By Tunji Olaopa
The Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) is an affiliation of patriotic former public servants that embodies administrative experiences, institutional reminiscences and skilled information that might pull a variety of political and administrative weight inside the reform crucial to rework governance structure, the civil service and its ecosystem. As a multidisciplinary physique of retired public servants with huge information of the workings of the system, CORFEPS possesses an enormous significance in connecting the institutional and reform dots when it comes to the place the civil service system is coming from, the place it’s at the second and the place it intends to be, given the democratic imperatives and improvement requirements of the present Tinubu administration. It is considered one of the most important stakeholders in the public administration communities of apply and service that articulates a unbroken skilled and institutional curiosity in furthering the relevance of the civil service as a big participant in the improvement course of in Nigeria.
The necessity of such a physique derives from the indisputable fact that patriotic and meritorious service doesn’t want to finish with retirement. Indeed, extra can nonetheless be accomplished in entrenching the institutional reminiscences that retired everlasting secretaries embody. CORFEPS, beneath the ready chairmanship of Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, has been energetic in its constant push to regain the vocational honor, skilled ethos and administrative effectivity of the civil service. And in furtherance of this enthusiastic push for the significance of the civil service system as one essential cornerstone of democratic governance in Nigeria, CORFEPS has simply launched a tremendous initiative: the CORFEPS Journal on Pubic Policy and Governance.
This important initiative should be located inside a bigger context of the institutional reform of the civil service system, particularly its standing as a value-based establishment based on advantage, public spiritedness and professionalism. That context facilitates a framework that permits the previous and the current to provoke dialog, and for each retired and present public servants to incessantly brainstorm the way forward for the bureaucratic system and its functionality readiness to shoulder the burden of public coverage implementation. The journal, I need to say, presses the benefit of escalating the elementary significance {of professional} information and its function in deepening institutional progress. In different phrases, by it, CORFEPS supplies a uncommon discussion board—draw, I dare say, from the administrative historical past of that golden period when administrative theorists (the robe) and practitioners (the city) had been in dialog—inside which administrative concepts, practices and initiatives could possibly be mentioned, prolonged and utilized.
The inaugural version of the CORFEPS journal is certainly a full, wealthy and thrilling package deal that’s sufficiently thrilling to sign to the communities of service and apply that one thing new and difficult has arrived in the administrative house. This is as a result of the editorial board went all out to create a splash particularly with the vary of matters lined, and much more specifically with the array of contributors and their distinctive specialties. As is to be anticipated, CORFEPS pulled strongly from inside its personal ranks for reflections that mix previous administrative experiences with present observations from behind the scenes. The majority of the contributors are retired everlasting secretaries who’ve served in a single capability or the different, and who’ve confronted one essential problem or the different with extensive ranging ranges of successes.
In this regard, the CORFEPS journal, in its inaugural version, is drawing on the immense institutional reminiscences and skilled information of its members to ventilate each diagnostic, recuperative and reformative insights. And that is salutary in ways in which serve to enrich the mediatory function CORFEPS has been taking part in as a staunch and energetic stakeholder in the civil service reform challenge in Nigeria. We now have a chance to hear and take word, exterior of the regular high-power conferences, of the single-minded understanding of the civil service system from those that have manned its varied elements, particularly the ministries, departments and businesses. Their reflections and analyses are complemented by others, essential watchers of the civil service, whose a few years of coping with the system make them important members in the ongoing efforts to rework it right into a value-based, public-spirited, meritocratic and high-performing world class establishment.
In phrases of the vary of matters and themes mentioned in the inaugural version, the CORFEPS journal turns into an automated administrative memento. The inaugural version is split into eight components. Each of the segments, with the exception of the final two, speaks deliberately to the most dominant points concerned in assessing and remodeling Nigeria’s democratic governance experiment. This is certainly a well-thought out scholarly first step by the editorial board. Part one, titled “The Nigerian Civil Service,” has 4 essays; half two with seven essays is worried with governance instruments; half three has only one essay coping with Nigeria’s infrastructural improvement; half 4 has two essays surrounding management and administration; the two essays partly 5 are wrapped round the theme of well being and life-style; half six is devoted to a few ebook opinions; half seven indicators latest appointments and tributes to distinguished former public servants; and half eight speaks to the actions of CORFEPS itself. In all, these thematic segments are all-encompassing. They are supposed to lay on the desk the diagnoses, prognoses and decision frameworks for understanding the totality of Nigeria’s administrative and governance challenges and the methods ahead to transcending them.
