The decline of moral values and the development of malpractices (corruption) in Nigeria are linked to the present dysfunctional state of the Nigerian civil service.
Strange at it may sound, but this is true, considering the multi-layered role of the civil service.
Civil servants are employees on government’s payroll in ministries and parastatals. The importance and centrality of this category of workers to the administration of a nation are obvious. Their efficiency and performance are, therefore, factor in assessing the success or otherwise of a nation. In this sense, no country can rise above the quality of its civil service.
The Nigerian civil service emerged from the British colonial office. It was structured after it. The civil servants of the newly independent Nigerian state worked assiduously to build a viable modern nation and it remained the permanent institution that kept the nation running with minimal disruption to state activities during the long periods of military rule.
Unfortunately, the unexpected happened in 1976 when the military regime of that era, against the norm and without the involvement of the Federal Civil Service Commission, retrenched thousands of civil servants.
There were other purges in 1984, 1999, 2003 and 2005. Afterward, it became a routine for incoming governments to sack civil servants as a sign of strength and to instill fear in the institution, thus naively ignoring the extensive long and short term consequences for the stability of the country.
In the ensuing atmosphere of insecurity and fear, civil servants resorted to self-help to meet with their immediate and future needs by stealing from the government. This was a dangerous development for the country, considering the fact that government ministries and agencies hold and control the expenditure of public funds and also check fraudulent activities in the system.
The decision by the government to appoint private sector executives as permanent secretaries, directors-general and directors in the civil service was intended to gradually privatise the civil service. This decision was a mistake because a bureaucracy cannot be run like a private enterprise. Moreover, bureaucrats or civil servants at the directorate level are products of long term grooming through the ranks, during which vast experience is acquired.
Private sector managers in a bureaucratic system turned out to be misfits. Decisions taken were often wrong and they could not be challenged out of fear of victimisation because of the personalities involved. The privatisation policy, bank consolidation of the sale of government-owned enterprises and others that ended in a fiasco were such decisions taken without depth of thought.
The invitation of international financial institutions to run the economy further deepened the national crisis and entrenched corruption. These institutions lacked the competence to address the problems of a Third World country, which are not much more than the provision of potable water, health facilities, education, housing, food security and such mundane social amenities that make life better for the larger population.
The policy focused more on economic growth, monetary reforms, bank consolidation and such spurious policies, which created the cabal of powerful and wealthy oligarchs in the country. The issue of poverty was never addressed and as people became poorer, they tended to resort to criminal activities and rebellion which is ongoing in different parts of the country in form of insurgencies and communal clashes.
Nigeria has now acquired the unenviable status of the country with the largest concentration of extremely poor and destitute people in the world. The devaluation of the national currency was another grave economic blunder that was undertaken without taking into consideration the long term effects on inflation and the standard of living of the people. The value of the naira went down from 0.75 kobo per 1 US dollar to N360 per 1 dollar.
In summary, the trajectory of the journey to pervasive corruption and poverty in Nigeria started with the policies that undermined the sanctity and independence of the civil service without taking into consideration the long term consequences. The induction of private sector executives into the mainstream of the civil service at the management level created confusion in the polity, such that wrong decisions taken by these powerful groups could not be challenged out of fear.
The need to revive an almost dormant civil service is a must for Nigeria to come out of this quagmire because the aggregate success of a country can be measured by the quality of its civil service.
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