Being an address delivered at the public presentation of Leadership In the Nigerian Civil Service: Five Decades of Lessons In Performance, Encounters and Triumphs at The Rotunda, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Abuja on June 4, 2025

For those who know me, the fact that another book on Governance and the Public Service was going to be written was not in doubt. It was a question of when and what the focus would be. Yes, in my years in the service, I had graduated from writing academic papers in learned journals to writing reports and concept papers to develop policy and programmes, and I documented the outcome of the collective efforts of my colleagues to execute the mandate of the Ministries, extra-ministerial Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in which I worked in leadership positions. However, since I retired from the civil service, my writing has taken a different approach and dimensions. It has been, centrally, of reflection and introspection to offer advice and guidance on governance and public service to the nation, especially to those still on the leadership stage in political offices, whether in elective, appointive or career positions.

This new approach started, right on the day of my retirement where at the Retirement Dinner that was organized by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) at Transcorp Hilton on 26 August 2010, I launched the book Beyond Yours Faithfully with an address titled THE WEIGHT OF 35 YEARS SERVICE IN THE LIFE OF A MAN AND THE NATION. That was the address in which I lamented that while my 35 years of public service that was being celebrated was long enough to give birth to a child, give him/her education and groom him/her to be installed as Governor of a State, or President of the Senate, i.e. No.3 citizen in the land, and therefore more than a generation, I was unable to see the impact of my 35 years of service on my nation. I had noted that my 35 years of service was more than what it took to transform Singapore from Third World to First; more than what it took China to move to its current position as the 2nd largest economy in the world; and more than what it took Dubai, Malaysia and Brazil to transform from sleepy to vibrant economies. It was to me an emotional address, which I had no other way to bring to conclusion that with the statement: “DO NOT CELEBRATE ME; CRY WITH ME FOR MY BELOVED COUNTRY, NIGERIA”.

In the speech, I had quoted a statement by Prof. Jibril Aminu, in a 1995 letter to Prof. Oladipo Akinkugbe, his teacher and mentor at the University College Ibadan, on the occasion of the latter’s retirement, which says, “for all of us, we exit from public service leaving the country, the institutions and organizations in which we worked and society at large worse off than we found each of them. But that does not mean that we did not try. It is just that the man-made adversarial forces have been so formidable and so overwhelming”. My straight analysis of the thesis of “formidable and overwhelming adversarial forces” espoused by Prof. Jibril Aminu, had led me to identify two main groups – the civil service and the political class, as the problem of Nigeria. In proffering the solution I drew on my experience, working at the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation and across ministries, and on my apolitical but simply nationalistic stance on issues, to offer some sterling recommendations in respect of the two groups on the way forward, on three platforms, namely:

The Bureaucracy:

Political Transition from one Administration to the other
Politics and Election:
Specifically on the Bureaucracy, here is what I said:
“I believe very strongly that if Nigeria is to move forward, it must start with the strengthening of its bureaucracy […] Our Civil Service must be transformed into an effective machinery of running Government affairs. The starting point is for the president to endeavor to appoint credible and competent men and women of impeccable integrity into the three central bureaucracy offices of Secretary to the Government, Head of the Civil Service and Chairman Federal Civil Service Commission and to commit himself to ensuring that occupants of the three offices achieve this goal. […] As a matter of principle, in all we do as a nation, we must give room for the best persons or candidates to emerge in positions of governance and bureaucracy”.

In furtherance of this statement was why I produced my 2015 twin volume publication titled Restoring Good Governance in Nigeria vol. 1: The Civil Service Pathway and Vol. 2 Leadership and Political Will. This is captured in the book’s Introduction p. xxv-xl while the full address, including what I said on Political Transition from one Administration to the other and Politics and Election can be found in Appendix 1 of volume 1 of the book, p. 314-325.

At the public presentation of the book in this same Rotunda on 25 June 2015, incidentally the 70th birthday of His Excellency Baba Gana Kingibe, my address was titled: Of Indigenous Populations and the Threat of Invasive Species – The RGGN Rationale. It spoke of:

Merit-Driven Appointment as Bedrock of Efficiency
Corruption and the Lifestyle of Public Servants
Institutional memory as the backbone of not just the processes and procedures but of the advice and decisions of civil servants, and The Danger of Invasive Species wherein, arising from the unregulated transfers into the civil service, the institutional memory problem of the civil service became exacerbated, with federal permanent secretaries who cannot boast of having 10 years’ experience within the mainstream federal civil service system.
I stated that the challenges posed by the civil service and the political class for governance are numerous, namely:

The challenge of how to make our elected leaders to respect the professionalism underpinning of the civil service, when making appointment into bureaucratic leadership positions; the challenge to government, of trying to manage a civil service system that, while enjoying the perquisites of the presidential system that governs its establishment, is also desperately holding on to the ‘immunity’ offered by a parliamentary system under which it no more operates; the challenge of how to cope with an over-bearing Legislature, which sees their ‘over-sight’ responsibilities mainly within the prism of official extortion of MDA appropriations; and lastly, the challenge of managing the excesses of political heads who use their tenure as Ministers as a platform to amass wealth.

