than justice demands.”

    According to Olaopa, “The public service is a vocation that calls on any aspirant to public office to serve the public. The public spirit that pushes the public servant ensures that she is not so preoccupied with the technical details of his/her responsibilities as to miss the human concerns and circumstances of those the service is rendered to.”

    The institutional reform of the civil service system in Nigeria, according to Olaopa, is founded on the political will to articulate an administrative vision that enables stakeholders build a new generation of public managers with the right spirit, sensibility, ethical code, technical know-how and patriotic zeal.

    “We need the like of Judge Frank Caprio to restore the soul of public administration as the basis for bringing democratic governance alive,” he added.

  • Olaopa, building institutions, and public service

    Olaopa, building institutions, and public service

    • By Paul Onomuakpokpo

    Since  former President Barack Obama alerted Africa to the deficit of strong institutions as the  bane of development on the continent,  the merit of his position  has  unremittingly  received  reification. The failure  of  an African nation to meet the developmental  aspirations of its citizens is not only attributable  to its   core  leadership but also its institutions.  Clearly , a measure of the trust citizens repose in their institutions is reflective  of the confidence they have in their leaders.

    In most African  nations where the leadership problem is an ogre that is gnawing away  at  the citizens’  trust  in public institutions, the latter are commonly believed to be crude  extensions of   insouciant  national  managers  that  are ever-disposed to miring  the citizens in their immiseration.  Thus, the summation  of the performance of institutions constitutes  a basis for the assessment of a government by  the Ibrahim Index of African Governance,  and Transparency International Corruption Index, among others. Still, it is imperative to come to terms with  the  fact that the African continent is not entirely denuded of public institutions that are building   citizens’  confidence in them  and governance.

    This  currently finds exemplification in  the Federal Civil Service Commission . The  leaders of the commission in the past presumably offered  their best  to serve their nation and compatriots. But there  remains  their    identification with the zeitgeist  besmeared with the persistent perception that the commission luxuriated in  the negation of the  public good. There  is  the perception that on their  watch, the commission became  a bastion for the travestization  of meritocracy as  the  beneficiaries of the discharge of its constitutional mandate of recruitment were peddlers of a huge   amount  of political, social and pecuniary influences at the detriment of  eminently eligible citizens . Worse still ,  with the collusion of some officials of the commission, the  plague of fake employment festered. Indeed , that there was corruption at the commission seems to be lent credence by the existence of fake employment letters that had been issued to people who were only found out years after they had been receiving salaries.

     But the above  malaise is  now being  consigned  to a definitely  fast-vanishing  era  in the  commission. A refreshing era has commenced   since the beginning of the 10th  board of the commission led by Prof. Tunji Olaopa. The commission is no longer a place plagued by the leakage of examination questions, and  promotion owing  to financial inducement . It has recorded a huge success in reinventing itself as a hub of credibility  in governance. It has become a place where  citizens’  matters are  decided without the apprehension that their interests that cater for equity would be unconscionably trumped.

    The commission serves the citizens through  its three  constitutional responsibilities. These are recruitment, promotion and discipline. Through the effective discharge of these three responsibilities, the Olaopa’s leadership has restored credibility to the commission.  Olaopa’s success at the commission has brought into sharp relief that it is not a far-fetched possibility to make public institutions work. It has also shown that the factors that are responsible for his success can be replicated if the citizens desire to repudiate the memory of a nation where nothing works as  legendarily etched in public consciousness by Prof. John Pepper  Clark’s  poetic jeremiad.

