Text of the Lecture, as delivered by Goke Adegoroye Ph.D, OON marking the Nigeria’s 63rd Independence Day under the overarching Theme: “Nigeria at 63, Renewed Hope for National Unity and Prosperity”.
Protocols: I am honoured to be invited as the Lead Speaker at today’s event of Public Lecture cum Symposium marking the 63rd Anniversary of Nigeria’s Independence Day. I am grateful to the SGF as the Chairman and other members of the Inter-ministerial Committee on the 63rd Independence Anniversary for identifying me to discharge this function. It is my hope that my presentation will do justice to the confidence that they have reposed in me. Actualizing the Vision of Renewed Hope For Socio-Economic Development of Nigeria Through Effective Leadership is the topic that I have been assigned. It is not a light topic, or one meant for /borne out of banters. Renewed Hope is the Theme of the Manifesto under which our President ran his campaign. My understanding is that Renewed Hope is borne out of a consciousness of missed opportunities in a country widely recognized for its immense and limitless potentials and the determination of a man of vision to galvanize the entire populace to believe in the immense possibilities that this nation offers, while offering himself to lead the way. I do not need to get us bored by reeling out the sad tales of our statistics on national development from Independence in 1960 till today. It might just suffice to remember where we were in 1960 in relation to China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, The United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Brazil etc and where those countries are today. Or by just comparing us with ourselves, to remember where we were in 1980, in terms of our manufacturing industries, oil production, security of lives and property and individual honour as human beings, compared to where we are today. We rank poorly not just on Human Development Index but on all global indices of a nation’s performance, namely: Government Effectiveness; Corruption Control Index, Poverty Index; Social Cohesion Index and Peace Index. Our global ranking on Government Effectiveness Index which measures perceptions of the quality of public services, the civil service, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government’s MDAs’ commitment to such policies has been hovering between 162nd and 169th in the last 7 years compared to South Africa’s at 62nd. The only measurement where we have been on a steady and unmitigated rise is our population, which has serious implications for our national planning, more so that the median age of our population at 18.6 is one of the lowest in the world and contrasts sharply with the figures for South Africa at 28.0, Mauritius at 36.3, United Kingdom at 40.6, Cuba at 42.1, Germany at 47.8 and Japan at 48.6. These sad statistics are certainly what must have been troubling a Bola Ahmed Tinubu as to envision what he would want his dear country to be under the Renewed Hope agenda of his Manifesto. The 8 Point Agenda are: Food SecurityPoverty EradicationEconomic growthJob creationAccess to CapitalInclusionRule of Law, and Fighting CorruptionThrough these 8-point agenda the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is, according to one of the key members of team Mr Wale Edun, seeking to “move away from the frenzied borrowing of the last government, check the unacceptable high jobless rate, achieve economic growth, prosperity for all and end poverty” with a matching order to Ministers to deliver the first phase of the agenda within 3 years.Indeed, as we all have now witnessed, the President could not wait to begin to lay the building blocks for the realization of this avowed vision. Right from the grounds of his swearing in ceremony, he started to plug the leakages in the economy with his pronouncement on the removal of the opaque subsidy to premium motor spirit (PMS). Then there were the sector specific appointments of replacement in CEO positions and/or of Special Advisers and Investigators to unravel what is going on in the Revenue generation and economic crime agencies, the CBN, the EFCC etc. His assemblage of ministers has answered many floating questions of inclusiveness be it on gender, youth, national unity and/or political stability, and technical know-how. His cabinet set up has recognized the enormous potentials of certain sectors for the economy as to propel him to free them of any institutional encumbrances to enable them to unleash the opportunities that abound in those sectors for global competitiveness (Culture & Creative Industry; Blue Economy; etc.). His deployment of ministerial portfolios is challenging hitherto biases and stereotypes on religious and/or ethnic appropriation of certain posts, and through his actions he is restoring a sense of belonging to every Nigerian, irrespective of their religious or ethnic background (FCT).His foreign trips so far have been driven mainly by the need to attract investments for our country, and the trips to India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are classic examples. Even his attendance of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) still witnessed positive news on investment in the oil sector. These investments are coming in magnitudes that have appeared elusive in the last 10 years. At all times during those trips, he ensures that he meets the Nigerian community in the