I stressed the Imperative of Leadership Integrity at All Levels, as the answer. My advocacy of leadership integrity in public service had led me in 2013 to institute a Yearly Round Table on Public Service Integrity which also featured the Public Service Integrity Award, presented as an end-of-career recognition to outstanding civil servants who during their public service career had demonstrated commendable levels of integrity in discharging their responsibilities.

I didn’t stop with the release of RGGN to the public. Rather I continued to draw attention of the political and civil service leadership to the issues through my presentations when invited to make them at High level Retreats and Workshops, and my writings as articles in the national dailies. Realising that invitations to those high-level retreats were bound to reduce or stop as I advanced in age, I decided on my 70th birthday in 2020 to set up something that will outlast me, the Goke Adegoroye Foundation as a platform through which I could continue to promote the ideals that I believe in for Good Governance and Public Service, and to support younger colleagues with like minds in their own ventures to do the same.

So, as I said at the commencement of this address, that another book from me on Governance and the Public Service was going to be written was not in doubt. It was a question of when and what the focus would be. I remember my civil service boss Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, the National Chairman of CORFEPS, the federal level organization of civil servants who retired after attaining at least the level of a Permanent Secretary, advising me during the CORFEPS Colloquium in 2024 not to raise a certain issue but to leave it for my new book. I saw it as a statement that was informed by his conviction that I must already have been in the process of writing another book. Indeed, he was correct because I had already started writing another book, which I thought was going to be a continuation of the RGGN series, hence Restoring Good Governance In Nigeria, volume 3.

That was the intention until a few incidences came to thrust into my head the possibilities of other titles. The first was from my boss, mentor and senior friend Dr Bukar Usman. Commenting one day after sharing with him an article that had been carried as opinion in the Guardian as part of the series of articles in national newspapers where I was alerting those in position of authority to critical issues in the civil service, year in year out, he had remarked that I “excel in joining issues”. So, Joining Issues was on my mind for consideration of the unfolding manuscript.

The possibility of “Joining Issues” as a title subsisted until two days after the announcement of the newly constituted Federal Civil Service Commission in late 2023. The Press Release from the State House on Friday 27 October 2023 announcing the appointment had elicited heartfelt congratulations to me from my two closest friends, Prof Anthony Adegbulugbe and Venerable Deji Olugboji for the choice of the chairman, being someone that they knew had worked with me. The new chairman is a foremost Public Service Reform advocate and scholar. Feeling personally delighted at his choice, I had said in my congratulatory message to him on the day of his announcement that, he now has the platform to implement, within the constitutional mandate of the commission, those ideas that he had advocated for so long.

Two days later, however, at our regular Sunday rendezvous at the Mabushi Ministerial Quarters home of the Adegbulugbes, I found myself on the defensive with Mr. Wole Arogundade on the same appointment. Wole Arogundade (a.k.a Cardinal) is a younger friend who operates in a wider social circle in Abuja and across the nation than me. He is always fond of teasing me, with old jokes about what I did in my younger days.

This time, as soon as he sighted me, the first words that he uttered, laughing at me, were “the person that Adegoroye was giving query anyhow is now the chairman of the FCSC”! He said that people were wondering “how somebody reputed service-wide for being queried can enforce discipline in the service”. I tried to take him through the positive nature of the appointment. Those who know Cardinal would confirm that he is not the easiest of personalities to argue with.

The discussion took both of us the following day to the home of a cousin of his who is also a close friend of newly appointed chairman. There, with copies of file documents in my hands, while I acknowledged the challenging side of the new appointee as an officer who worked with me, I showed them proof of his recognition of my mentoring role and stressed why I expect him to make a big difference in that office, considering my criticism of his predecessor. Among the documents were clips of my article titled Raising the Civil Service From the Ashes of Its Current Despair which was carried in 22 October 2019 edition of The Punch, Daily Trust and The Guardian. In the articleI had cast doubt on the capacity of the then incumbent to undertake reform of the FCSC. In the article, I had stated that my worry was “whether the Ingawa-led FCSC would be able to shed the toga of conservatism and be bold enough to embark on those critical transformational initiatives that will put the civil service on the clear path of sustained growth in the quality of its directorate level officers”?

Those two incidents: one of my closest friends’ congratulations and the other the alleged trending joke about query that I issued, in respect of which I now had to defend my support for the newly appointed Chairman, opened my eyes to the contending angles from which society can interpret a man’s actions while in the service as a political office holder. The challenge to me was, to how many homes would I have to go to explain this type of allegation? Yet, there were other allegations of similar nature. For example, I was accused by someone who, unknown to him, had been a beneficiary of my support for his advancement at a critical stage of his career. That was at the 2024 CORFEPS Colloquium in March 2024. Consideration of those type of incidents led me at some point to consider I Stand Accused as the title of this book. That consideration was what informed the Poem titled I Stand Accused, an adaptation of Isaav Hayes’ dirge, that I have included in the Programme Brochure for this event. I had meant it to open the book. if I had sustained the title. My younger friend, Barrister Ilori, is still not happy that I didn’t publish this book under that title.