    Read Also: Tinubu celebrates Olaopa at 65

    Ultimately, public institutions can work if the core leadership epitomised by the president in the case of Nigeria has the will.  As regards Olaopa, the president demonstrated this  will by  appointing the right person to lead the commission. He could have given the appointment to his political supporter  who was the least qualified for it. But the president appointed Olaopa who in all ramifications is the best person for the job now. Olaopa thoroughly understands the civil service having worked there and risen to the peak as a permanent secretary.  He is a professor of public administration ,  a practitioner-teacher whose deep knowledge of public administration makes him to be able to  enrich the Nigerian experience with its location vis-a-vis the public services of advanced nations of the world . Olaopa has given expression to his love for the public service and his knowledge of it by describing himself as a reformer. He has devoted books to  public administration , the  most  recent of them being The  Unending Quest for Reform: An Intellectual Memoir.  Indeed, for  Olaopa, working as a civil servant is not just a means to providing food for his family. To him, public  service  is a priestly  calling  through which to  serve the people. Olaopa’s  preoccupation with making the country’s public service  to fit in the league of top-rated ones globally shares kinship with the patriotic fervour of the former Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who once observed that while his contemporaries were dissipating their energy and time on women of easy virtue, he was busy grappling with the problems of the nation and proffering solutions to them. As  Awolowo  tells  us: ” While  many men in power and public office are busy carousing in the midst of women of easy virtue and men of low morals, I, as a few others like me, am busy at my desk thinking about the problems of Nigeria and proffering solutions to them.” Olaopa  also reminds us of Barack Obama who before he became the president,  had sufficiently studied the challenges of the American society and  the outside world. As his wife, Michelle tells us in her famous autobiography, Becoming , Obama in his pre-White House days was so consumed with finding answers to the raging  questions of his time that he sometimes forgot the happenings in his immediate environment.  She writes: ” Barack, I’ve come to understand, is the sort of person who needs a hole , a closed-off little warren where he can read and write undisturbed”. Having  taken time to understand the challenges  and pathways  for the nation’s public service, Olaopa   sufficiently fits in the mould of the philosopher king  who is hallmarked by reason , knowledge and  a quest for justice and thus  the most suitable for public service in Plato’s republic.

     Olaopa is succeeding  because he definitely enjoys the support of the president. He  operates with  the confidence that underwrites an absence of the apprehension   that his strenuous efforts at the enthronement of  credibility, meritocracy and equity at the  commission might trigger blistering censure from the president.The president has given Olaopa the free hand to turn around the commission for optimal productivity.  Indeed, at the inauguration of the Olaopa leadership, President Bola Tinubu had given him the charge ” to competently facilitate the transformation, reorientation and digitization of the federal bureaucracy to enable, and not stifle , growth and enhance private sector participation in the development of the Nigerian economy”   . Thankfully, the president  understands that the commission is a public institution that should not be subject to political interference. His non-interference  averts the  danger  of  nurturing a public institution that is blighted  by mediocrity in public service. 

    Before  Olaopa’s appointment  as the chairman of the commission, he was  enjoying his work as a professor of public administration.  He was not a political hustler  who would jostle to get  a position.  In local  parlance, he had and still has another address or other addresses. Thus, it is not surprising that he carries out his  official responsibilities with  a certain Napoleonic chutzpah.We are reminded of Napoleon who after conquering and  losing half of the world,  he spent his last days at St. Helena . In a moment of defiance at his gaoler who thought he he held the power of life and death over him, Napoleon told him: ” You can dispose of my life as you please,  but not of my heart. That is still as proud as on this rock as it was when all Europe was awaiting my orders. ” If we want public institutions to work, we should not appoint people to  them as a means of political patronage. Such appointees should have the experience and confidence to discharge their responsibilities effectively 

    Equally important is that  apart  from the leader of the public institution, those who manage it with him should  be eminently qualified. This is the case of Olaopa and his commission.  He is succeeding because the president equally appointed members of the board who are very qualified. On the board of the commission  are a former  minister and  an ambassador, erstwhile heads of service at the state level,  state commissioners , lawyers , engineers and doctors.  These are people who obviously possess the experience and confidence  to think  for themselves and guard against  manipulation  to serve interests outside those of the state.This is why in the discharge of the commission’s responsibilities, so much debate goes into arriving at decisions.  The issues affecting the employment of citizens, their career  progression and discipline are thoroughly debated to ensure that the  interests of equity and meritocracy are duly served. This is why  a  meeting of  the commission would normally last from morning till evening.  Thus, in the  matters of recruitment, promotion and discipline  of civil servants, various aspects  such as the legal and moral  are considered. No arbitrary interest is served.

    With Olaopa and his team  of federal commissioners at the helm of the Federal Civil Service Commission,  the public  and particularly civil servants can  inhale fresh air of the  activation of a slew of guardrails that would usher the  nation’s public service into a golden age marked by credibility, equity and meritocracy.

    • Onomuakpokpo, PhD, Ex-Acting Editor,  The Guardian and  Ex-Group Managing Editor/OP-ED Editor, The Daily Times, is the Special Assistant on Strategic Communications to the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission.
  • Tinubu celebrates Olaopa at 65

    Tinubu celebrates Olaopa at 65

    President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has celebrated Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission and erudite political scientist, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

    In a statement issued yesterday by his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, President Tinubu lauded Prof. Olaopa’s exemplary career in public service and the academia.

    The President described him as a “reputable intellectual and advocate of public service reforms,” whose work has significantly contributed to strengthening Nigeria’s institutions and shaping public policy.

    Prof. Olaopa, a former Permanent Secretary in various ministries, capped his illustrious civil service career by founding the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy, an institution dedicated to advancing governance and public administration.

    Read Also: Olaopa decries poor state of policy research, govt disconnect in Africa

    Following his retirement, he joined the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru, near Jos, where he continues to inspire the next generation of public service leaders.

    Highlighting Prof. Olaopa’s dedication to nation-building, President Tinubu praised his extensive body of work, including numerous books and scholarly articles that have enriched Nigeria’s policy discourse.

    The President also acknowledged Olaopa’s pivotal role in promoting public service reforms, describing it as foundational to achieving purposeful administration and governance.

  • Olaopa seeks role for monarchs as Obasanjo, others celebrate Olowu

    Olaopa seeks role for monarchs as Obasanjo, others celebrate Olowu

    The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, on Thursday, advocated giving a governance role to monarchs as he joined former President Olusegun Obasanjo and others to pay tributes to the Olowu Of Owu, Abeokuta, Oba Saka Matemilola.

    The event which took place at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Auditorium, Abeokuta, was the second anniversary of Prof. Matemilola’s ascension to the throne.

    Olaopa who was the chairman of the symposium held to celebrate the monarch said that Oba Matemilola has the profundity of a professorial status that makes him an enlightened monarch carrying the weight of sociocultural refinement and progressive improvement of his people.

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    According to the professor of public administration, the Olowu represents  a commendable growing trend in Nigeria, “with the increasing number of urbane, educated, core professionals, accomplished elites, and cosmopolitan modern traditional rulers all around Nigeria, we have been witnessing a resurgence of radical rulership.”

     He said such rulership ” is not just content with occupying a sinecure status and thereby harvesting elitist opportunism devoid of political and social capital that could be deployed to reconnect their people back to the democratic imperative in Nigeria.

    “An opportunity is therefore building up with this corps of expanding demographics of exemplary leadership like the Olowu who have offered to cumulate their efforts into bigger advocacy for enlarged influence in the governance space

  • Olaopa hails Fed Govt’s NCE-B.Ed certification model

    Olaopa hails Fed Govt’s NCE-B.Ed certification model

    • Commission chairman decries education without skills

    Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has hailed the Federal Government’s approval of the NCE-B.Ed certificate model for colleges of education.

    Olaopa, who was the chairman of the Colleges of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU) 2024 National Conference on Digital Pedagogy and the Implications for Nigeria, held in Abuja, said that since his days as deputy director and head of policy division in the Federal Ministry of Education, the whole issue of the status of the teaching profession and teacher training pedagogy had been of keen policy interest to him.

    He lauded what he described as giant strides in building significant layer on teaching professionalism with the extended retirement years for teachers in the classroom now put at 65/40 years.

    But, he noted that this important policy gain was work still in progress.

    “I have worried for instance on what has happened to the Nigeria’s end at implementing the global best practice regarding the modelling of tertiary education into three-concurrent significance around the universities, COE/monotechnic, and the polytechnics. What indeed should be a flexible relationship of responsibilities among the three within the framework of complementarity to jointly cater to the human capital requirements for national development has since been altered in favour of university education.

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    “Consequently, the reigning theory in Nigeria is that universities alone can produce the manpower that the country needs even if most of the products of the universities are white-collar jobbers. The result is the national skills disequilibrium that has made Nigeria to rely largely on her neighbours in the sub-region for basic and master artisans, vocational and technical education skills and expertise. This situation has in turn made a mess of the many governments’ job creation and poverty reduction programmes,” Olaopa said.