Diaspora to avail them of his programmes; and the feedback that people like me have been receiving have been encouraging. Where mistake appeared to have been made, he has responded promptly with more acceptable options.It is obvious that every aspect of these set ups has been deliberately considered and put forward by the President, as none appears to be a fortuitous coincidence. I have been around the top level of the bureaucracy since the commencement of the 4th Republic in 1999 but this is the first time that I am seeing all these factors play out in one man. Nigeria is at a new dawn, and I would like to employ one of our main national symbols to illustrate my take.The Nigeria Coat of Arms is composed of a black shield denoting our fertile soil that is traversed from both the northwest and northeast by two great rivers, Niger and Benue respectively, which meet almost at the center of the vast land to continue their journey southwards to discharge their contents in a maze of Delta-induced distributaries to the Atlantic ocean. There are two Horses holding aloft the shield and they represent dignity while the Eagle represents strength. Unfortunately, it appears that that eagle has lost its feathers, not by moulting – the natural process of feather shedding that is bound to induce regrowth, but by bacteria and virus-induced losses, symptomatic of years of mismanagement, corruption, and leadership deficiency at all sectors of our national economy and human endeavors across all tiers of government at national and subnational levels. And so, the great Eagle continues to perch on the Torse. Right now, however, a new spirit is awakening the Eagle – the spirit of a Visionary.In line with section 147 of the Constitution, which vests in the President the powers to establish office of Ministers as he may wish, he has appointed his ministers and assigned portfolios to them. These Ministers as the principal representatives of the President are already working with the Permanent Secretaries and the CEOs of Parastatals, Agencies and Corporations on ground in their respective ministries as Accounting Officers. Together, they (I mean all of you sitting here and others like you) are to provide the required leadership in their respective offices. It is with them that the powers for the Nigerian Eagle to fly now lies. As leaders sitting here, how far we can go in mustering the muscles of effectiveness on our various desks, and by so doing regrow the feathers of the Eagle to make it fly, will depend on:Our ability as political office holders and career bureaucrats to key into the vision of the President and to work in synergy as co-reinforcing components to drive that agenda; andOur ability to appreciate the depth of certain factors that have posed challenges to our public services over the years and our determination and commitment to overcome those challenges.Actualizing the vision of Renewed Hope For Socio-Economic Development of Nigeria through Effective Leadership is contingent upon appreciation of certain issues, namely: Government Structure Effective Coordination and Clear Cut Responsibilities (SGF, CoS-P, HCSF)Imperative of Consultation, Cooperation and Collaboration Responsiveness, Proactive InitiativeManaging the Capacity Challenge of the ServicePay & Labour IssuesMinister- Permanent Secretary RelationshipFighting CorruptionCitizen ResponsibilityThe Structure on GroundOur first task is to appraise the Structure that is currently unfolding from the appointment of the largest number of Ministers in our history and the portfolios that have been assigned to them. There are 3 observations here, namely:The Number, at 48 going 50The creation/carving out of new MinistriesThe return of the concept of Coordinating MinisterLarge Number of MinistriesThe sheer number per se should not pose a problem if the checks and balances cost-cutting measures in extant circulars and the Public Service Rules and Financial Regulations are enforced. The salary of Ministers is not where the headache of Government lies, as the remuneration of a Minister is just slightly above those of Commissioners in Executive Bodies like the Federal Character Commission. The real problem is with unrecognized and under the table perquisites of limitless dimensions that we seek and the manipulation of projects to satisfy personal interests and the interests of political party stalwarts. The role of the SGF in bringing these checks and balances cost-cutting measures to the attention of all political office holders through service-wide circulars and ensuring their enforcement is crucial. As a first step, he himself will have to set the example in his official dealings. The creation/carving out of new MinistriesThe creation and/or carving out of new ministries is positive for the economy as it will unlock the potentials hitherto hidden because of fund migration from their vote heads to satisfy requirements in other areas of the Ministry. A classic case as the fate of Culture and Tourism sub sectors under the now defunct Federal Ministry of Information and Culture. Even with a Permanent Secretary that made her career as in Culture, Information consumed most of their funds. The creation, carving out and/or realignment of Ministries in any administration are bound to elicit some form of struggle for mandate capture or retention. The main challenge however is how quickly the required alignment of ministerial structure