Without daring any in-depth evaluation of every essay—which fits past the house of this piece—I’ll contact on a few of the important contributions. And after all, we begin with the civil service system. This is essential, even to the present advocacy tasks of CORFEPS itself. And the 4 essays on this phase didn’t disappoint. Their totally different focuses are doubtless present and up to date—the standing of the public administrator inside the civil service and governance framework; the relationship between the civil service and the job of nation constructing; the significance of the MDAs in the achievement of state capability; and the relationship between administrative management and efficiency administration system. These are points which are essential in reflecting on the challenges the civil service system is dealing with—how can we instigate the emergence of a public supervisor with twenty-first competences and literacies who can supervise a civil service system that’s versatile, agile, technology-based and result-oriented by efficiency administration that transforms Nigeria’s productiveness?
In the second phase of the journal, containing the most essays, the contributors engaged with governance issues that richly scope the depth of the key points. I’m significantly thrilled by the essays that examine (a) public monetary administration and improvement financing, (b) the intervention of the govt in the institutional autonomy of public establishments, (c) decentralization and native governance, (d) capability improvement to realize service supply and (e) the significance of company governance in the public sector. These points join with the earlier one on the administrative system. Budgeting and the monetary administration self-discipline that should attend it are essential for servicing improvement planning. And this goes past merely rising price range dimension to the fundamentals of guaranteeing transparency and accountability in financing and execution that speaks to sustainable outcomes.
I’m additionally fascinated, as my many public interventions have demonstrated, with the place of native governance in Nigeria’s democratic governance. This additionally ties with the concern with the well being of fiscal federalism in the Nigerian federation. Indeed, the writer of the essay argues that constitutional autonomy to again the essence of native governance can be grossly lower than optimum. Rather, what is required is what he calls the “Nigeria Local Governance Reform Framework (2026-2035)” meant to reposition the native governments as key drivers of grassroots improvement. This is correct on level. Similarly, the authors of the essay on coaching and capability improvement try to recuperate coaching programmes “as genuine capacity-building instrument, anchored on competency-based needs assessment, transparent procurement, post-training accountability and the professionalization of Nigeria’s training institutions.”
The third and fourth segments of the journal are tied collectively by the relationship between management and sustainable improvement. Sound management is the distinction between profitable and failed infrastructure initiatives. This then directs essential reform consideration to the difficulty of management coaching and choice, the focus of the first essay partly 4. Part 5 would appear to be off the path of a direct concentrate on administrative and governance topic issues in its concentrate on well being and life-style. But that’s not the case. Most reform blueprints, in contrast to the apply throughout the golden period of the public service in the Seventies, fail to consider work-life steadiness in human capital improvement. This is essential in the sense that when the public servant is wholesome, it goes a great distance in affecting efficiency and productiveness. Thus, the two chapters on breast most cancers and prostate well being are key consider institutional reform.
To recapitulate: the inaugural version of the CORFEPS journal is known as a mouthful! It is sort of a reader on institutional and governance reform that each one MDAs and key parastatals will need to have of their libraries. More than this, the version already raises the bar that the editorial board can’t afford to undermine, going ahead. I’ve a collection of suggestions on this regard. One, the journal should not try to be educational. It should reasonably be styled and meant as a journal for public administration and public service professionals. This then calls for that the editorial board should give deep reflection, once more, to the goal of the journal and its meant viewers. The elementary query on this sense can be: What does the CORFEPS journal goal to change into in the subsequent 5 years inside the Nigerian communities of service and apply? This query impacts the concept of fashion and content material. For instance, each version might then be themed round some particular material of administrative and institutional reform, governance problem, democratic consolidation, management, monetary administration, civil service mentoring, and so on. Contributions can then be sourced from seasoned specialists, public servants, directors, whereas on-line search can be made for syndicated columnists with modern concepts and initiatives that speaks to the issues of the journals.
Indeed, particular editions may be proposed on any theme for which the visitor editor is famend. Departments of public administration, in addition to the MDAs, might function key research for reflection on the total well being of the civil service system and public administration in Nigeria. Websites of different skilled our bodies will function veritable supply of publishable supplies to introduce new concepts, instruments, methods, and so on. Young mentees, volunteers and analysts may be enlisted and commissioned to write down options on some present affairs which are related to public administration. Interviews and autobiographical notes are essential parts for understanding the progress and reform of the public service. The editorial board should due to this fact additionally consider segmenting the journals to provide room for particular options, from interviews to essential reform highlights in a few of the MDAs.
I’ll finish this piece with a word of deep appreciation of those that thought the concept of the journal into existence. This is not any imply feat in the whole scheme of issues regarding institutional reform in Nigerian civil service system. Kudos, first, to Alhaji M. Yayale Ahmed, the National Chairman of CORFEPS and the distinguished writer of the journal. And then to Ambassador Dr Godknows Igali as the chair of the editorial board. I acknowledge each member of the editorial board and commend the efforts that went into birthing this inaugural version. We have commenced a journey right into a legacy of reform actions.
- Prof. Tunji Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary and Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja
