Civil service reform, not complicated: avoiding the mistakes of past reforms

Advocacy for institutional reform is essentially based on critical optimism in the face of significant institutional dysfunction. Being an institutional reformer and not being an optimist is, to me, a contradiction in terms. Optimism is what maintains the reformer's belief in the possibility of transformation. Without such conviction, the reformer has no business in the field of institutional reform. This is the optimism I developed over time, after deciding to dedicate myself to researching the historical and administrative dynamics that led to the institutional dysfunction of the Nigerian public service system.

This same optimistic realism has sustained me through various government successions since the Babangida administration. And it is a similar, but even more powerful, optimistic assessment of what is realistically possible that I bring to my assessment of the Tinubu administration and its emerging determination to succeed at all costs. Despite the legitimacy and credibility challenges currently swirling around the administration and which the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) has thankfully put behind us, there is no doubt that the Tinubu presidency is aware of its historic mandate as a critical moment in the candidacy. to improve the lot of Nigerians. And so, given the direction of his political maneuvers so far, and despite the many concessions made to real politics, I am assured that a most significant dynamic of change, more powerful and with great chances of success that the one I have witnessed since 1979 could be taking place. Of course, there are many policy areas that the government apparently still has difficulty understanding, but I am encouraged by the administration's open-mindedness and humility in seeking directions.

We cannot, however, make the mistake of taking the success of this government for granted. Successful development, according to the many lessons of history, requires hard work in many directions and at many levels. And one of the strengths of the new administration, as a reference point, is the many glaring mistakes of the past that should serve as a basis for continued learning and a strategic framework moderated by critical success factors that need to be injected into the government. thought. A crucial and fundamental factor necessary for national transformation, which the administration itself has decisively zeroed in on, is civil service reform.

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Bureaucracy is a necessary complement to the administrative success of any government. Indeed, it is fundamentally essential to the functioning of democratic governance. It would, however, be very presumptuous of me to say that a government cannot succeed without a civil service with sufficient capacity (even if it already has a bureaucracy stuck in its own complexities). Of course, this concession stems from a fringe literature that says any government that depends on civil service variability for its policy direction has already failed before it even gets off the ground. A strategy adopted by many governments since the 1980s was to set up parallel structures that allowed them to avoid the focused and often onerous task of reforming the bureaucracy.

This flies in the face of these historical examples of determined government interventions that took seriously the task of reprofiling and reforming the civil service. The decision that earned Margaret Thatcher the nickname “Iron Lady” is easily remembered: the uncompromising determination to reform the British civil service and undermine the divisive labor relations that had held Britain back. We also cannot forget the role played by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in post-war Japan and its determination to overcome its economic deficit and regain its leadership in world affairs. In our country, the former Western Region and the Awolowo-Adebo administrative model, together with the unprecedented success of Gowon's super-permanent secretaries, show how much attention to civil service reform can go wrong. to his negligence. Indeed, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Head of Government of the Old West Region, paid a glowing tribute to the civil service of the region and its ability, under the leadership of Chief Simeon Adebo, to implement the political imperatives of the Action Group (AG).

And yet, many successive Nigerian governments since independence have also taken the unproductive direction of hijacking the civil service. And that might explain why, in a sense, the system has been characterized by overabundance. After all, most...