and consequential movement of personnel is made to take place. In this regard, it is expected that the professional expertise that exists under Establishment Matters, Management Services and Organizational Design units within the OHCSF as well as the guidance of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) have been activated to carry out the expected alignment, as objectively as possible and without compromising institutional integrity. The idea of some people moving by themselves or lobbying to migrate to perceived new juicy ministry must not be condoned by the HCSF. Return of the concept of Coordinating MinisterIn my book RGGN vol 1 p. 222-225 I have X rayed the concept of Coordinating Minister of the Economy title bestowed on Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala stating that “Governance structures are not created to sway to ego or conform to the personality stature of an appointee but on the premise of the long term vision that whoever occupy the post will be empowered to perform the functions attached to the office”, and further stressing that “political appointees should fit into governance structures and official titles in a manner that tenants are made to fit into rented apartments as that is what political appointees are – tenants in official positions”.Now we have two Ministers so designated in this administration. I believe that there must be an on-going thought between the each of these two Ministers that currently carry the Coordination prefix to their respective titles with the Office of the HCSF as well as the OSGF as to their line ministries of coordination, and that the bureaucratic support to service the coordination is being assembled. Personally, I would like to see the concept extended a little further by having a Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and to expand the scope of the coordination under the Minister of Health to cover Human Development so that Education can come into the fold as it is in Indonesia. In our setting and bearing in mind the focus of the 8-Point Agenda, an inter-Ministerial approach to bring line Ministries to relate with one another to articulate common grounds for programme initiation and execution will be a positive thing, provided that we will ensure geopolitical balance in assigning the coordination.Effective Coordination and Clear-Cut Responsibilities between OSGF, OCoS-P and OHCSFActualizing the vision of Renewed Hope For Socio-Economic Development of Nigeria through Effective Leadership is contingent upon effective coordination and clear-cut Roles and Responsibilities among the leadership of the central bureaucratic offices of Government, namely: SGF, HCSF and CoS-PThere is the need to appreciate the constitutional limitations and structural gaps that do not foster effective coordination of the public service by either the SGF or the HCSF.Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF)The centrality of the OSGF to the effective coordination and performance of the presidential bureaucracy holds the key to the success of the administration. While the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) is not constitutionally empowered to control any Service, at any given time it is supported with at least 6 permanent secretaries many of whom are charged with responsibilities that have cross cutting impact, such as Economic Affairs, Political Affairs, Special Services (Security), Ecological Fund Office, apart from the Cabinet Office and the General Services Office. In addition, the establishment of the Office of Policy and Coordination in the office, though at a political office holder level at the moment, provides the crucial platform to track the implementation of the Renewed Hope agenda, as the Office can work in collaboration with the Economic and Political Offices and through them to the entire public service.Head of the Civil Service of the FederationBy the same token, notwithstanding the constitutional interpretation of “Civil Service of the Federation” as: “Service of the federation in a civil capacity …” the scope of the responsibility of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) is confined to the mainstream civil service comprising of officers carrying the employment letters issued by the Federal Civil Service Commission, constituting less than 10% of the federal workforce. Therein lies the structural gaps-induced challenge of coordination of the public service, where a sitting head of the civil service of the federation is looked up to for guidance and resolution of issues across the entire public service, and yet is not able to exercise control over these other services.Chief of Staff to the PresidentThe Office of the Chief of Staff to the President is the inner ring of the Presidential bureaucracy. It designed to manage the time and space of the President. Synergy in the official relationships of the three offices is sine qua non to the actualization of the Renewed Hope Agenda. Imperative of Consultation, Cooperation and Collaboration The creation, carving out and/or realignment of Ministries in this administration are bound to elicit some form of struggle for mandate capture or retention. It is imperative that ministers involved working with their Permanent Secretaries are able to resolve this as quickly as possible so that they can settle down to work. No matter how the mandates are spelt out, there will always be some