The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Reforming

  • Reforming the public service

    The public service of any country as a sub-governmental machinery is not only part and parcel of the springboard for public policy formulation, but also the body through which public policies and services are dispensed.  A labyrinthine entity which embraces the core civil service and other public-oriented service dispensing agencies, it is the instrumentality by which the campaign promises of the members of the political class are translated into concrete realities.  It is the wheel that drives governance; its quality partly determines the quality of the government of the day; and its performance speed partly signifies the efficiency and effectiveness of the government in power.  It is of course and generally speaking, the warp and woof of good governance.  It is so vital in the life of every government that no government can dare treat it as dispensable.  As tough as  Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was while in government, he did underscore the importance of the public service to governance.  His words: “there can be no effective government without the … service which is the machinery for ensuring the implementation of government policies and safeguarding public welfare.’’

    At different junctures of Nigeria’s political history, it has been discovered that the Nigerian public service has been bedevilled by a number of pathologies which have been encumbering its performance.  For long, the Nigerian public service has been generally inefficient and ineffective;  its ethical orientation has been obviously warped;  its methods and procedures have, at one time or the other, been found anachronistic and the corruption that pervades its rank and file has been adjudged freak.  Indeed, it was on account of these and many more that the service has been subjected to reforms and purges almost with rhythmical regularity.  Reminiscent of these were the over a dozen reforms and purges which began in 1934 with the Hunt Commission and of which the notable and recent ones are, the Udoji Reform of 1974; the great Murtala Mohammed purge of 1976; the Babangida Reforms of 1988; the Abacha purge of 1995; the death-aborted reform of Yar’Adua and the feeble and inconclusive attempt at reforms by Goodluck Jonathan.  While some of these reforms and purges have certainly changed the face of the Nigerian public service, it is still worrisome to note that, even up till today, the Nigerian public service still remains unwieldy, grossly inefficient, barely effective and incurably corrupt and thereby suggestive of the existence of a very serious reform gap.

    In reforming the public service, scholars and practictioners have come up with different templates.  According to Ahanonum, a reform aimed at turning around the service for better performance must address the following aspects:  in-depth restructuring of personnel; introduction of reward system that has nothing to do with the personal profile of the worker but with well-targeted achievement; elimination of unproductive procedures and bottle-necks; fragmentation of the accounting hierarchy with a view to narrowing down the volume of public funds handled by one authority or individual civil servants; tying responsibility squarely around the individual performer rather than the system of various responsibility which has held sway; giving the worker more sense of belonging to the political and social community; retooling the workers to be more enthusiastic about their work and punishing the workers for any alleged misconduct only after fair hearing.  To this may be added, catching up with international best practices.  The influences of this thought are of course discernible in the Obasanjo reform package between 2004-2007 which thematically focused on key areas of improving service delivery and promoting good governance with emphasis on budget and management and procurement system; accountability issues; human resource management; operation and system issues; and value re-orientation and integrity.  If all these were done during the Obasanjo democratic years, what then was and is still the need for other reforms by the succeeding governments?   Apart from the fact that reforms in human society are always a sporadic and a ceaseless exercise which will often be dictated by the prevailing challenges and developments within and without a state, and also within the service itself, the fact remains that, our public service has failed to meet people’s expectations because of the missing gap in our reforms which lies majorly in “value re-orientation and integrity” issues.  Granted that all structural and institutional re-engineering are done, if a state’s public service is still deficient in proper values and integrity, the outcome of such reforms will at best remain fuliginous and superficial.  The proper values and integrity of a public service consists in unity of vision; patriotism; respect for the ethics of the service and the rule of law;  and without any fear of being accused of breaching the rule of secularity of the state, I include spirituality – selflessness and “other-regarding”.

    A wider view of these values and integrity indicate that the larger Nigerian society in which the public service is situated and which it also serves, is morally bankrupt or stripped of the right values and integrity.  This being so, it is very hard therefore for a public service to rise above the society that has produced it.  A society gets the type of leadership it deserves, it is said.  As with leadership, so also it is true with the character and quality of a state’s public service.  Here then lies the dilemma of reforming the Nigerian public service.  This is better articulated in this questionnaire:  how do you reform a public service which is ethnically polarised as the society in which it is situated?  How do you reform a public service which is as morally bankrupt as its social ecology?  How do you reform a service whose visions are as divided as those of the society from where it emanated?

    How do you reform a public service whose vacant positions are for sale and the members of the society are willing to buy instead of protesting?  How do you get rid of corruption in the public service when the society continues to tell the story of the “ten lepers” to a mandarin who graciously declines to take gratification just to convince him to succumb?  How do you reform a service whose members are recruited from the society where majority of its members carry the cross of Jesus Christ on their chests, without carrying his deeds in their hearts and conduct?  How do you reform a public service in a society that is ready to throw red carpet reception for a corrupt public officer?   How do you reform a service whose some of its members are recruited from a society whose majority  has read the Hadiths of Prophet Mohammed in holiness and pureness several times and are still addicted to shady deals in service?

    Whatever answers we may provide to these questions, certainly, the sub-structure determines the super-structure.  The public service of a state of course mirrors the state.  It cannot therefore be isolated from the larger society for any radical or meaningful reform without first reforming the larger society.  Our failure to do this first has been the bane of all the past attempts to successfully reform our public service.  Is the Holy Koran not therefore, scientific enough to have concluded that the condition of a people cannot change unless they change their hearts?  This is why the present government‘s call for change in our society will, if we yield, go a long way in positively changing all the negative idiosyncrasies that have made most of the gains of the structural and institutional reforms in the public service imperceptible and pale.

     

    • Dr. Adebisi writes from Federal College of Agriculture, Akure, Ondo State.
  • Reforming the Nigerian Civil Service: My struggles, my pain, my triumphs (VI)

    Reforming the Nigerian Civil Service: My struggles, my pain, my triumphs (VI)

    When I entered the Nigerian Civil Service in the eighties, it was clearly a decade plus after the administrative pioneers left, but the bureaucratic culture had fully taken hold; the civil service system was already in a free fall. John Galbraith, the famous US economist, was right when he noted that ‘It’s much easier to point out the problem than it is to say just how it should be solved.’ We can also adapt this by saying that it is easier to lament the predicament of the civil service system than to get into the trench of fabricating the solution to it. Euclid, the Greek mathematician once remarked that “there is no “royal road” to geometry.’ There is equally no such royal road to reforming the civil service system in Nigeria. The decision to commit to administrative reform did not come easy; the rot and decline had been there before I even made the decision to go to school. But my curiosity got the best of me, and I wondered: What led to the present situation of a civil service that was adjudged one of the best in the Commonwealth in the late 60s and the early 70s?

    When I eventually decided on researching the civil service in Nigeria, I knew that I was not just an intellectual motivated by an abstract situation; I was also a practitioner. Thus, as a civil servant-intellectual, I had the unique opportunity to confront theory with troubled practice. Hence, there was no way I could be an idealist with his eyes in the starry sky. I had my feet on the trembling ground of bureaucratic malfunction. My research focus was therefore motivated by a statement of Marie Curie, the French physicist: ‘One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.’