    According to him, in the light of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the Federal Government, it is important that the  nation should confront what he described as the “current national craze for certification that is devoid of skills content; one that is complicated by government discriminatory skills pricing, cadre classification and grading, as well as career progression parameters, which increasingly put more weight on the size of certificates rather than what the holders can offer as skill and acumen.”

    It is against this background, he said, that he fully supports the imperative need to upgrade more COEs to degree-awarding institutions, one that enables a two-step NCE-B.Ed. certification model.

    “This of course has strong implications that will demand that COEs reengineer their backend capability readiness through institutional reprofiling of curricula, pedagogy, as well as mobilise for greater investment in staffing, infrastructural development, faculty upgrade to build research-reinforced pedagogical capabilities of the COEs’ regular faculty members and the entire workforce,” he said.

    Olaopa hopes  that in the long-run, the B.Ed. will not subsume and totally eliminate the NCE programme, noting that “hence the need for deep-rooted public education, values reorientation and cultural adjustment of university-craze mindset that has become dysfunctional and limiting for our nation’s economic and human capital development.”

    According to Olaopa, in today’s world, students and the youth demographic are not only the largest consumer of ICT contents, they are also the leading creators of online contents, many of which are educational in nature.

    This reality to him has raised questions on how fast and deeply the education system is leveraging digital technologies for expanding access to education and learning.

    “In other words, to what extent has open and distance learning leveraged students’ use of expensive smart phones for learning? How fast are we teachers catching up with the opportunity afforded by social media technologies to connect with the new digital generation students as part of rejigging the learning and teaching processes?

    “It is also relevant to ask the question on the extent that the tertiary education research programmes reflect and envision the technology innovation model of the Silicon Valley-higher education connects as found in the Boston axis of the USA, and Bangalore in India. And how much of these advances are we taking advantage of for more cost-effective education delivery with less of traditional brick-and-mortal mode, with regard to resolving the problem of the shortage of teachers, examination malpractices, cultism, exorbitant cost of printing and distribution of hard copy textbooks?”

    He stressed that the traditional brick-and-mortar academic model cannot keep pace with the nation’s population growth rate and the quantum of candidates seeking admissions, the reason that digital-rooted open and distance learning and digital pedagogy is no more an alternative, but the way of the future.

    “And kudos to the FGN digital economy policy drives, which has deepened the frontiers of ICT policy, national broadband plan, local content development in ICT, the national e-government initiatives and the enactment of the cyber-security law.

    “Consequently, the ground has been created for expansion of open and distance learning, teaching, administration, research and development, and the resolution of the chronic issue of teachers’ shortage.

    “It is my conviction that the increased penetration of low cost digital devices and falling internet access cost will make it easier to embed edutainment contents for the benefit of many more students. It also will widen opportunities to those employed to kook for educational opportunities that fit into their work schedule.

    “Overall, the expansion of the digital era and digital generation education services will create tremendous business opportunities for forward-looking Nigerian ICT companies and tech-preneurs. This will in turn help government to achieve the broader goals of diversifying the national economy, thus creating jobs, fighting insecurity and corruption,” Olaopa said.

  • Retired HoS, perm secs still useful, says Olaopa

    Retired HoS, perm secs still useful, says Olaopa

    • Kingibe, Falae, Yayale Ahmed: we’re always ready to serve our fatherland

    Retired Federal permanent secretaries and Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation are still relevant to the country’s development, the Chairman Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has said.

    Olaopa spoke at the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries and Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation (CORFEPS) Week with the theme: Reflections on Nigeria’s Public Service: Way Forward for Good Governance, yesterday in Abuja.

    The FCSC chairman noted that retired permanent secretaries have abilities that transcend diversities.

    He said: “Retired permanent secretaries are super because, as a unique dimension in policy and administrative professionalism, they had eyes that saw through confounding complexities in a dark era of our nation’s history.

    “They demonstrated managerial acumen which enabled them to leverage their positions as bureaucrats to mobilise a portfolio of technocratic competences that enabled the Yakubu Gowon administration to weather the storms of a singular burden of history. That, in a measure, secured the unique endorsement that an all-almost collapsed nation could go on as one Nigeria, despite her combustible diversities and dysfunctional federalism.”

    A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babagana Kingibe, lamented that once a permanent secretary retires, he or she does not want to be seen.

    He described such a development as a loss to the nation.

    Read Also: Time has preserved Awo’s principles, legacies – Tinubu

    “Although you have left where you served, you still owe your duty to the office you left and the officers who succeeded you to offer advice.

    “However, there is a big mistake in the Nigerian context. When one leaves the office, the people you served do not want to see your face anymore. It is a loss to the nation. Each one of us has a store of knowledge. The essence of the civil service goes beyond technical education. It demands greater capabilities. But how can we help the civil service when we are not consulted?

    “We have to find a way to restore our transparent and accountable public service,” Kingibe said.

    The chairman of the occasion, who is also the Olu of Ilu-Abo and the Baba Oga of Akure Kingdom, His Majesty Olu Falae, noted that even after retirement, former SSGs could still serve their fatherland in various capacities.

    Falae, who was the SGF during the General Ibrahim Babangida regime, added: “Continue to serve this nation in your capacity. Retired permanent secretaries possess collective wisdom and knowledge.”

    The chief host and CORFEPs Chairman Yayale Ahmed described the public service as the engine room of the government.

  • Retired HOS, PS still useful, relevant to Nigeria’s development, says Olaopa

    Retired HOS, PS still useful, relevant to Nigeria’s development, says Olaopa

    The chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has said that the Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries and Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation are still relevant to the country’s development.

    Olaopa spoke at the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries and Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation (CORFEPS) week in Abuja with the theme ‘Reflections on Nigeria’s Public Service: Way forward for good governance.’

    He said retired permanent secretaries have abilities that transcend diversities.

    He stated: “Retired Permanent secretaries are super because, as a unique dimension in policy and administrative professionalism, they had eyes that see through confounding complexities in a dark era of our nation’s history.

    “They demonstrated managerial acumen which enabled them to leverage on their positions as bureaucrats to mobilise a portfolio of technocratic competences that enabled the Gowon administration to weather the storms of a singular burden of history, and at that, in a measure, that secured the unique endorsement, that an all-almost collapsed nation could go on as one Nigeria, despite her combustible diversities and dysfunctional federalism.”

    Read Also: Professionalism wiII reverse increasing diminishing status of civil service, says Prof Olaopa

    Also, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babagana Kingibe, lamented that once a permanent Secretary retires, he or she does not want to be seen which he described as a loss to the nation.

    “Although you have left where you served, you still owe your duty to the office you left and the officers who succeeded you to offer advice.

    “However, there is a big mistake in the Nigeria context. When one leaves the office, the people you serve do not want to see your face anymore. It is a loss to the nation. Each one of us has a store of knowledge. The essence of the civil service goes beyond technical education. It demands greater capabilities. But how can we help the civil service when we are not consulted? We have to find a way to restore our transparent, and accountable public service.”

    The chairman of the occasion, the Olu of Ilu-Abo and the Baba Oga of the Akure Kingdom, and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation during the General Ibrahim Babangida regime, His Majesty Olu Falae advised that there was still an opportunity to serve despite being retired as a government official.

    He said: “Continue to serve this nation in your capacity. Retired permanent secretaries possess collective wisdom and knowledge.”

    Also, the chief host and chairman of CORFEPs, Yayale Ahmed said the public service is the engine room of the government, noting that the theme of the occasion would allow them to look back on their past journeys and assess the present.

    Ahmed, however, advised the retirees: “You must be brave, courageous, and truthful at all times. But if you do not tell the truth, the purpose of being former permanent secretaries and your reservoir of knowledge will not be gained by the nation.”

  • Professionalism wiII reverse increasing diminishing status of civil service, says Prof Olaopa

    Professionalism wiII reverse increasing diminishing status of civil service, says Prof Olaopa

    Professionalism wiII reverse increasing diminishing status of civil service, says Prof Olaopa

    The chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, (FCSC), Professor Tunji Olaopa, has said only professionalism will reverse the increasingly diminishing status of civil service in the country.

