By Tunji Olaopa
This piece was meant to be my address and reflection during a planned courtesy visit in 2024 to the Federal Civil Service Commission of my old boss, Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR), former Head of Service of the Federation, former SGF and Hon. Minister, Ajiyan Katagum, and Chairman of the Governing Council, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; a visit, which objective indeed was achieved by other means.
When a personality like Ahmed decides to pay a visit to an organisation like the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) to honour his mentee, then such a visit is far from being a mere courtesy visit. Such visitation generates reflections and discourses, and activates possibilities. That is the kind of personality Ahmed is. And such a visit especially to the FCSC carries both the burden of administrative history and reform possibilities.
Ahmed was not just my former boss, he is also a veritable mentor; I owe a significant portion of my trajectory into becoming a bureaucrat-scholar-reformer to his mentorship. He had a fundamental impact in shaping my foray into the maelstrom of public service institutional reform programme management in the federal service. Having such an old boss visit his boy at the FCSC is an event in itself, one that is sufficient to make me tremble at the possible comments I would receive.
However, when he is visiting in his capacity as the national chairman of the Council for Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS), the matter becomes even more critical. CORFEPS is the association of retired administrative professionals that has been throwing the weight of its institutional memory and competences behind the ongoing efforts to transform the dwindling status and reputation of public administration and the capacity readiness of the public service in Nigeria. Thus, when CORFEPS meets FCSC, we are already not only laying the templates for all hands to be on deck, but also articulating the critical historical and administrative records that must undergird the necessity of institutionally rehabilitating Nigeria’s public administration architecture.
When CORFEPS held its maiden colloquium on March 5-7, 2024, and had in attendance the administrative bigwigs—from HRM Olu Falae to Amb. Babagana Kingibe and, Dr. Bukar Usman, as lead speaker—the association demonstrates that the past administrative leadership cannot be retired out of the collective responsibility of institutional reform that the public administration and public service sorely need in Nigeria.
Indeed, that maiden colloquium brought a new energy into the functionality of the communities of practice and service—retired heads of service and permanent secretaries at both the federal and state levels, platforms of retired directors, pensioners, Nigerian Association of Public Administration and Management (NAPAM), etc.—and the strategic and restorative responsibility for the institutional repositioning of public administration as a noble vocation in Nigeria. And the fundamental objective is clear: how the Nigerian public administration framework, and the public service system, can be reformed to jumpstart Nigeria’s strategic inclusion in the fourth industrial revolution and its implication for infrastructural development to service the wellbeing of Nigerians.
In this piece, my objective is to insert the administrative personality of Ahmed into the reform trajectory of the Nigerian civil service system during the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency. This is with the aim of filling out some missing gaps in the reform experiment at the commencement of Nigeria’s democratic governance in 1999. His proactive role as an institutional reformer par excellence also constitutes the occasion to ask fundamental question about the capacity of the civil service system to reform itself. This will eventually not only provide a historical and administrative basis for situating his significance in Nigeria’s reform progress, but also his current role as the chairperson of CORFEPS and its ongoing efforts to backstop restorative institutional reform.
The years between 2000 and 2007 were significant in Nigeria’s administrative and reform history because they present a moment of a major paradigm shift in change management praxis that contributed a fundamental template of reform progress to Nigeria’s reform architecture and achievements. And Ahmed was right in the centre of the critical efforts to lay the foundation of a world class civil service institution for the Nigerian state.
It was at a critical juncture that Ahmed took over the reins of administrative affairs of a civil service system that had weathered several reform commissions and reports meant to translate the fortunes of the system into concrete administrative advances that Nigerians can relate with in terms of service delivery. The Udoji Commission (1974), Dotun Phillips Study Team (1984) and Ayida Review Panel (1994), all attempted to ground the public service on a pedestal of managerial efficiency and effectiveness that delivers the goods and the services.
When I met Ahmed, it was right in the midst of the unfolding reform efforts at making sense of the public service system within Nigeria’s democratic experiment. He was the permanent secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education when I was the head of the policy division, as well as the special assistant to Prof. Tunde Adeniran, who later mentioned me to his successor (the late Prof. Babalola Borishade).
I was later introduced by the late Prof. Akin Mabogunje to Obasanjo who then seconded me, on the strength of my articulation through a concept note of the institutional reform challenges and direction of the civil service, to serve as the technical head of the secretariat of the strategy team located within the Management Services Office. I reported directly to the permanent secretary, the late Mr. O. O. Oyelakin, who reported directly to the head of Service, Yayale Ahmed.
Given the reputation of someone Obasanjo referred to as “Mr. Civil Servant,” his in-depth grounding in the dynamics of the system, as well as the crucial understanding of the democratic imperative underlying institutional change, Ahmed was able to courageously articulate a reform methodology that jumpstarted a new era of administrative reforms in Nigeria.
In 2001, as the second phase of the implementation of the Ayida Report was underway, Ahmed faced the Federal Executive Council presided over by Obasanjo, and boldly asserted that the civil service possessed the sufficient resident capacity to diagnose its institutional debilitation, articulate a reform strategy and oversee its own reform. And this revolutionary declaration was coming at a time when skeptics were not sure anything good could ever come out of the civil service.
Indeed, I strongly believed that it was part of the determination to prove the strength of his conviction about the system’s capability to reform itself that facilitated the broadminded learning and proactive space that led to the institutional and professional maturation of someone like me and my eventual transformation into a bureaucrat-scholar.
What I mean to say is that under Ahmed’s watch, I saw the evolution and full maturation of my growing research expertise that came at a crucial point when the diagnostic study and strategic development of the reform methodology was unfolding. No wonder, therefore, that it was under his ambitious, firm and visionary headship that one of the largest reform programmes in the annals of change management in Nigeria was successfully implemented. To be continued tomorrow. Olaopa is a Professor of Public Administration, and chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja.
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