form of overlap. Duplication is what we should strive to avoid but overlap in function are an inescapable outcome of organizational operations. As I once said in my address to the 40th National Council of Health in 1995 “Ministries, extra-Ministerial Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are enjoined to close ranks and plug the loopholes in their laws to enable them translate their seeming overlapping functions to strong bonds of strength and effectiveness, as each organ of government is like a building block in the national structure and no building can stand if the component blocks do not have some overlap”.Responsiveness, Proactive InitiativeHow promptly do CEOs of Government agencies respond to issues within their mandate brought to their attention? The general complaint is that correspondences are either attended to very late or not responded to at all. Calls are often not returned under the pretense of being too busy or attending to meetings. We must constantly be reminded of the key requirement that Government offices and agencies must be alert to their responsibilities and responsive to the yearnings of the citizens. In the face of the many local challenges that have begun to coalesce and snowball to national problems, this requirement has now become an urgent imperative. Public servants are servants of the public not their bosses.We need to turn the table of low public confidence in the capacity of our public services across all arms of government at national and subnational levels, as reflected in the quality of policy formulation and implementation as well as enforcement of laws and regulations, the degree of their independence from political pressures, and the credibility of the commitment of government itself to such policies.The capacity for proactive initiatives is a defining key attribute of professionalism and leadership. It is an innate quality that sits at the nexus of inspiration and reflex. When it is lacking in people holding executive positions, the safety valve lies in their dual capacity for receptiveness to creative problem-solving ideas by others and the courage to leverage those ideas to take prompt actions. Premium importance needs to be placed on capacity for proactive initiatives, receptivity to ideas, and the courage to take prompt actions in making appointment into top executive positions in government offices and agencies. Job Creation Job creation as one of the key pillars of the Renewed Hope Agenda demands a critical review of our current approach to Recruitment, The Youth Challenge, and the Crisis of Succession in the public service. The Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) is advocating that “a scientific and predictable system of relieving the system of non-performing officers across the strata of the Civil Service should be in place to enhance its slimness and efficiency under an overarching pro-youth recruitment strategy of Nigerian Public Service Rejuvenation and Reinvigoration”. Toward this end, the Council is calling on Government “to embark on structured recruitment processes to ensure that the best talents are hired into the public service and back it up with an attractive and competitive compensation system to retain them in the service”. The current trend of clamour for increase of retirement age from 60 to 65 years should be discouraged as it runs counter to pro-youth policy and strategies. Instead, policies that promote renewal and career progression of talents such as the Tenure Policy is what should be implemented in all their ramifications. The median age in Nigeria at 18.6 and retirement age in the public service at 60 gives the age band of 41.4 years compared to less than 30 years for most countries.The Council of Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) is also further recommending that the status of the Nigerian Foreign Service be settled without delay to bring it in line with the international best practice by abiding with the Nigerian Foreign Service Regulations. Towards this end, the Council is advising that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should be granted full autonomy through the establishment of a Foreign Service Board to take charge of the recruitment, promotion, discipline, and career management of Foreign Service personnel. It goes without saying that a full-fledged Foreign Service will not only enhance professionalism of career diplomats, by insulating it from non-diplomatic career officers from the pool of the HCSF, but grant the service the opportunity for self-renewal, rejuvenation, and reinvigoration.Pay Policy and Labour Union IssuesIssues of Pay and Labour relations, though not directly obvious as factors to consider in discussing the actualization of a vision for development in Government, they no doubt constitute underbelly challenges to effective execution of any vision, especially as Labour Union agitation is currently dominating the airwaves. Pay PolicyDespite the Multiplicity of heterogenous salary structures and scales, HAPSS, CONJUSS, CONTISS, CONMESS, TSS etc there is still an endless agitation by every professional organization for a separate scale for their sector/members. The issue of dichotomy between Treasury-funded and Self-funded Special Salary Structure; and the skewed perception of greater importance attached to revenue generating/collection agencies over their policy department counterparts (e.g. Customs, FIRS versus OAGF and the mainstream supervising Ministry) are potentials for institutionalized corruption. The importance of civil servants in policy desks should never be under-estimated in remuneration packages. The undue burden on Government in payment settlements, arising from cases of questionable procurement leading to default as in the CERPAC (Combined Expatriate Residence Permit and Alien Card) contract and of the Process and Industrial Development Ltd (P&ID) where Nigeria is currently facing a UK arbitration settlement of over $11 billion and several others like them should be a lesson to Government.The capacity of a nation or State to grow its economic base is contingent on its ability to move state resources in the direction of capital expenditure for the provision of infrastructure, social services, security, etc., which in turn would affect what can be available for salaries. It is imperative that Government develops a national Pay PolicyLabour IssuesIt is important to draw our attention to certain basic facts:Labour unions seem to ignore the basic fact that the business of government is to deliver development and services to the populace and that workers’ salary should appropriately be contingent on: (a) how well this sacred duty of Government is achieved, and (b) ability to pay. Government is not set up merely to pay salaries.Their focus on the present, without consideration for future workforce, is against sustainable development principle as enshrined in the constitutional provision of “equal access to gainful employment” which essentially implies intergenerational equity;The percentage of workers under the umbrella of the unionized labour is small compared to other Nigerians struggling to make ends meet in their micro and nano businesses.There is low productivity of many workers in Government employment, the absence of whom do not dent the performance in Government agencies, as proven by the COVID 19 protocols.Labour issues are often used to exert pressures of political relevance rather than shape the public sector for the better; hence their agitations are strategically timed at points of political weakness of the ruling party e.g before a new administration settles in or just before elections. Labour unions’ place undue focus on remuneration, leaving out Human Resources (HR) issues. For example, their struggles in the last 2 years are on minimum wage, whereas the majority of public servants across MDAs have been agonizing their stagnation predicament arising from the suspension of the Tenure Policy and the absence of consequential vacancies for their promotion.Minister- Permanent Secretary Relationship: The Imperative of Mutual Respect between Political Heads (Ministers) and Bureaucratic leadership (Accounting Officers)Ministers as political heads must strive to accord respect to their Accounting Officers if they want to succeed. Of course, those accounting Officers must also conduct themselves in manners that will earn them that respect. As I stated in RGGN p. 275 “In order to command the respect of their Ministers, permanent Secretaries should bring the experience of their years of service to bear on their job, through proactive initiatives in the quality of their advice, the maturity of handling sensitive and volatile situations, the timeliness of their response to issues particularly on the directives of their ministers, and their strong commitment to uphold the ethics and values of the system.”“Ministers, in particular, would need to exercise great restraint so as not to be perceived as operating under the illusion of absolute knowledge and authority. Neither should they be seen as exploiting the advantage of their unfettered access to the President and the Press to undermine and/or ridicule their Permanent Secretaries”.That there are permanent secretaries and Directors that are in the 35th year of their service should minister to the youthful ministers in the cabinet about the limit of their “know-it-all” postures.To restore the integrity of the Permanent Secretary corps, in assigning Permanent Secretaries to Ministries, the “musical chair” mentality of deployment must give way to a “fit for purpose” Ministry assignment and permanent secretaries found wanting after two rounds of deployment on account of irreconcilable differences with their Ministers, and in the absence of sound defence by the HCSF should be retired in the public interest.Merit should determine appointments and promotion NOT PATRONAGEThere should be no room to entertain questions about capacity, professional competence or corruption of accounting officers in MDAs, as the President is at liberty to determine who is his appointee as a Perm Sec and/or DGs, ES etcFighting CorruptionCorruption has festered more despite our multiple anti-corruption laws and their enforcement institutions. Across all sectors, whether it is the NNPC Limited, the CBN, FIRS, Customs etc the nation’s woes have continued to mount. With the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), the Treasury Single Account (TSA) etc in place, humongous amounts of leakages have continued to occur in the treasury of Government. These speak if the integrity of many in leadership positions.The search light of public sector corruption is always on the career public/civil servants rather than the political office holders. This is because, as I stated in my book RGGN p. 38 “In the kitchen of