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Nigeria THE CIVIL SERVICE
The civil service in 1990 consisted of the federal
civil
service, the twenty-one autonomous state civil services,
the
unified local government service, and several federal and
state
government agencies, including parastatals and
corporations. The
federal and state civil services were organized around
government
departments, or ministries, and extraministerial
departments
headed by ministers (federal) and commissioners (state),
who were
appointed by the president and governors, respectively.
These
political heads were responsible for policy matters. The
administrative heads of the ministry were the directors
general,
formerly called permanent secretaries. The "chief"
director
general was the secretary to the government and until the
Second
Republic also doubled as head of the civil service. As
chief
adviser to the government, the secretary conducted liaison
between the government and the civil service.
The major function of the director general, as of all
senior
civil servants, was to advise the minister or the
commissioner
directly. In doing so, the director general was expected
to be
neutral. In the initial periods of military rule, these
administrative heads wielded enormous powers. For some
time, the
military rulers refused to appoint civilian political
heads. Even
after political heads were appointed, it was years before
the era
of "superpermanent secretaries" to end. That happened in
1975
when, after Gowon's fall, the civil service was purged to
increase its efficiency. Many of the superpermanent
secretaries
lost their jobs, and the subordinate status of permanent
secretaries to their political bosses was reiterated.
Another
consequence of the purge, reinforced subsequently, was the
destruction of the civil service tradition of security of
tenure.
The destruction was achieved by the retirement or
dismissal of
many who had not attained retirement age.
Until the 1988 reforms, the civil service was organized
strictly according to British traditions: it was
apolitical,
civil servants were expected to serve every government in
a
nonpartisan way, and the norms of impersonality and
hierarchical
authority were well entrenched. As the needs of the
society
became more complex and the public sector expanded
rapidly, there
was a corresponding need to reform the civil service. The
Adebo
Commission (1970) and the Udoji Commission (1972) reviewed
the
structure and orientations of the civil service to make it
more
efficient. Although these commissions recommended ways of
rationalizing the civil service, the greatest problems of
the
service remained inefficiency and red tape. Again in 1985,
a
study group headed by Dotun Phillips looked into the
problems. It
was believed that the 1988 reforms, the most current
measures
aimed at dealing with the problems of the service as of
1990,
were based on this report.
Compared with the 1960s and 1970s, the civil service by
1990
had changed dramatically. It had been politicized to the
extent
that most top officials openly supported the government of
the
day. The introduction of the quota system of recruitment
and
promotion, adherence to the federal-character principle,
and the
constant interference of the government in the day-to-day
operation of the civil service--especially through
frequent
changes in top officials and massive purges--meant that
political
factors rather than merit alone played a major role in the
civil
service.
The 1988 reforms formally recognized the politicization
of
the upper echelons of the civil service and brought about
major
changes in other areas. The main stated objective of the
reforms
was "to ensure a virile, dynamic and result-oriented civil
service." As a result, ministers or commissioners vested
with
full executive powers were fully accountable for their
ministries
or commissions. The director general had become a
political
appointee whose length of tenure was dependent on that of
the
government of the day; in practice, this meant that
directors
general need not be career civil servants, thereby
reducing the
latter's career prospects. Each ministry had been
professionalized so that every official, whether
specialist or
generalist, made his career entirely in one ministry,
whereas
previously an official could move among ministries. A new
department--the Presidency--comprising top government
officials
was created at the federal level to coordinate the
formulation of
policies and monitor their execution, thus making it a
clearinghouse between the president and all federal
ministries
and departments.
The reforms created a new style of civil service, but
the
structure might change under later governments with
different
priorities. In the past, the attempt by every government
to
effect changes in the civil service produced many
discontinuities. Ministries have been constantly
restructured,
new ones created, and existing ones abolished.
Nevertheless, the
1988 reforms might solve some of the problems of the civil
service, because most civil servants tended to remain in
their
jobs despite reorganizations. Also, the move of the
capital from
Lagos to Abuja the early 1990s will provide new
opportunities to
apply the federal-character principle in replacing
Lagosian civil
servants unwilling to move.
Data as of June 1991
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