Without doubt, the civil service has become a powerful political block. For progress, the president must define his mission and vision to his cabinet so they can tackle the institutional pathologies of the civil service, restore its pride and refocus its men and women in their various ministries and agencies. Computer illiterates should be thrown out in an age when the world is talking of the Fourth Industrial Revolution!
Nigeria is the land of a million conspiracies. The problems are a legion. One hardly knows where to start, but not doing anything is not an option. Not trying is sacrilege! The damage done by the sixteen years of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) rule as accentuated by President Goodluck Jonathan to Nigerian institutions by his ethnic, religious and divisive politics will take decades to repair. We must begin the repair work because every public institution in nigeria has been turned into an ethnic battleground for positions and promotions. In government agencies all over the country, especially at the federal level, impunity and corruption reign supreme and mediocrity has become the baptismal ordinance.
It is scandalous, totally unbecoming but common for Nigerians aspiring to directorial cadre in public institutions, to protest computer-based, word pad exams. It is instructive that these same set of people have pocketed thousands of dollars in estacodes for computer literacy courses they never attended abroad. In their protestations, they allege that computer-based examinations for top management positions were designed to eliminate some ethnic groups and favour others in an age where the world is implementing Cyber-Physical Systems comprising the Internet of things and the Internet of Services in a complex web termed the Fourth Industrial Revolution. How sad!
Inability to use simple office productivity tools is systemwide in the service… How possible is it for a staff at NHIS to register people for health insurance if the staff has no working knowledge of e-health?…How do you educate millions, if you cannot comprehend e-learning and e-education? How do you do process citizen and consumer service delivery if you have no concept of e-government?
At a time when the world is immersed in Artificial Intelligence (AI) leading to the development, production and deployment of drones, robots, driverless cars and improved services in the form of e-government, e-commerce, e-health (using subdermal implants), e-learning and so on, Assistant Directors and Deputy Directors in the federal civil service are not looking to burnish their skills, rather, they are running to godfathers to protest the use computer-based exams to determine promotions and advancement in their workplace. What a shame that is!
Inability to use simple office productivity tools is systemwide in the service. In the case of an agency like the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), there are Assistant Directors and Deputy Directors who aspire to decision-making in top management, who cannot recognise the power button on a desktop. How possible is it for a staff at NHIS to register people for health insurance if the staff has no working knowledge of e-health? How can a generation of computer illiterates work with a dynamic, Internet savvy and restless youth population that is angling to take over from them? How? How do you educate millions, if you cannot comprehend e-learning and e-education? How do you do process citizen and consumer service delivery if you have no concept of e-government? It is ridiculous to find faults with independent bodies contracted to evaluate eligibility for promotions, based on set questions and criteria on computers and turning around to accuse them of plotting to exterminate certain ethnic groups from the civil service. The problem is pervasive, and unfortunately the godfathers who should promote hard work are ethnic champions who see these positions occupied by their own as power extensions.
Let it be said that the public service will define the success of this government. President Buhari cannot succeed with a cyber-illiterate bureaucracy at this difficult time of our national life, where the country has to play catchup in every sphere.
In the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), as well as other security agencies, the staff are protesting privately through anonymous emails to their godfathers using the same excuse and tired rhetoric of eliminating their ethnic groups! Can there be a serious intelligence outfit whose staff have no in depth knowledge of transnational crimes and how they are committed online? Nigeria needs a new direction if this country is to move ahead and if we are to be taken serious globally. Staff of anticorruption bodies like the EFCC need superior knowledge and intelligence to beat the enemy, not force and certainly not the display of physical agility. The days of bare brawn are gone! How would the EFCC fight finacial crimes when half the operatives are not Internet savvy?
Anywhere in the world, civil servants are the drivers of the government agenda. It is a shame that our civil servants will rather be selling wares from door to door in the government secretariat or chasing contracts than improve on their on-the-job requirements. That is one of the reasons why the Sahel-Sahara region is listed as the poorest in the world and a perennial object of humanitarian appeal and aid. Let it be said that the public service will define the success of this government. President Buhari cannot succeed with a cyber-illiterate bureaucracy at this difficult time of our national life, where the country has to play catchup in every sphere. Neither is the system of cronyism, where politicians appoint candidates into positions in the service instead of allowing them to pass through merit based recruitment processes, sustainable. Even to the level of clerks, everyone is sitting idle in the office filleting salaries and benefits without service. This is the same civil service that is gulping a huge chunk of Nigeria’s recurrent expenditure by way of salaries and emoluments. Something has to be done to reverse this trend.
The unspoken concern within the civil service is that those who have the knowledge are not usually the ones with the power to act. Those who wish to act have no access to those who have the knowledge…
The civil service has had a lot of reforms that reformed nothing because of fossilised thinking and attitudes. With our enormous resources and potential, we cannot continue to blame developing countries for all our problems. It is time for us to put our house in order if we are to reap the benefits technology has to offer. The unspoken concern within the civil service is that those who have the knowledge are not usually the ones with the power to act. Those who wish to act have no access to those who have the knowledge as expertly explained in Albert O. Hirschman decision-making model where motivation outruns understanding.
Without doubt, the civil service has become a powerful political block. For progress, the president must define his mission and vision to his cabinet so they can tackle the institutional pathologies of the civil service, restore its pride and refocus its men and women in their various ministries and agencies. Computer illiterates should be thrown out in an age when the world is talking of the Fourth Industrial Revolution!
Bámidélé Adémólá-Olátéjú, a farmer, youth advocate and political analyst writes this weekly column, “Bamidele Upfront” for the Premium Times. Follow me on Twitter @olufunmilayo
