With no established rules to follow, Jonathan turns to politics in search for new Head of Service after Alhaji Bukar Aji retirees…
At the inauguration of Bukar Aji as the Head of Service March 2013, President Goodluck Jonathan delivered a rare acknowledgement of the rot that has tarnished Nigeria’s civil service for years, and challenged the new boss to cleanse the system.
“The civil service was historically acknowledged as the citadel of excellence where the best brains, equipment and strategies are engaged,” the president told Mr. Aji. “Under your leadership, you must all work hard to bring back that type of civil service in the interest of our nation.”
He pressed the new chief bureaucrat to “enhance discipline and curtail corruption” in the service. If that directive yielded gains 16 months later, it failed to show on a service that has grown notoriously corrupt and inept, despite reform programmes that have gulped billions of naira.
Now, as Mr. Aji sets to quit office this August, Mr. Jonathan appears to have jettisoned his own call for reforms and cleansing of the system. In an intensifying hunt for a new Head of Service, the president is conducting largely the same search that produced Mr. Aji and many of his predecessors, one that factors political interests ahead of excellence, administration officials told PREMIUM TIMES.
“If Civil Service, the engine room of government is rooted in politics, corruption and impunity, then Nigeria is finished,” said Auwal Rafsanjani of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC. The plan conforms to a pre-set zoning formula in place since Mr. Jonathan’s election in 2011.
Aggrieved officials in the system who would not speak out for fear of victimization, and campaigners for a reformed civil service, say the current practice breeds mediocrity and incompetence.
Mr. Rafsanjani said the government, and its predecessors will chose a candidate it can “manipulate”; one that must bear party loyalty and have the ability to help “siphon public funds for the next elections”.
“In all the years we have monitored the process of appointing the Head of the Civil Service, politics, not merit has always been the rule,” said Mr. Rafsanjani. “This is very sad.”
The outgoing Head of Service, Mr. Aji, and at least 80 percent of past 16 heads of the bureaucracy, now regarded as the faces behind a ruined civil service, emerged through a similar process.
The race for the seat began in the dawn of 2014 when it became clear Mr. Aji, the incumbent, was set to retire. From Yobe State, Mr. Aji took over from Isa Sali, an Adamawa State indigene, on March 21, 2013. A year and five months later, Mr. Aji is set to step down this August after a career that began August 18, 1979.
For many reasons, political considerations have over the years remained what is most considered in picking candidates for the job. “Today, because the decision is highly politicized, it is not the best candidate that often comes out any more, as against what obtains in other countries where capacity, performance and diligence determine who emerges as Head of the bureaucracy,” a director in one of the Federal Ministries in Abuja told PREMIUM TIMES.
The above report was from Premium Times.
There are always two sides to a story. We have another one, in the form of a book that is due to be published for public presentation on 14 August, 2014. the book titled ‘THE CHALLENGES OF TRANSFORMING THE CIVIL SERVICE’ published by The Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR).
Who, really, Is AlhajI Bukar GonI AjI?
Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji, OON, was born on 13th January, 1959 at Bursari village in Yobe State. He attended the Government College, Maiduguri; Borno College of Basic Studies, Maiduguri and graduated from the University of Maiduguri in 1984.
He began his civil service career in Yobe State where he held several key positions, including Chief Administrative Officer, Governor’s Office, Maiduguri (1989-1991), Principal Secretary to the Military Administrator of Yobe State (1992-1993); and Principal Secretary to the first civilian governor of Yobe State (1992-1993); and Principal Secratary to the second military Administrator of the State (1993-1995).
In year 2000, he was appointed into the Federal Civil Service and served as the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics (PRS) at the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs in 1995 and was later posted to the Federal Ministry of Defence in the year 2000 as Director, Personnel Management. He also headed various Departments in the Ministry of Defence until his posting to the Office of the Secretary to the Government in 2008 as the Director, International Organisations.
In 2009, he was appointed Permanent Secretary and posted to the Ministry of Defence. He later served as Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Police Affairs (August 2009-2010) and Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Works (September 2011-November 2012); and Permanent Secretary, Common Services Office, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
Alhaji Aji was appointed the 17th Head of the Civil Service of the Federation on Monday, 25th March, 2013.
At his swearing-in-ceremony, President Goodluck Jonathan noted that the civil service was central to the realisation of his administration’s Transformation Agenda and charged him to “focus on those sectors that will help the administration to deliver with urgency, the beliefs and benefits which are the core of our survival as a people such as agriculture, infrastructure, education, health etc.” Mr President also tasked the new Head of the Civil Service of the Federation to “pursue with vigour the true implementation of the performance management system in the civil service…which its full implementation will positively improve the ability of civil servants to discharge their responsibilities…to enhance discipline and curtail corruption in the service.”
As a career civil servant, Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji, OON no doubt brought into leadership of the civil service his wealth of experience. The Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), through this publication has sought to highlight and document for posterity the numerous areas that Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji, OON, intervened in as Head of t he Civil Service of the Federation. This publication, “The Challenges of Transforming the Civil Service” sets out his reform efforts as Head of Service from March 2013 to August 2014.
11 Things About Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji, Head Of Service.
Alhaji Bukar Goni Aji is a humble and self-effacing man who prefers to give all the credit for his achievement to others. However, beneath that humble mien lies a steely determination, uncommon courage and fiery patriotism. We managed to drag some things out of him:
1. “When I came 15 months ago, I promised to fast-track processes. I didn’t really do anything new. I only accelerated things that other people has designed.”
2. “I felt that it was important the Service should have institutional memory. I therefore decided to completely revamp the Federal Records Centre in Karu.”
3. “In the Office of the Head of Service, I wanted a leaner structure that would reduce the cost of governance.”
4. “With the take-off of PTAD, I no longer have pensioners with placards sleeping outside my office.”
5. “We managed to achieve 100% release from the Budget Office of the Federation for the Federal Government Staff Housing Loan Board. This gives soft loans at 2% interest and has attracted more than 100,000 applications for the 5 estates that we have commissioned.”
6. “I am pleased that we were able to convince the President to approve 30 forty-two-seater buses for staff. I am particularly proud that the buses are made in Nigeria.”
7. “There was a lot of opposition to the policy to domesticate training in Nigeria. However, as a result of the policy, the money provided for training now goes much further than it did in the past and can now train more people.”
8. “Early in my career, I started working with politicians. This gave me the ability to balance the fact that politicians instant results in order to fulfil their campaign promises and civil servants look at extant rules and regulations and tell the politicians to ‘wait’, to the politicians’ discomfiture.”
9. “I seem to be fortunate to be able to read the body language of political leaders correctly. This makes it easier for me to relate well them. That way, I get a lot of things done without friction and suspicion.”
10. “My biggest challenges were as follows: Mobilisation and advocacy to tell the public service that a lot is expected of us; Incessant demands and requests from government; The current size of the civil service, which we cannot currently do anything about, given the unemployment situation in the country at the moment.”
11. “We must aggressively pursue the professionalisation of the Service and bring the psyche of public servants in tune with current national and international realities. The past is the past. We must face the future with courage, professionalism and patriotism.”
To read excerpts from the yet to be published book, click ‘The Reformer’ – the official BPSR Blog.
