As a push back to critics of President Muhammadu Buhari’s delay in constituting a cabinet about four months into his administration, the President reportedly retorted that ministers were “noise makers” and the job of running the bureaucracy was actually carried out by civil servants; so, why the hurry?
Indeed, the delay in forming the cabinet was essentially because Buhari was consulting with permanent secretaries who trooped in droves, into Aso Rock to keep our newly minted President abreast of the business of governance or statecraft.
So, at the inception of Buhari’s regime, it was not uncommon to see top civil servants in photo opportunities splashed out in both print, online and broadcast media platforms, in company with Buhari, clutching files and grinning from chin to chin like Cheshire cats to the consternation of politicians, especially those from the All Progressives Congress who could not wait to climb into the ministerial saddle.
Back then, President Buhari reposed so much confidence in Nigerian civil servants that he was not in a hurry to appoint ministers.
However, civil servants being the wily crop of people that they are, must have regaled the President with tales and fables about officialdom and their critical role and inevitability in running the bureaucracy that he became so sucked in and enamoured to the extent of regarding civil servants as “blue-eyed princes” while labelling ministers as “noise makers”.
At that time, civil servants, who some aggrieved Nigerians derogatorily tagged “evil servants”, because of their nefarious antecedents, had not shown him their true colours.
Today, Mr President will easily join the numerous Nigerians who have had close encounters with the “head honchos” in the bureaucratic establishments, by also calling them “evil servants” since he now has a taste of their evil plots evidenced by their reported resistance to Zero-based Budgeting and the secret planting of a whopping N1.6 tn into the 2016 budget.
Before President Buhari, many public servants had fallen victim of civil servants’ economic debauchery. At the level of the legislature, let’ s take a look at the case of former Senate President, Adolphus Wabara, who was caught in the web of budget manipulation for a fee and subsequently lost his Senate Presidency on account of his indictment. How about a former Aviation minister, Stella Odua, who got fired from the cabinet of former President Goodluck Jonathan for purchasing two armoured BMW cars for an outrageous sum?
I can wager a bet that for every occupant of political office found guilty of corrupt enrichment, more often than not, they were instigated and encouraged by civil servants working with or under them. This is because, over the years, civil servants have mastered the art of pulling the wool over the eyes of political office holders and their permanency on the job (35 years) as opposed to public servants (ministers or Directors-General) who serve only one or two term of four years each and often less, gives them the undue advantage to perfect their devious art which is why they exhibit the characteristics of the mafia.
A former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, now governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, was so keenly aware of the evil capacity of civil servants that he broke the mode of engaging civil servants as Special Assistants but instead sought exemption to source his aides from the private sector in order to achieve his development goals.
The beautiful city that he wove Abuja into, is a testimony to el-Rufai’s sidelining of civil servants to deliver on the mandate (as a man schooled in the art of building) of creating a modern city that was the envy of many visiting prime ministers and presidents.
It beats me hollow that the former FCT minister who is a close confidant of President Buhari did not alert him when he was romancing and hub nubbing with civil servants.
It is to the credit of “eagle eyed” legislators and more especially, civil society organisations who dissected the budget to sniff out the potential heist embedded in the 2016 budget by civil servants.
Truth is that, civil servants which constitute less than five per cent of Nigeria’s population, actually consume about 70 per cent of our country’s income, according to the immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and now the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi 11. The giant sum of budgeted funds consumed by civil servants is in the form of salaries and emoluments, which is why Nigeria’s budget is tilted abnormally more to recurrent expenditure and less to capital projects, yet they are the biggest perpetrators of fraud. Issues of corruption in the civil service in Nigeria have been well-documented.
For instance, in 1975, after the late General Murtala Mohammed took over from General Yakubu Gowon as head of state, about 10,000 civil servants were sacked over corruption matters. According to the Pius Okigbo report, between 1988 and 1994, some $12.5bn in government revenue was stolen by civil servants.
Unsurprisingly, all the pension funds fraud, typified by the recent indictment of an assistant director in the civil service commission, Yakubu Yesufu, who frittered away N32bn and Abdulrasheed Maina, chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Funds, who could not account for about N195bn under his care, are clear reflections of the level of involvement of civil servants in corrupt practices.
To be concluded
PUNCH
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