    So, seeing that the civil service system in Nigeria has become what it has become, what is to be done? This is one of the most difficult questions in the whole of history? V. I. Lenin seemed to be the first to ask the question in relation to the Russian Revolution he led in the 19th century. Within the context of administrative reform in Nigeria, this question cuts into two complementary questions-Where is the civil service headed? How can it get to where it is headed? One of the commendable contributions of the last three Nigerian governments to reform thinking in Nigeria is the formulation of the National Strategy on Public Service Reform (NSPSR), a reformulation of the public service reform strategy put together in 2003. I consider this document an irreducible reform blueprint for a simple reason: it has the weight of historical reform hindsight behind it. The vision behind the NSPSR’s framework of reform is beautifully simple: A world-class public service delivering government policies and programmes with professionalism, excellence and passion.

    I have been too long in the civil service not to however understand that this vision misses out on an antecedent but fundamental goal-the urgent need for a sustainable paradigm shift in productivity. The challenge of productivity in Nigeria brings to the fore the glaring absence of a national productivity paradigm around which Nigeria’s governance trajectory can be computed as a strategy for mitigating a nascent culture of institutionalised waste in human resource management. Good governance should really be premised on the capacity of the Nigerian state to efficiently and effectively provide adequate goods and services that will constitute the dividends of democracy for Nigerians. But then the task of governance itself has a subtle way of undermining the possibility of an effectively calibrated national productivity framework that affects governance.

    What are the challenges of national productivity that Nigeria faces? Let us outline just three indicators: a) the challenge that Nigeria faces as a resource dependent mono-cultural economy is one of harnessing resource efficiency to accelerate growth in the economy; b) the average output of the Nigerian workforce reflects, unarguably, low marginal productivity of labour even as national productivity is much more than just labour productivity; and c) given the relationship between productivity, performance and service delivery on the one hand, and the fact that government consumes considerable tax resources as perhaps the single largest employer of labour and provider of services in the economy on the other, Nigeria will hardly advance beyond the capability and productivity of its public service.

    The summary of the predicament is that the cost of governance undermines the efficiency of national productivity. And this unbridled cost automatically generates institutional waste of such enormity that it multiplies and invades every aspect of the Nigerian administrative institutions and processes. If the vision of a world class public service is necessarily subordinated to that of instigating a national productivity paradigm shift, then the next question jumps at us: How can the civil service system be reformed to achieve such a critical national goal? Twenty seven years in the civil service is too long for me not to generate an understanding of what the trajectory of reform should look like. For Theobald Smith, ‘Research is fundamentally a state of mind involving continual re-examination of the doctrines and axioms upon which current thought and action are based. It is, therefore, critical of existing practices.’ Thus, my first research conviction is that the reform of the civil service system cannot be backward looking; it cannot be directed towards regaining the status of the service in the 60s and the 70s.

    On the contrary, the civil service system must be reformed to becoming a new public service characterised as (a) fast moving, intelligent, professional, information-rich, flexible, adaptable and entrepreneurial; (b) less employee-focused and rule-driven, deliver quality service; (c) performance-focused, accountable and inspired to uphold the vision of a transformed Nigeria; (d) capable of creating the policy climate that will unlock the energy of the private sector and other sectors and to install a new productivity paradigm in the national economy; and (e) operated by multidisciplinary team of new generation public managers and project teams. The new Nigerian public service would be backstopped by a four-point reform agenda.

    The first is the urgent assemblage of a new generation of public managers dedicated to the agenda of a new productivity paradigm. This becomes important because the new public service requires those who understands what it means and can strategically drive it to excellence and efficiency. The ‘new professionals’ therefore must be leaders, rather than mere administrators, with all the emotional, intellectual and cultural capital required by such a complex system as the Nigerian public service. The new public managers would not work in the capacity of transactional leadership which is essentially a problem-solver; thermostat for regulating the administrative temperature, especially when standards are not met. Rather, the leadership would be based on a shared transformative capacity which is necessary within the governance network that the 21st century reform must conform to.

    The second point on the reform agenda is even more critical. It involves reengineering the MDAs management system into performance-oriented, technology-enabled and social compact or accountable business model. This becomes the institutional model that the new public service professional must work with to deliver on the productivity objective. This implies that there is a need to rethink the ways and manners in which government business is carried out if the MDAs are to become more strategic and less bureaucratic in service delivery. As they are presently, we made the point earlier in part five that the MDAs are operating simultaneously under two contradictory business models, the Weberian and the neoliberal. The challenge is to streamline the business model into a neo-Weberian framework that creatively takes the best of the new managerialism and the old Weberian models.

    The third point of reform involves reorienting the public service into a rebranded and ethically-focused profession. At the heart of this rebranded public service are ethical standards like integrity, honesty, accountability, transparency, and the sense of responsibility that ensures that there is a readiness to explain how decisions are made. This could be achieved by taking serious the imperative of re-professionalization. This implies a change in the culture of doing things which cannot occur simply by changing regulations, structures, processes and technology, but by changing the orientation of public servants through a robust competency-driven, competitive, people-centred re-professionalization scheme. This re-professionalization process constitutes a prominent dimension of the performance management system. This process involves, for instance, the need to evolve a new career management system leading to the acquisition of officers with capacities and skills in specialised fields of knowledge.

    The final point requires, as a specific performance issue, strengthening and leveraging Public-Private Partnership to facilitate and deepen effective and efficient service delivery. This is predicated on the fact that (a) government does not have the capacity to do everything that will make the citizens’ lives worth living; and (b) government cannot afford to achieve the little it could by being rule-bound, unresponsive and inefficient; it requires a fundamental change that will make it lean, decentralised, effective, creative and responsive; and there are little resources available to government to do anything. The way out is to explore the possibility of a functional division of labour that brings the private sector into the development agenda of the government.

    Every serious agenda deserves attention, and a reform agenda all the more so because reforming the civil service system in Nigeria is the first condition for national development. Nigeria has had three governments since the inauguration of the democratic dispensation in 1999. The PMB administration is the fourth, and is more suitably positioned, and more favoured by administrative history, to oversee the required overhauling of the Nigerian public service. the change agenda of the new administration has the specifics of its tasks and responsibilities cut out for it.

     

    • Dr. Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary

    tolaopa2003@gmail.com

    tolaopa2003@yahoo.com

    www.tunjiolaopa.com

    Abuja

  • Reforming the Nigerian Civil Service: My struggles, my pain, my triumphs (V)

    The first brutal fact I confronted when I joined the civil service was its complex operational frameworks, and unfortunately its pathology. I came in when the Nigerian civil service had already imbibed, to the fullest possible extent, the disenabling bureaucratic culture. The complex operational dynamics of every civil service system all over the world had begun to overwhelm our own system, and like we said in the last part, the system itself was not prepared for the challenge of change. The rule of the officials had commenced, and to borrow the title of Michel Crozier’s book, the Nigerian Civil Service became a ‘bureaucratic phenomenon.’ As it became immediately obvious to me, as the bureaucratic complacency became entrenched, and the official procedures became multiplied, the citizens became more excluded from democratic transaction, and became more disenchanted.

    From the mid-70s, the Nigerian Civil Service had already got a bad name.

    We all have experienced the red tape at one time or the other-the clerk painting her fingers while people wait impatiently on the long queue; the official who complicates a simple matter of getting a license because he wants a bribe; moving from one office to the other trying to track a file; the annoying list is endless. Peter Enahoro, the veteran journalist, considers the civil servants as trapped within their own institution: ‘Civil servants are also a compromise between incivility and servitude. They are inherently uncivil and economically servile. The civil servant is underpaid, which makes his service equivalent to servitude. On the other hand, the civil servant takes a razor-sharp tongue to work with him and will snap like the jaws of a crocodile at the least provocation. Thus, while he is not civil, he is a servant. It is a rare compromise.’

    It took me a while before I would begin to understand that the public service has a deeper professional pedigree than what we today see all around us at federal and state secretariats all over the country. By the time I had embarked on the doctoral programme, it dawned on me that the public service is actually a vocation, a deep spiritual calling that requires a deep service to the public. Of course, this is difficult to accept within the contextual bastardisation which Enahoro referred to as ‘uncivil servitude.’ But the simple question that would bring enlightenment is: where did we derive the concept of ‘public service’ from? And why ‘public or civil service’?

    The civil service, which predates the idea of modern government, derives essentially from a vision of ensuring social order from an administrative coordination of human affairs. Since its beginning in the ancient Egyptian society, the public service has been perennially faced with the urgent need of confronting the complex task of managing public affairs through the ingenuity and creative acumen of a manager who understands the dynamics of management and how it can be directed in a manner that impacts positively on the citizens of a state. Those that were chosen to serve the pharaoh, a demi-god in ancient Egypt, were required to go through a special scribal education that was partly a lesson in administrative responsibility, partly an induction into patriotic enthusiasm, and partly a cultural enlightenment.

    I had to understand Plato and Weber to come to a full realization of what service as spirituality means. The first time I read Plato’s Republic, as a young secondary school boy, it struck me as a fundamental political manifesto. It was a philosophical reflection on how to tame political disorder in a state. But Plato had a higher intention if his Republic would be better than Athens. Plato was convinced that if a state must work to deliver the goods to its citizenry and maintain harmony, it must also be strongly fortified by a cadre of managers and experts who know what they are doing. Plato definitely had more intellectual resources and political complexity than the pharaohs. And, still smarting from the judicial murder of Socrates in the hands of public servants, Plato knew that the depth of philosophical diligence must be reached if the Republic must have a public service that is true to the most fundamental principles of the state. And he deployed educational, psychological, metaphysical and epistemological resources to ensure that.

    But it is to Max Weber that I must give the intellectual credit for the groundwork that reveals the public service as a vocation. With his theory of the modern bureaucracy, Weber outlined the specific relationship that ought to exist between the public servants and the government. His sociological legacy consists in giving us the template for what he called the ‘ideal-type’ bureaucracy which can serve as the rational basis by which ‘actual type’ bureaucracies, public or private, can be assessed for the rational attainment of the goals of the organisation.The idea of bureaucracy, for Weber, is based on the notion of legal-rational authority; an authority which employees recognise as legitimate. The framework of the legal-rational authority 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 its incumbents come and go. Weber’s ideal-type bureaucracy emerged as neutral, hierarchically organised, precise, continuous, disciplined, strict, efficient, reliable and ultimately inevitable in contemporary society. The bureaucracy was to become technically the most efficient form of organisation. And in Weber’s sociological, Plato’s philosophical and the pharaoh’s cultural vision, the public service was to become a vocation.

    And the first condition for such a vocation is that the public servant must be apolitical in a manner that shields him or her from political patronage that could colour his or her administrative judgment. This is what Joseph Schumpeter meant when he remarked that ‘bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it.’ As history has shown, it is a very short step from administrative service to administrative dominance by officials. As vocation, the public service was to be a spiritual calling, a profession that would consume the affections of those committed to it. A profession becomes a calling or a vocation when it becomes integrated within an ethical framework and is therefore attached to larger vision and purpose beyond itself. It is in this sense that a bureaucrat is ‘called’ to serve the state and a purpose beyond him/herself.

    Beyond the rigid intellectual framework of my doctoral dissertation, I did not need to look to pharaonic Egypt, ancient Rome or 18th century Prussia to encounter those who are public servants par excellence-Nigeria had its own golden era of public service professionalism whose foundation was laid by die-hard public servants: Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Sule Katagum, S. O. Wey, Ali Akilu, Allison Ayida, Phillip Asiodu,  Ahmed Joda, Ime Ebong, Yetunde Ighodalo, Francesca Emanuel, Tejumade Alakija, Gray Longe, Shehu Musa, to name just a few. All these worked tirelessly to reproduce a functional and ethically responsible civil service in post-independence Nigeria. Chief Simeon Adebo’s service credential is all the more incredible because he had no special original calling into administration; he was a graduate of English! Yet, he came to a deep understanding of his vocation as more than just an employment. Adebo would definitely understand Abraham Maslow’s contention that ‘Duty cannot be contrasted with pleasure, nor work with play when duty is pleasure, when work is play, and the person doing his duty and being virtuous is simultaneously seeking his pleasure and being happy.’

    Unfortunately, these same professional civil servants who laid the foundation of what we now regard as the golden era of public service in Nigeria watched perplexed as the civil service they had built was overwhelmed by incipient bureaucratic pathology. Before their very eyes, their civil service was demoted from being one of the celebrated civil services in the Commonwealth to become an extremely degenerate structure that could no longer transform policies into infrastructural frameworks. It was this civil service that I made the decision to join in the late 80s, and that decision transformed my entire personal and professional lives.

  • Reforming the Nigerian Civil Service: My struggles, my pain, my triumphs (III)

    Confucius, the ancient Chinese philosopher, once gave a remarkable admonishment: ‘Study the past if you would define the future.’ And for Edmund Burke, once we take historical knowledge for granted, then we are doomed to repeat those terrible mistakes of the past. There is no better preface on the significance of historical insights into Nigeria’s administrative trajectory. History, any history for that matter, is not a list of boring stories of what had gone by. On the contrary, history is a rich tapestry of human actions and inaction, and the multiplicity of consequences that flows from them. Nigeria’s administrative history stems from the moment the Nigerian state came into its amalgamated existence in 1914.

    The history of Nigeria’s reform experiment becomes important once we see it as the ongoing attempt, in administrative terms, to come to term with the possibility of redeeming Nigeria from its postcolonial deficits. Amalgamation was motivated by colonial arithmetic; hence, it lacked any national consideration of progress. The need for administrative reform is therefore premised on the urgent necessity of transforming the civil service into an effective institution that would foreground the nation’s search for an infrastructural revolution that would alleviate the years of denigration Nigerians have suffered under colonial rule.

    Within the context of my doctoral investigation of the evolution of administrative reforms, the idea of a trajectory therefore becomes very critical. A trajectory, in this administrative context, becomes an intentional search for an omega-point that is represented by series of successful reform efforts, beginning from an alpha-point. While all the pre- and post-1954 reforms are significant in their own regard, especially in the calibration of what came to be known as the Nigerian Civil Service, the real nation-defining reform issues actually commenced in 1971 with the Adebo Commission. Like most of the others, the Adebo Commission was established to deal with some of the intended and unintended consequences of the Nigerianisation Policy, especially the wage issue.

    But the Adebo Commission soon became caught up in two bigger issues, internal and external. While still investigating its terms of reference, the first military coup had happened, and the decline of the civil service structure and organisation had commenced. The military government set in motion several critical factors that instigated the gradual evolution of a structural pattern that consistently whittled down the capacities the civil service has to promote good governance. Externally, the managerial revolution had already commenced, and the British Civil Service was already the focus of its demands through the Fulton Commission of 1968. Thus it was that the Adebo Commission began with a brief to investigate the wage and recruitment issues of the new civil service, but ended up with a more significant managerial challenge bordering on organisation and structure. The Adebo Commission recommended that another public service review commission; the Udoji Commission came into existence.