public sector corruption, the civil servant is the Cook that carefully selects all the ingredients and bakes them into an appetizing “cake”, the Waiter that takes the ready product to the laps of the political office holder, and the Cleaner/Steward that ensures that any fall-out is carefully tidied up that whosoever comes into the system later would not see a sign that anyone had eaten anything therefrom”.There are at least 18 channels that I have identified through which Recurrent appropriations are abused regularly by Accounting Officers in collusion with their political heads. Indeed, the art of budget manipulation for personal gains as a mode of operation of yearly appropriations of MDAs has become a coveted expertise that certain political office holders usually headhunt in the deployment of Permanent Secretaries and the appointment of DGs as accounting officers in their MDAs. It is incumbent on the Accounting officers to checkmate their political heads and themselves from bloated and unrealistic Paraphernalia of office in terms of an endless list of perquisites, spanning support staff, fleet of vehicles, working tools, energy source and office space layout; Hiding under the cover of purchase of project vehicles betrays the public trust.The success of the President is actualizing his Renewed Hope Agenda is contingent on his commitment to really deal with corrupt officials in leadership positions, be they political appointees or career public servants. Doing that at the topmost level is critical as the integrity backbone of the occupants of those positions is what the Accounting Officers and their subordinates would rely upon for the courage to do their jobs.Conclusion: Counting Our Blessings as Nation, Citizen ResponsibilityTwo years ago, on the occasion of Nigeria’s 61st Independence Anniversary, at the Lux Terra Leadership Foundation Town Hall Meeting on Solution Driven and Forward-Thinking Approaches, I issued a Statement titled Nigeria @ 61: Where Do We Go From Here? saying that Nigeria has the best Balance Sheet of Natural Endowments to Natural Hazards and Disasters in the World and I likened our situation to the proverbial “Akebaje” – the Spoilt brat in Yoruba folklore. I stated that Nigerians are like Spoilt brats in the presence of God Almighty. As the Yoruba would say: “Akebaje ti nba omo olowo je” meaning over pampering/undue indulgence is what has rendered the child of the affluent useless: First, you find him crying, and when he is asked “what is the matter”, he says it is because he is hungry; So, you instruct the stewards to serve him a good plate of food. Barely a minute after the plate of food has been placed in front of him, he bursts out crying again; and, patiently, you ask him what the problem is this time; and he answers, “the pile of meat in this plate is not allowing me to reach the soup below”!Consider the abundance of our minerals, our biodiversity with as many as 1000 species within 1 kilometer in some cases. Ask Minister Dele Alake and the Minister of Environment; and if I may borrow the communication swagger of Minister Nyesom Wike of the FCT: Gold we get am, Gypsum we get am, Bentonite we get am, Gemstones e dey yanfu yanfu; BUT Earthquake we no get am, Tsunami we no get am, Hurricane, Tornadoes, no be our portion. Even the flood that we get, our own in Nigeria na chikinni compared to what other countries face; Our malaria gets treatment, it is not like SARS of East Asia countries or Ebola in our neighbouring countries. Throw maize or yam to the soil in your backyard, you will harvest something in a few months. As citizens of this great country, we need to stop acting like spoilt brats. We must sit up and appreciate the enormous opportunities that God has placed before us by virtue of our natural resource endowments, His protection over us from natural disasters, and the beauty of our triple intertwining diversities across biological, physical terrain and culture spheres. These are wholesome blessings that present themselves to us as opportunities as a nation; opportunities that will elude us if we choose not to embrace them and cling to primordial sectional agenda. We owe it a duty to ourselves, our children, and the generations yet unborn to play our parts as leaders at whatever level we find ourselves. The election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, despite all the odds on his path, must minister to us as a nation about the awesomeness and grace of God. As the President, he has placed before us his Vision of Renewed Hope. At this time in our nation’s history, he is the Eagle on our nation’s Coat of Arms. The Visionary has perched. But his plumage is going to be provided by all of us in leadership positions at all levels across the three arms of Government in this nation at national and sub-national levels. The issues that I have identified in this paper are the feathers to be regenerated by the effective leadership that he is expecting you all to provide in your respective positions. He is anxiously waiting for these feathers to enable him to spread those wings to their full span and lift up for Nigeria to soar to the skies, the skies of its socio-economic development, national unity and prosperity. Happy 63rd Anniversary of our nation’s Independence!!I thank you all for your kind attention!Goke Adegoroye, PhD, OON Abuja Nigeria 28 September 2023
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