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 data that might pull a variety of political and administrative weight inside the reform crucial to remodel governance structure, the civil service and its ecosystem. As a multidisciplinary physique of retired public servants with huge data 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 growth requirements of the present Tinubu administration. It is certainly one of the most important stakeholders in the public administration communities of follow and service that articulates a unbroken skilled and institutional curiosity in furthering the relevance of the civil service as a major participant in the growth 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 performed in entrenching the institutional reminiscences that retired everlasting secretaries embody. CORFEPS, beneath the in a position 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 important cornerstone of democratic governance in Nigeria, CORFEPS has simply launched an incredible initiative: the CORFEPS Journal on Pubic Policy and Governance.
This vital initiative have to 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 enables 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 basic significance {of professional} data and its position in deepening institutional progress. In different phrases, by it, CORFEPS offers 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 bundle that’s sufficiently thrilling to sign to the communities of service and follow that one thing new and difficult has arrived in the administrative area. This is as a result of the editorial board went all out to create a splash particularly with the vary of subjects coated, 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 broad ranging ranges of successes.
In this regard, the CORFEPS journal, in its inaugural version, is drawing on the immense institutional reminiscences and skilled data of its members to ventilate each diagnostic, recuperative and reformative insights. And that is salutary in ways in which serve to enrich the mediatory position CORFEPS has been enjoying as a staunch and energetic stakeholder in the civil service reform challenge in Nigeria. We now have a possibility to pay attention and take word, outdoors of the typical high-power conferences, of the single-minded understanding of the civil service system from those that have manned its varied facets, particularly the ministries, departments and companies. Their reflections and analyses are complemented by others, important watchers of the civil service, whose a few years of coping with the system make them vital individuals in the ongoing efforts to remodel it right into a value-based, public-spirited, meritocratic and high-performing world class establishment.
In phrases of the vary of subjects and themes mentioned in the inaugural version, the CORFEPS journal turns into an automated administrative souvenir. The inaugural version is split into eight elements. 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 anxious with governance instruments; half three has only one essay coping with Nigeria’s infrastructural growth; half 4 has two essays surrounding management and administration; the two essays partially 5 are wrapped round the theme of well being and way of life; half six is devoted to a few e-book critiques; half seven alerts 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 assessment of every essay—which fits past the area of this piece—I’ll contact on a few of the vital contributions. And after all, we begin with the civil service system. This is vital, even to the present advocacy tasks of CORFEPS itself. And the 4 essays on this phase didn’t disappoint. Their completely different focuses are doubtless present and modern—the standing of the public administrator inside the civil service and governance framework; the relationship between the civil service and the process 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 can be important 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 notably thrilled by the essays that examine (a) public monetary administration and growth financing, (b) the intervention of the govt in the institutional autonomy of public establishments, (c) decentralization and native governance, (d) capability growth to attain 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 important for servicing growth planning. And this goes past merely rising funds 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 creator of the essay argues that constitutional autonomy to again the essence of native governance will probably 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 growth. This is correct on level. Similarly, the authors of the essay on coaching and capability growth try and 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 growth. Sound management is the distinction between profitable and failed infrastructure tasks. This then directs important reform consideration to the subject of management coaching and choice, the focus of the first essay partially 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 way of life. But that isn’t the case. Most reform blueprints, in contrast to the follow throughout the golden period of the public service in the Seventies, fail to think about work-life stability in human capital growth. This is essential in the sense that when the public servant is wholesome, it goes a good distance in affecting efficiency and productiveness. Thus, the two chapters on breast most cancers and prostate well being are key think about institutional reform.
To recapitulate: the inaugural version of the CORFEPS journal is mostly a mouthful! It is sort of a reader on institutional and governance reform that every 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 sequence of suggestions on this regard. One, the journal should not try and be tutorial. It should reasonably be styled and supposed 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 supposed viewers. The basic query on this sense could be: What does the CORFEPS journal purpose to grow to be in the subsequent 5 years inside the Nigerian communities of service and follow? This query impacts the concept of favor and content material. For instance, each version may 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 consultants, public servants, directors, whereas on-line search will also be made for syndicated columnists with modern concepts and initiatives that speaks to the issues of the journals.
Indeed, particular editions will be proposed on any theme for which the visitor editor is famend. Departments of public administration, in addition to the MDAs, may 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 can be related to public administration. Interviews and autobiographical notes are important components for understanding the progress and reform of the public service. The editorial board should subsequently additionally consider segmenting the journals to offer room for particular options, from interviews to important 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 isn’t 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