    The Udoji Commission, if I am asked, remains the singular most significant reform commission in Nigeria’s administrative history. It is the watershed of what could have gone right but went wrong with the civil service system in Nigeria. The significance of the Udoji Commission is simple but profound: it is the commission that had to mediate between the new managerialism that was defining the civil service system and the old Weberian tradition on which the Nigerian Civil Service was founded. In its Main Report, the Commission diagnosed the central problem of the Nigerian Civil Service as that of its inability to respond to serious change. When the Commission was in place, the NCS was already too bureaucratic to achieve the postcolonial objective of national development and democratic service delivery to Nigerians. Thus, fully inspired by the UK Fulton Report, the Udoji Commission went on to recommend, on the one hand, a new style public service infused with “new blood” working under a result-oriented management system operated by professionals and specialists in particular fields. And, on the one hand, it recommended standardization of conditions of service, increase in public sector wages, a unified and integrated administrative structure, the elimination of waste, and the removal of inefficient departments.

    Andrew Grove got it right: ‘When you’re caught in the turbulence of a strategic inflection point, the sad fact is that instinct and judgment are all you’ve got to guide you through.’ The Gowon administration missed the significance of the ‘strategic inflection point’ that the Udoji Report represented. Rather than Udoji becoming a template for the rejuvenation of the civil service system in Nigeria, it became a slogan for abundant wage. This was because the Federal Government decided to implement the wage component of the Udoji Report rather than the structural components. The turning point was therefore lost in the euphoria of wage increment. It seems to me that since Udoji, the civil service system in Nigeria has been attempting to reverse the mistake of 1975. Udoji casts a long shadow over the stagnation of the civil service.

    For instance, it is interesting to understand the dynamics of the next two significant reform attempts in Nigeria-the 1988 Civil Service Reform and the 1995 Ayida Public Service Review Panel. The Philips Commission Report, which generated the 1988 reform recommendation, was forced by inevitable global trajectory to revisit the managerial revolution in administration through its attempt to lay the foundation of a professionalised civil service. Professionalization was thus tied to specialization. Unfortunately, rather than professionalising, the reform entrenched a politicisation of the workforce, especially the status of the permanent secretary which became a political appointment. The conception of professionalism was also curious because it was taken as a function of the location and time span of an officer in a particular ministry. The Ayida Panel was supposed to act in a review capacity to interrogate the recommendations of the Philips commission as a means by which the system can be reinvented. But it took the logic of reinvention the wrong way-it reinvented the pre-1988 civil service system and its managerial deficit! The simple but sad implication of this is that the Ayida Panel did not have a concrete agenda of reinvention; so it recommended a regression back to the status quo ante.

    ‘Challenging the status quo,’ according to Gary Hamel,’has to be the starting point for anything that goes under the label of strategy.’ While the Ayida Panel failed at doing this, it becomes the administrative standard by which to assess the remaining four reform strategies that define the democratic dispensation in Nigeria-the Obasanjo Renewal Programme, the Yar’Adua Civil Service Reform Programme,the Transformation Agenda of the Jonathan administration, and President Muhammadu Buhari’s ongoing Change Agenda. The four reform agenda are founded on the fundamental principle that no transformation of the Nigerian state would be possible without a capable, efficient and corruption-free public service. The Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan administrations therefore accepted the reform blueprint contained in the National Strategy for Public Service Reform (NSPSR) which projected the vision of a world class public service that is professionalised enough to deliver government policies and programmes.

    Much as these reform agenda are beautiful programmes of renewal and revitalization that has the benefits of administrative hindsight, visions are often undermined by reality. And the present reality is that the civil service system in Nigeria, in spite of the multitude of beautiful reform visions and strategies, is still struggling to deliver democratic dividends to millions of Nigerians who are sighing under the terrible burden of poverty. The Nigerian Civil Service is still far from being a world class public service.

    If, as Norman Cousins insists, ‘history is a vast early warning system,’ have we learnt any good and practical lessons from 1971? From the historical nuggets of reform trajectory that we have outlined here, what are the fundamental administrative lessons to be learnt? What are the defining issues in civil service renewal effort? That will be the subject of the fourth part.

  • Reforming the Nigerian Civil Service: my struggles, my pain, my triumphs (II)

    I prefaced this long series, in the first part, with a narration of the pain of exit and how for me, retiring from the Nigerian Civil Service (NCS) is definitely not the end of my reform business to transform a system I have dedicated twenty seven years of my life to. I made the point that exit simply implies that I am transitioning from being a critical insider to becoming a critical outsider who can bring an external perspective to bear on what the civil service has done wrong, what it has done right and in what direction we can move it towards becoming a world class institution. For me, my institutional life may have come to an end, but my foot is still caught in the mat of the institutional dynamics of the NCS. I am too involved to just bid goodbye to a system I see as being critical to the coming national glory of Nigeria.

    But first, it is necessary that I tell the story of how I came to be in this system in the first place. I must say it has nothing to do with fascination or coincidence. Far from it. Rather, I would say Providence perhaps planned it all along! I am a scholar by heart. My original and lifelong desire is to be a philosopher. I have a sanitized spirit that is suitable for contemplation, and the cloistered life of the ivory tower.

    In my projection, if I would ever come in contact with administrative matters, then it would be on the pages of critical and scholarly books and conferences. Opting for Political Science, rather than Philosophy, but I was deluding myself all along-reality is much stronger than projections! And the reality in the late eighties for me, while I was in the postgraduate school, was that I needed survival on the Abraham Maslow hierarchy of my need so urgently, before I could think of climbing the ladder of self-esteem towards scholastic attainment. The Nigerian Civil Service, through the Presidency, came to my rescue. And at the centre of my entry dilemma was Professor Ojetunji Aboyade. He played several subtle roles that played out into larger future dynamics for me as a critical change agent in the reform of the civil service system in Nigeria. ‘To be a catalyst,’ Theodore Zeldin informs, ‘is the ambition most appropriate for those who see the world as being in constant change, and who, without thinking that they can control it, wish to influence its direction.’

    Ojetunji Aboyade was exactly that, an intellectual catalyst that turned my rabid fear of systemic dysfunction in the civil service into a serious fascination with the dynamics of institutional change. He influenced the direction that would become cogent for me to becoming a change agent. He supplied me with the intellectual prism from which to refract the dysfunction into a philosophy of reform. And that became the research dynamics which I have pursued since I determined to pursue a doctorate hinged around the consuming desire to understand the operational dynamics of the civil service system in Nigeria. I was however very lucky to have entered the civil service when Prof. Aboyade was struggling with Nigeria’s development struggle through policy designs and advisory professionalism. Aboyade came into public service with all the energies of a committed intellectual ready to inject sound ideas and practices into the system. Unfortunately, Nigeria was at that point under the terrible pathology of the Dutch and Double Dutch Disease arising from the oil windfall of the 70s. It was not long before all his tight implementation schedules and the tightening of the Development Planning praxis met the fundamental challenge of weak institutional and executive capacity in the civil service and national valueless-ness. Aboyade was therefore caught in between development visions, policies and plans, on the one hand, and implementation and development outcomes on the other. This was with the full conceptual awareness of the intellectual current of the time that was hinged on the seminar contributions of institutional economists and implementation researchers whose advocacy birth the dominant though controversial reform theory of our age, the new public management (NPM) paradigm.

    This was precisely the depressing administrative context within which I began my initiation into the civil service system and public administration research. The redeeming factor for me was that it was also an incredible period that gave birth to critical research dynamics spearheaded by Aboyade himself. I had no choice at the time but to accept Aboyade’s challenge to me-‘You need to transform from being just a researcher to be a change agent; with the transformation of the civil service system through expert knowledge and reform as your mission’.  And the initiation I needed came when I became Assistant Secretary to the White Paper Panel on the Ayida Public Service Review Panel of 1995 through invitation. The Ayida Review Panel was commissioned to revisit the 1988 Civil Service Reform which had failed to redress the administrative system into a desired projection. Its task was to reinvent those factors that would facilitate the restoration of the civil service into an effectively performing institution.

    Being the technically-minded member of the White Paper Panel’s Secretariat was a blessing! It afforded the internal perspective in articulating and interrogating all aspects of administrative system. But in a concrete sense, this was the point at which my research focus took hold and took off. The dynamics that connects the Prof. Dotun Phillips Study Report, the Koshoni White Paper, the Decree 43 of 1988 and the Ayida Review Panel gave me the intellectual impetus to commence a critical interrogation of the civil service system in its entirety and the condition for its institutional reform. For instance, as Assistant Secretary to the Ayida Review Panel, I had the opportunity to not only confront the weaknesses of Decree 43, but also the limitations of the Ayida Panel Report itself. It immediately became clear to me that theory and practice must be integrated if a committed reformer must achieve a coherent and robust rejuvenation of the civil service system in Nigeria that speak to the nuanced chemistry of the administrative system. Theory and practice are already implicated in the complex and complicated trajectory of linking vision of reform to its implementation, especially within a difficult administrative context like Nigeria.

    So, after a thorough Masters degree in political theory, public administration offers the most immediate theoretical entry point into the challenge of understanding the civil service system in Nigeria. By 2002, I had the second privilege of heading a technical team from the Management Service Office (MSO) that was to undertake a strategic planning study and exercise that could facilitate the proper restructuring of the system. This study turned out to be a conceptual revelation for me because, apart from the exposure it afforded through Donor Agencies technical assistance that enable study tour of over 25 public services around the globe, it threw up those critical questions that enabled me jumpstart my doctoral reflection on the civil service. These fundamental questions remain fundamental to the reform of the Nigerian civil service: (a) what kind of public service does Nigeria need to successfully manage the dynamics of a transition from military authoritarianism to civilian democracy? (b) How can the vision of building a public service that works for the people be realised within the shortest possible time? (c) How can the size of the chronically imbalanced bureaucracy, with a structure that harbours 70% of the workforce at the unskilled level, be streamlined? (d) How can the skills deficit at the senior management levels be corrected through re-skilling and the injection of skills from other sectors, without a far-reaching process of painful rightsizing and declaration of redundancies? (e) What are the appropriate personnel policies, pay structure and operational cost ratios that are most cost effective and consistent with the optimal productivity level of the national economy? (f) How can the civil service be made more sensitive to the political objectives of policy makers and be, at the same time, accountable to the people as clients without its independence and professionalism being undermined? (g) What should ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) be doing that is different from what they have been doing to become strategic partner in national transformation?

    When my research got under way, I was buoyed by the enthusiasm about what is possible. Ludwig Wittgenstein, the German philosopher, accurately captured my dissertation mood: ‘The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it.’ The bubble of reform enthusiasm that began a long time ago, stayed with me till retirement. It nearly burst through the many terrible encounters of disillusionments, frustrations and dejection. Once, at reform training in Wellington, New Zealand, a renowned reform expert specifically told me: ‘With your passion and depth of knowledge for reform, be ready for war!’ My reform efforts bred friends and foes. But it also generated invaluable theoretical, historical and practical insights that are the sine qua non for transformation. One of the achievements of the doctoral dissertation is that it enabled a concise but critical assessment of the trajectory of reform in Nigeria, especially from 1974 to date. I will examine this in the next part.

  • Reforming NYSC

    Concerning the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), I doubt if there is any serving or ex-corps member who would not have a story to tell. As for me, I have a thousand and one stories to tell. The ordeal of corps members across the federation is so heartbreaking and enormous that it would be difficult for one to discuss them in detail here. From poor welfare, problematic postings to the harassment and extortion of corps members by some NYSC officials, the list is endless.

    A young lady who finished her service last year recently told me, “If not for the fact that I met a lot of young wonderful folks who hail from different parts of the country—and that was real fun for me, I would have comfortably tagged my NYSC year a ‘wasted’ one.” She continued, “You won’t believe that our LGI (Local Government Inspector) at that time would always harass ladies up and down, threatening them with all sorts of sanctions. Not bad enough, he would compel all corps members to pay, sometimes N200 or N300 each, before we could have our monthly clearance done, despite having been cleared in our Places of Primary Assignment (PPA) as well as Community Development Service (CDS) groups. For goodness sake, isn’t that absurd?”

    On a fateful morning when they had all gathered for their monthly clearance, the LGI actually assaulted her. “We all gathered for the July clearance, I think, and we were told to pay the sum of N300 before we could be allowed to sign the Payment Voucher (PV) and I politely told our LGI that I did not have any money to pay. All of a sudden, he got angry and stood up and moved towards my direction and then pushed me in the chest violently. I was really, really dejected.” “Honestly,” she said, “it was as if I was dreaming. No one has ever assaulted me in my entire life. Well, I reported to the nearest police station and got the Zonal Inspector (Z.I) and other officials involved. It’s a very long story.” She wouldn’t conclude the story without saying this: “Many corps members are passing through a lot. I’m sure there are those who have really been traumatised but we never get to hear their stories. It doesn’t make sense at all and this has to stop!”

    I’m also quite aware that a number of states still use dilapidated primary or secondary school buildings as their ‘NYSC orientation camp’. For corps members serving in these states, their three-week stay on camp is like ‘hell’ for them—considering the poor welfare. Having jumped over the first hurdle, corps members then begin to grapple with the issues associated with postings to their stations of primary assignment. And what operates today is a typical representation of square pegs in round holes. Take for instance, a Mechanical Engineer or perhaps an Accountant who is deployed to serve as a teacher in a secondary school. Isn’t that totally strange?

    Established by Decree No. 24 of 22nd May 1973, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Scheme was created in a bid to reconstruct, reconcile and rebuild the country after the Nigerian Civil War. And then, a little over four decades later, what has become of this brilliant initiative?

    Within the past few years, there have been a lot of arguments as to whether the scheme should be scrapped or not. Those who argue for the former cite the incessant killings of corps members by insurgents and accidents, and ineffectiveness of the programme, as their main concerns while their opponents believe the programme helps to promote unity among Nigerians. To a very large extent, it seems as though these arguments have finally been laid to rest as President Muhammadu Buhari boldly declared recently: “I firmly believe in NYSC and I think it should remain a national programme to promote integration.” I also think the scheme should not be scrapped but it has to undergo very serious rehabilitation.

    A total overall of NYSC Scheme is needed. This should start with effective and transparent monitoring of all activities of the officials—from the highest to the lowest—who have been saddled with the responsibility of running the National Youth Service programme. All cases of corruption must be thoroughly investigated and properly dealt with.

    Corps members should be posted to their areas of competence so that they can use their fresh-from-school ideas to transform the economy—and the nation at large. According to Mrs Rabi Jimeta (the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Youth Development), the yearly enrolment of corps participants had increased from 2,364 in 1974 to 229, 016 in 2014. And it’s been projected that the number may rise to 300,000 by year 2020. This is a huge number and the nation should take advantage of it. Imagine the deployment of over two-hundred thousand young energetic minds into the various sectors—Agriculture, Education, Health, Information and Communication Technology, Oil and Gas, Mining, Manufacturing, Banking. This is not enough; they should be empowered and also given an enabling environment to work. You would agree with me that many of our dead sectors shall come alive. After all, the future of any country depends on the youths. If adequate provisions are not made for them today, then we are obviously sleeping on a time bomb.

    Effective leadership as well as various capacity development programmes should also be introduced into the scheme. I’m not talking about one-week training on bead making or baking of cakes which mostly take place during the orientation camp. Inasmuch as those trainings are helpful, they are not good enough to prepare the next generation of Nigerian leaders who are expected to take the bull by the horns and cause transformational change—I mean our future leaders deserve more.

    It’s also not a bad idea if low-interest medium to long term loans are made available to corps members who desire to set up their own Small and Medium Scale Enterprises post-NYSC. Who knows? Maybe this would give birth to thousands of Dangotes, Elumelus, Adenugas, Alakijas in the years ahead.

    The Director-General of NYSC, Brigadier-General Johnson Olawumi recently said, “We are still thinking of ways we can use the scheme to address present challenges beyond the original challenge of national unity and integration.”  If the necessary reforms are carried out in the right way and at the right time, the NYSC scheme that frustrates Nigerian graduates today can go on to empower them tomorrow.

     

    • Ayodeji is a writer and transformational speaker 

  • Imperatives of reforming the Land Use Act

    As state governors desperately look for ways to boost their internally generated revenue base, here’s a radical idea for them: Use whatever influence you have at the federal level to push for the removal of the Land Use Act from the constitution, then proactively support those working on getting that piece of legislation reformed, and allow their recommendations to be effectively implemented in your respective states.  With the current system, it is estimated that less than five per cent of housing units have formal title registration. Reforming the land management system will open up the possibility of bringing the remaining 95 per cent of existing housing into the formal title registration loop.

    There is a shortage of affordable housing in Nigeria. Some estimates say we need 14 to 17 million more units than what we currently have. Others say the figure is closer to 40 million. Either way, reforming the land management system will release the choke-hold on private sector urban housing developers who have the ingenuity and the energy to tackle the multimillion housing deficit, which the states’ housing corporations, the states’ ministries of housing and their federal counterparts, are trying valiantly to satiate. Think of what the states would gain directly in increased transaction volume through stamp duties, fees, PAYE, and indirectly through reduced unemployment, increased civic satisfaction and so on. This can be achieved if the bureaucracy is trimmed down, the response times are faster, the process is transparent and the per unit processing cost is reduced.

    Prior to the Land Use Decree of 1978, a dichotomous system prevailed in country. In Northern Nigeria, the land was vested to the governor who then apportioned or utilised it as he deemed fit. One could say it was a form of controlled socialism, in comparison to the free market system adopted in the South. In Southern Nigeria, other than areas selected for public purposes, land was owned by individuals or clans and passed along from one generation to the next. Permission however had to be sought from the governor before land rights could be assigned to aliens. In the absence of a formal titling and registration mechanism, the system in the South threw up endemic problems of multiple sales of the same parcel of land to various buyers. The South also experienced land speculation, problems with acquiring land for public purposes, exorbitant pricing, and the social malaise resulting from the accumulation of land by those who had unjustly dispossessed others of their property. The Land Use Decree was created ostensibly to solve these problems and to install one codified land administration system across the country.

    As can be imagined, the decree was not popular in the South. People accustomed to owning land were effectively turned to tenants via the wholesale transfer of land ownership rights to the governor, and compensation was only paid for developed land or agricultural land. The decree also empowered governors to issue Certificates of Occupancy which would allow the possessor to use a specific piece of land for a pre-defined period of time. And more importantly, the consent of the governor had to be given before any transfer or transaction could be done with the land, (including mortgages or assignments). This specific provision is one of the protagonists causing the current bottleneck in the mass housing industry. The potential quantum of paperwork that this must necessarily involve for a country with over 170 million citizens is mind-boggling. To expect all that paperwork to pass efficiently through the office of 36 people is unrealistic. It is a stumbling block to the proliferation of home ownership and it’s time to make a concerted effort to take the breaks off. In his essay, The Land Use Act: 11 Years After, Dr A. Nnamani, who was the Attorney-General of the Federation in 1978 said, “It seems to me that it is not healthy for the economy that the Governor’s Office should be flooded with these applications for consent.” We should not sacrifice efficiency on the altar of control.ý

    The Land Use Decree was inserted into the 1979 and 1999 constitutions, to make it difficult for it to be revised or repealed. In 2009, President Umaru Yar’Adua established the Presidential Technical Committee on Land Reform and gave it the task of finding a better way for the country to handle the administration and recording of land ownership, the issuance of titles and the process for registration, as well as other land-related matters.  Professor Akin Mabogunje, the 2009-2011 Chairman of the Committee, described the Land Use Act as “a clog in the wheel of development”.  The Mabogunje Report states that “Although the decree has made it easy for governments to acquire land for public purposes, drastically minimised the burden of land compensation and considerably reduced court litigations over land, it has, since its inception…created a new genre of serious problems for land management in the country.” The report goes on to list at least nine of these problems and in 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan directed the committee to look into the practicalities of reforming the Land Use Act.

    According to the Managing Director of Crusader Sterling Pensions Niyi Falade, “the Nigerian housing sector is currently valued at N6.5 trillion with an annual growth estimation of 10 per cent over the next few years.” Trying to benefit from the untapped potential in the real estate and construction industry without reforming the Land Use Act is like trying to drive a Ferrari with the hand brakes on. Yes, the vehicle will move but its progress will be hampered. Reforming (or, as some would say, repealing) the Land Use Act would be a catalyst for the development of affordable housing on a mass scale.

    However, let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. There are some redeeming features of the Act. Let’s hold on to those while revising the ones that need revising. Updating the Land Use Act will certainly assist in taking us from where we are to where we want to be. It is one of several tipping points available to us as a country for moving millions of people out of poverty. Currently, close to 85 per cent of urbanites live in rented accommodation which swallows up as much as 40 per cent of their salary, if not more. The need for reasonably-priced housing is further compounded by urban migration. People, mainly young adults, are moving out from rural areas into the cities. The population in Abuja is estimated as growing by nine per cent every year. In Lagos, the estimate is three per cent each year. Where will they live? Where will they work?

    At a real estate forum in 2015, the CEO of Lead Capital Abimbola Olashore estimated that the production of just 75,000 homes per year would create “at least 300,000 direct jobs and 488,000 indirect jobs.” Assuming the housing deficit is 17 million units, we would need to build 850,000 units per year for the next 20 years, ceteris paribus. Overhaul the Land Use Act. Unleash the real estate sector. Let the multiplier effect go to work on the economy.

    • Ms. Aboderin is a member of the Institute of Directors.

  • Reforming the prisons

    SIR; The Nigerian Prison Act 1972, spells out the goals and orientation of the Nigerian Prisons Service. They are charged with taking custody of those legally detained, identifying causes of their behaviour and retraining them to become useful citizens in the society. Prisons are essentially correctional and reformatory; they are not institutions for the dehumanisation of the confined.

    Also, a prison is not expected to be exactly a bed of roses as the inmates are there for penal purposes; neither is it supposed to be a bed of thorns and thistles meant to snuff life out of the inmates. For the 49,000 inmates in various Nigerian prisons, (29,000 of whom are awaiting trial, and the 856 on death row), hell cannot be worse.

    The sanitary situation is not only repulsive but frighteningly demeaning and exposes the inmates to health hazards as inmates are forced to excrete in buckets and stay with their excreta for days. Feeding is a luxury, bathing a rarity, recreation zilch, reformation non-existent and privacy a privilege. Hence, most inmates leave the reformatory frail, fragile and with one debilitating disease or the other.

    A terrible practice in Nigeria prison system is that our prisons cohabit those whose trials are still in progress and those whose trials have been decided, as a prison is for those whose judicial fate has been decided; in other words those who have been convicted while a jail is a transitional facility for those undergoing legal proceedings i.e. those awaiting judgment on their trial.

    Of the 227 prisons in the country, four out of five were built before 1950. The infrastructure is old and decrepit. Buildings used as workshops are inadequate and some prisons non-existent.

    A report by Human Rights Practice Commission for prisoner’s dignity, estimated that at least one inmate dies per day in the Kirikiri prison in Lagos alone. Dead inmates are promptly buried in graves on the compound usually without their families being notified. It is sad that claims like these are not investigated.

    The government should please look into the present state of our prison system. Obviously, more prison cells should be built. The private sector can make a change to the system through contributions for medical checkups of inmates on a regular basis, feeding programmes and even jobs for those who have served their terms and are back in the society. Families should also endeavour not to neglect their wards in prison but check on them regularly because some prisoners have testimonies of their wards not coming to visit even after several years in prison even with such families knowing where they are; others have regretted their actions and vowed to change ways because of the pains they see in their loved ones eyes each time they are allowed to visit.

     

    •Ojo Adelayo,

    University of Ibadan

  • Reforming the judiciary

    Nothing perhaps can illustrate the disillusionment regarding the delivery of justice in the country as the reported lamentation of Mr. Justice Okechukwu Okeke who recently retired from the Federal High Court. Speaking at a reception on his retirement, Justice Okeke informed his audience that 35,000 cases were pending in his court when he was presiding at the Federal High Court. He said he learnt that the number has since gone up to about 70,000 since he left; yet, only one judge still presides over the cases.

    Justice Okeke is just one of many judges to have gone through similar experiences. The learned judge hit the nail on its head by his simple deduction that the increase in the number of cases pending in law courts is attributable to shortage of judges and high rate of litigations. Obviously that inference is begging for official acknowledgment as a reason for the slow machinery of justice dispensation. But a situation whereby a judge battles with 35,000 cases is a recipe for corruption. So those who believe that the Nigerian judiciary has become tainted with the pervasive corruption in the land have a strong factor in their favour. When that factor is laced with the cumbersome processes of court; the often cramp court-rooms and court environment; the absence of facilities, the unreliability of power supply (both from the PHCN and the generators), the malfunctioning air conditioners, the tedious long-hand recording of proceedings by the judges; the non-availability of legal research assistants and the predisposition of the judges, as human beings, to these looming factors, the result is anybody’s guess but certainly in dissonance with smooth administration of justice.

    It is notable that the Chief Justice of the Federation, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar is all too familiar with these scenarios in court. She went through them on her way to the Supreme Court which in itself is heavily saddled with pending matters. Justice Aloma has had several occasions to speak publicly about the problems of the judiciary, vis-à-vis her own vision, which includes zero-tolerance for corruption and un-productivity. She recently told judicial officers: “As you are well aware and as I have reiterated on so many occasions, we have a vision of a justice system that is simple, fast and efficient. It must be responsive to the needs and yearnings of the citizenry. If the public loses respect for the Bench, the society may gradually be creeping back to the days of jungle justice, as less and less persons and institutions will be willing to entrust their disputes to us”.

    Speaking at the official commissioning of the permanent site of the Appeal Court, Ibadan last month, Mrs. Mukhtar said Nigerian courts, like many others in developing countries of the world, struggle to cope with situations like absence of standard libraries and out-dated legal infrastructure. Quite appropriately, she summed it all up with a verdict that, for courts to discharge their role of dispute settlement and interpretation of law effectively, they must not be denied of requisite infrastructure, expertise and technology.

    Justice Mukhtar has not been alone in seeking to unravel the delay in administering justice in the country. Former Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta had also pinpointed corruption as a factor. Justice Auta is perhaps more blunt when he accused the police, lawyers, prison officials and fellow judges of contributing to the slow pace of criminal justice delivery by acts of omission or commission. “Corruption is the only reason that can explain the snail’s speed at which the administration of criminal justice is moving in Nigeria.”

    The CJN certainly cannot be found wanting in articulating the problems of that all-important sector she heads; and consequently seeking to solve them. In practical terms, the challenge ahead is far greater. Surely, Justice Mukhtar did not create the loopholes afflicting the judiciary and thus causing the slow grinding of the wheel of justice. But if after all said and done, there is little or no change for the better, who else can one blame but the Chief Justice? All cases are important but criminal matters, which often involve the liberty of the accused, are more important. Many such cases have been pending in court, for one reason or the other, for too long. The CJN ought to be particularly interested because the effect, locally, is that of justice denied – following the dictum that justice delayed is justice denied. Internationally, such delays have deeper implications, one of which is the clog it presents in attracting enduring Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country. Justice Mukhtar may not be a fund keeper for the judiciary, but she is a fund manager and adviser. She has a role to play in directing appropriate expenditure first, towards meeting the infrastructure deficits she has identified as the bane of quick justice dispensation; and, not being directly in charge of all aspects of the judiciary, particularly in the states, she needs to advise the various governments accordingly.

    The judiciary is continually under scrutiny and test of performance and reliability. Fortunately for the institution, it has continued to survive as the hope of Nigerians despite the serious reputational bashing it has also suffered in the recent past. As a woman and the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mrs. Mukhtar should strive to make a difference regarding court rules and procedure. There must be a way of ensuring that judges have research assistants to enable them sift the whiff from the chaff of legal submissions.

    There must be a way around the ready exploitation of countless loopholes by which some lawyers cover up their inadequacy or unpreparedness by seeking and obtaining adjournments endlessly. There must be a way of managing epileptic power supply to at least achieve a minimum condition of ventilation and safety for the courts. The Chief Justice has admitted on some occasions that many Nigerians laws are archaic, amounting to no more than relics of colonisation. Given that law reform is slow and often expensive, there must be a way to identify the more inglorious of such archaic laws and bring them to civilization; or dispense with them altogether. Importantly, there must be a way- indeed conscious effort must be exerted-to ensure fairness of trial, and accordance of due respect to accused persons in the course of trial.

    Nothing must be allowed to trample on section 36(5) of the 1999 Constitution, to the effect that an accused person is presumed innocent until his guilt is proven by a court of competent jurisdiction. Justice Mukhtar has a holistic assignment of correcting these and other ills afflicting the judiciary and thus sustaining the notion that the courts are indeed the last hope of Nigerians. However, running Nigeria’s judiciary in public like the CJN does with her public statements of late seems at variance with the standards expected of that otherwise normally conservative arm of government. These public pronouncements are reminiscent of the military style era of the 1970s when the whiplash of ‘sack with immediate effect’ was visited on the civil service with its horrendous and damaging effects. Is this the future we want for the judiciary?

    When you threaten your judges in public with fire and brimstone rather than through the process of administrative circulars, the discerning public is left wondering what the motives were.

    The challenges are not going to be solved through knee-jerk approach, but through articulately thought-through solutions rather than public statements about judicial cleansing that would have the unnecessary result of putting the judges on edge.

    • Nelson, Attorney At Law, wrote from Lagos.

  • Reforming the reforms

    Reforming the reforms

    The education reforms in Rivers State that transformed public primary schools into beautiful environments conducive for teaching and learning have been applauded by many within and outside the state. However, the reforms have also thrown up challenges about sustainability beyond the present administration and drawn attention to other areas of need.

    After five years of reforms targeted at overhauling the education sector of the state, the chief reformer, Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and his Commissioner for Education, Dame Alice Lawrence-Nemi gathered eggheads for an education summit in Port Harcourt Monday and Tuesday last week to discuss ways to consolidate gains, correct errors and evolve policies that would meet the state’s development aspirations.

    Thirteen papers were delivered and debated during the two-day summit which had in attendance the likes of Prof. Wole Soyinka, who chaired the opening ceremony, Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Hon Tele Ikuru, Mrs Sarah Sosan, former Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Emeritus Prof. Ayo Banjo, who delivered the keynote address, Emeritus Prof Tekena Nitonye Tamuno, who chaired the plenary sessions, Commissioners of Education from other States of the Federation, Prof Nimi Briggs, and Prof. Otonti Nduka, and Hon. Odein Ajumogobia, among others.

    There were 824 participants from within and outside the state who actively participated in discussing issues of improving learning outcomes, addressing poor teacher quality, supply, and training needs, effective management of schools, and repositioning tertiary institutions to focus on areas of strength, among others.

    In line with the theme of the summit tagged: “Enhancing Sustainable Development in Education”, the paper presenters argued for changes in the way education is currently being administered.

    The journey so far

    During the summit, Amaechi said his intervention in the education sector was hinged on the level of involvement of young people in Rivers State in militancy and cult-related activities. He noted he was particularly concerned that many were from underprivileged homes, without access to quality education, which had become the preserve of the rich.

    “When I became governor, 90 per cent of young people were militants. I wanted to achieve an education that makes children have skills for employment. I was concerned that why the poor can’t have access the quality education? Why can’t the rich and poor learn together? There was need for reform,” he said.

    Following his government’s investment running into billions of naira, more than 270 model primary and secondary schools have been constructed; textbooks, uniforms, sandals and sports wears have been distributed under the free education initiative; while he took over the payment of salaries of primary school teachers from local governments among others.

    However, despite the progress made, the governor said people should not think much has been achieved. Beyond beautiful looking schools, he said he is seeking policies that would institutionalise effective school management, check sharp practices by head teachers and teachers, enhance teaching quality and delivery of the curriculum among others.

    “If you ask me, not much has happened since the retreat in Calabar. If you see the impact assessment report, it is a bit appalling. We shouldn’t be deceived by the facade of infrastructural development. We should not politicise education at all to get votes. You go to our primary schools, they look beautiful outside. When you visit they put on the generator for you when you leave they put it off. The head teacher will tell you there is no diesel. This is no longer government because we have provided funds but a management problem,” he said.

    The governor’s pessimism about achievements in the sector following his personal inspection of schools and the unflattering report of an impact and needs assessment of education service delivery by Helen Fadipe, the picture is not so gloomy.

    A paper by Prof Olaseni Akintola-Bello also showed gaps in learning outcomes in numeracy skills. But literacy skills were more impressive. He however noted that performance gaps between urban and rural schools were narrowing.

    In his paper titled: “Access, Quality and Equity in Primary and Secondary Education in Rivers State 2008-2013”, Akintola-Bello said an assessment of Primary Five and JSS2 pupils in two schools each in the 23 local government areas of the state revealed that pupils scored an average of 51 per cent in the literacy tests, 31 in numeracy which was poor generally, and 41 in life skills.

    Despite there being no baseline statistics to compare the result with, he said the assessment showed that rural schools were catching up with their urban counterparts or even overtaking them in some areas.

    He however urged the state to address the poor numeracy skills and re-train mathematics teachers to teach better. He also urged the government to sustain its funding of education which would yield fruit in the long run

    He said: “Continue with current level of expenditure in education. Sustained under-financing is unequivocally bad for efficiency, equity and education quality,” he said.

    In her speech, the Education Commissioner, Mrs Lawrence-Nemi, said the summit was the third in five years organised to reposition the education sector and ensure sustainability of progressive policies.

    She added that the ministry, under her watch had drafted an education policy that would guide how the education sector is managed.

    The document was presented before stakeholders who critiqued it at a forum held mid-March.

    When completed, she said it would sustain the efforts started by the present administration to revamp the sector.

    Teacher quality, development and supply Several papers touched on the problems of teacher education, quality and supply.

    Speaking on the topic, “Agenda for Educational Development,” Keynote speaker, Prof Ayo Banjo pointed out the need to revamp teacher training education, because of the lack of depth of trained teachers in their teaching subjects.

    “If the standard of secondary schools are to be raised teachers should be graduates in their teaching subjects before they train as teachers as was done before,” he said.

    In his paper on “Implementing The New Basic and Secondary School Education Curricula: Strategies and Challenges” the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), Prof Godswill Obioma, also urged the government to intervene in the training of teachers at the colleges of education as they lacked requisite skills to deliver the new curricula, especially in the trade subjects.

    “Colleges of Education should revise their teacher training curriculum because their teachers lack the competencies and skills to teach the new curriculum. The current textbooks are also a mismatch with the curriculum,” he said.

    Following a study that showed the state needed 91,000 teachers, Amaechi said he directed that 13,000 passionate teachers be recruited, who would implement the new policies of the state.

    In fulfilling the government’s request for 13,000 teachers, Mr Charles Magbe of Price Water House Coopers said only 47 per cent (three per cent outstanding, 44 per cent good and very good) of the 18,000 candidates that applied to be teachers were qualified. He underscored the need for proper induction and continuous training for the new recruits.

    On his part, Emeritus Professor Joshua said it is possible to improve the quality of the new recruits through proper induction, training, monitoring and mentoring.

    To this end in his paper on “Quality Professional Development in Rivers State”, he counseled the government to establish a resource centre which would provide adequately for the in-service training of new teachers. He also advocated for a re-certification programme for teachers every three years to keep them update the knowledge of their subject matter and sharpen their pedagogical skills.

    He said: “We need teacher-training system based on competence. We should focus on how to teach teachers to teach well and equip them with pedagogical skills. Before they enter the classroom, the new teachers should be given a quick induction. This should be followed by monitoring, further training and mentoring. The state should put in place a comprehensive programme for training teachers.”

     

    Communiqué

    After extensive deliberations, the communiqué signed by the Education Commissioner adopted many of the recommendations made by the speakers.

    Part of the recommendations reads:

    •Curriculum implementation for the revised Basic Education Curriculum will be in phases as prescribed by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Commission (NERDC).

    •There is need to review the programmes of Rivers State University Science and Technology/ University of Education to be in tandem with demands of the new curriculum.

    •Textbooks should also be restructured in line with the revised Basic Education Curriculum

    •Science and Technology education should receive a boost.

    •Management and teacher capacity should be built through refresher courses and re-certification programmes, i.e Countinous Teacher Development.

    •All new teachers soon to be injected into the school system will be inducted to be able to grapple with demands of classroom teaching.

    •Quality Assurance shall be given the expected impetus through the activities of the Quality assurance Agency of the State.