    Olaopa stated this at a meeting with newly elected Vice President, African Association for Public Administration and Management, (AAPAM), Mr. Phillips Dada, in Abuja.

    He said despite the many challenges facing the Nigerian civil service, professionals in the sector cannot afford to leave its redemption efforts to chance.

    He noted that the civil service has so diminished that in present day that if people apply to join the civil service, they do so for other reasons than the desire for professionalism.

    “Indeed, it is professionalism that will reverse the increasingly diminishing status of this vocation that we have signed up to as our career, profession and calling.

     “In this regard, I have been a civil servant all my life, and I am ever so proud to reference and revere such administrative icons of the profession as the Simeon Adebos, the Udojis, Abdul-Aziz Attah, Ayide, Asiodu, Ahmed Joda and others as mentors.

     “I was an insider, and I know the steady but dogged efforts of colleagues over the last decades (including those in the saddle), to redeem the profession that they have dedicated their lives to.

     “We cannot leave civil service redemption to chance, and to the current corps of service leadership alone.”

    Read Also: How to reform civil service, by FCSC Chair Olaopa

    He however pointed that the core of administrative reform of the civil service had been to re-professionalise public administration practice in Nigeria while strengthening the role of the gatekeepers of the profession.

     “So, we need to keep this question in focus until we get a handle on solution framework of answers to finally reposition the profession beyond the rhetoric of it”.

     In his remarks, Mr. Dada, said the visit is to partner with the FCSC to promote public administration and management in Nigeria.

    He said as an African body, AAPAM holds Nigeria in high esteem because of the role it plays on the African stage and many look up to it.

     He said the visit is to partner with the FCSC to promote public administration and management in Nigeria.

     “Working in tandem with the head of service, we hope to resuscitate AAPAM because now we are dead and we need your kind assistance to revive.

     “My hope is to have AAPAM back and active. People use use to look up to Nigeria as founding member, people use to come and understudy how to start it in their own country.”

  • How to reform civil service, by FCSC Chair Olaopa

    How to reform civil service, by FCSC Chair Olaopa

    The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has suggested how the government can flush out those he called charlatans, impostors, and opportunists from the civil service.

    He said “re-professionalising” and reversing the diminishing status of the civil service should be at the centre of any rescue mission the government may want to carry out.

    Olaopa spoke at a meeting with the Deputy President of the African Association for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM), Mr. Dada Joseph Olugbenga, at the FCSC’s headquarters yesterday in Abuja.

    The FCSC chairman said at the heart of administrative reform of the civil service since he joined the reform struggle in 1995 as a Deputy Secretary was the Alison Ayida White Paper Panel in the Presidency.

    He stressed the need to re-professionalise the public administration practice in the country, adding: “It is professionalism that will reverse the increasingly diminishing status of this vocation that we have signed up to as our career, profession, and calling.

    “In this regard, I have been a civil servant all my life and I am ever so proud to reference and revere such administrative icons of the profession as Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Abdul-Aziz Attah, Alison Ayida, Philip Asiodu, Ahmed Joda, among others, as mentors.

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    “I was an insider, and I know the steady but dogged efforts of colleagues over the last decades (including those in the saddle), to redeem the profession that they have dedicated their lives to.

    “The issue that remains for the entire community of practice and service is to confront this loaded question: How far in the reform direction has the service gone or is capable of getting?”

    Olaopa regretted that the federal civil service had been so degraded that if people now apply to join it, they do so for other reasons than the desire for professionalism.

    “Indeed, for a range of causative factors, the civil service jobs are most often the last on any serious professional’s preference list.

    “So, we need to keep this question in focus until we get a handle on solution framework of answers to finally reposition the profession beyond the rhetoric of it.

    “We must also keep asking ourselves the question of what has happened to a vocation that began as an honourable and prestigious calling, that prided itself for its professionalism, for it to have reached such a degraded state that it has become the butt of derision for government’s non-performance,” he said.

    Olaopa stressed that the redemption of the civil service should not be left to chance and to the current corps of service leadership alone.