Time to reinvent our civil service

Nigeria’s plan to host the maiden edition of the International Civil Service Conference billed for Wednesday, 25 to Friday, 27 June 2025 in Abuja has once more drawn attention to the state of the establishment across the country.  As part of the activities marking the 2025 Nigerian Civil Service Week, the country will host the conference, with the aim of strengthening the capacity and effectiveness of the public sector through global dialogue and collaboration. Clarifying the matter recently, the Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs Didi Walson-Jack, stated that the event will attract key stakeholders and experts in public administration from across the globe. 

Seen in context the initiative is welcome, as it offers a timely opportunity for introspection by the Nigerian civil service authorities, as well as the challenge of reinventing the establishment across the three tiers of government in the country, namely the federal, states and local governments, to foster the much needed convergence of functionality between these theatres of public service delivery, given that what goes as the civil service in the country today is a far cry from what it should be. Expectedly, therefore, the conference will provide the basis for comparing and contrasting the Nigerian scenario with other systems across the world. 

In a notional context the civil service comprises a crop of career employees whose duty is to serve as the engine that drives the delivery of dividends of good or bad governance (as the case maybe) to the society, and thereby constitutes the visible face and organs of any government. As the organ of service for any government in power, the civil service is expected to manifest some attributes and capacities that dispose it to deliver service to every citizen on the basis of equality and fairness. In that context, the civil service is expected to be apolitical, and its personnel impersonal, anonymous and faceless. This is to ensure that the establishment does not manifest undue weaknesses that may compromise the integrity of a government in power, as any of its strengths and weaknesses can easily be associated with the government of the day. 

SPONSOR AD

It is in that same context that the present state of stagnation and underdevelopment across the Nigeria, cannot be seen beyond the prism of the state of the nation’s civil service. In its present state the Nigerian civil service remains overdue for drastic reinvention in order to reconcile with the expectations of the citizenry with respect to the delivery of dividends of governance. Established during the colonial era, the Nigerian civil service has endured over time providing the nexus between successive governments and generations of Nigerian citizens. However, given that with respect to society, change is constant as demographic parameters transform over time. So also do the expectations and preferences of the citizenry change with time. Yet for several reasons the mainstream of the Nigerian civil service still remains trapped in antiquity with rules and procedures – some of which are from the colonial era still defining some functions. This inflexibility constitutes one of the most debilitating weaknesses of the Nigerian civil service. 

 Against the vast advances in life styles of the citizenry over the years with information technology ruling the modern world, it is irreconcilable with the times for civil service practices to run successfully with archaic methods. 

Other weaknesses of Nigeria’s civil service include the reign of indiscipline, corrupt practices and politicisation of roles and offices, a situation that spawns the high incidence of corruption and nepotism. Courtesy of the above factors the establishment is bloated beyond its holding capacity in terms of manning as politically endowed individuals squeeze in their cronies, who have little or nothing to offer the system, as if the establishment is nothing more than an employment hub with the mandate to share the nation’s common patrimony. 

Yet another weakness is the low level of skill endowment of most officials due to the paucity of training opportunities. For instance, it is not surprising that a wider cross section of the country’s civil servants hardly know the basic rules and procedures of service and therefore remain unproductive on their desks. It is also not surprising that a large number of civil servants do not even have desks and regular work schedules.  Cumulatively, these weaknesses cripple the civil service beyond what is easily imagined.

 Also to be ranked as a challenge to the country’s civil service is the wide discrepancy between the operational modalities between the respective tiers of governance. The incidence of wide divergence in civil service practices between the respective tiers of government has a significant effect on the harmonisation of governance across the country.  

With the dispensation of the forthcoming International Civil Service Conference, It is hoped that the country’s civil service authorities are disposed to move the establishment to the next level of parity with the leading systems across the world.