That was until Prof Victor Ayeni, the Reviewer of the book today, joined me for my Birthday Dinner in London in August last year. Seeing him off to his car, I shared in discussion with him the trend in the manuscript. Instantly he was able to state that the common thread in what I said was in the manuscript was Leadership, and that even those incidents were fallout of leadership challenges.

And indeed, he was correct. It is a thread that knits together the philosophies guiding my life, and there are three of them:
The first, was what I picked during my baptism in 1960. It is in the Holy Book, Matthew 5:16: “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

The second is an enduring philosophy of life handed to me by my mother, who had no formal education, when I was to enter the university in 1971. She implored me to appreciate my talents and the opportunities that come my way and strive to grow into somebody, and to use whatever good positions that I attain in life to defend those who are either oppressed or are less fortunate than myself.

See Charting Your Individual Paths to Success as Future Leaders, Through the Maze of Current Decadence, Towards a Sustainable Society, in Beyond Yours Faithfully (2010) p. 219-231
The third, which has been long standing with me is what I eventually registered in 2020 as the motto and creed of the Goke Adegoroye Foundation, and it is: Leadership by Example – That my own life will inspire others in our collective efforts to male Nigeria better.

Leadership remains the single important determinant in management and governance. Sadly, public perception of leadership within the Nigerian civil service has been one of steady decline—marked by eroding competence, weakened capacity and diminishing professionalism. The present is widely seen as a pale shadow of a more illustrious past, hence the persistent nostalgia for what are often termed the “glorious years” of the Nigerian civil service. Those years are associated with revered figures such as Simeon Adebo, Jerome Udoji, Sule Katagum, Abdul Aziz Attah, Ibrahim Damcida, Philip Asiodu, Allison Ayida—stalwarts of the pre- and immediate post-independence era. Their legacies, characterised by outstanding contributions to the development of the civil service, have become benchmarks. Yet, the oft-repeated adulation of that era serves not only as a lament but as a critique of the subsequent generations of leadership and their capacity—or lack thereof—for mentorship and succession planning.

In recent times, and in the absence of structured documentation, the narrative of the civil service has been shaped largely by the personal experiences of officers whose achievements, often reflect an ego-driven record of service, highlighting luck rather than systemic merit. My two years of working on this manuscript and interacting with colleagues now in retirement, have opened my mind to the anguish of devoted and honest officers, who, despite their commitment and patriotism, found themselves victims of a system that rewarded self-preservation over merit and have been severely shortchanged by the very institutions they served with their heart and soul.

In my analysis, I identified three critical issues undermining government effectiveness in Nigeria:

1. The constitutional and structural absence of an effective coordinating platform for the public service.

2. Human Resource Management challenges, encompassing records management, appointments, promotions, disciplinary actions, remuneration, and labour relations.

3. Attitudinal and cultural issues, including ethics, values, integrity, and the imperative to uphold public trust as enshrined in the Public Service Rules (PSR) and Financial Regulations (FR).

While addressing these challenges is paramount to enhancing the effectiveness and credibility of Nigeria’s public service, at the center of all three is leadership effectiveness and integrity.

I have made extensive presentation on the issues at the Presidential Dialogue at the commencement of the Buhari second term in July 2019. I wrote about them severally, on the invitation of the HCSF, at the Induction Workshops for newly appointed Perm Secs and at the Retreats for CEOs and Members of the Governing Councils of Government parastatals and agencies, and in my writings which were always made available to the HCSF and Chairman FCSC. My failure to get response on the issues from those in political office had led me to the point that I was beginning to wonder if Government is a deaf entity.

But I refuse to surrender in despondency. If the human purpose on earth is to love God, and for us to show same love that He offers us to others so that they can come to know Him, we must be able to appreciate Public Service in its true elements, as a sacred duty. Let us consider the police and members of the armed forces who die daily in their line of duty. They sacrifice ALL. Civil/Public service is more than a career. It is not just a job but a calling; a moral obligation to serve the public good, and a commitment to uphold the interest of the citizens and the nation.

Persistent public perception has prevailed that the current generation of civil servants is of a poorer calibre than those of previous eras. This perception is often echoed in conversations questioning the capacity, capability, competence, and effectiveness of today’s bureaucratic leadership. Such assertions warrant more than anecdotal observation—they demand empirical data and critical evaluation to uncover the structural and procedural weaknesses fuelling this belief and identify the corrective measures required to reverse the trend. A reflective appraisal of civil service leadership over the past 25 years appears to affirm a generational decline in quality—from commendable to concerning. To truly understand this pattern, it is necessary to identify the points of inflection on the leadership quality curve: when and where the downward shifts began to manifest, which quality traits have suffered decline, and under which Heads of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) and presidents these Permanent Secretaries were appointed or served. These insights can offer a deeper understanding of how leadership quality has been shaped—or eroded—by institutional and political dynamics. And we can use the results to institute a structured programme of leadership development in the federal and State civil services.

As I stated in Challenges of a Public Service Reform Administrator: An Analysis of the First Year, in Beyond Yours Faithfully (2010) p.79-92, “as a former university teacher, I can spot talents and potential and I make bold to say that several abound in the service. While we celebrate the performance of certain political appointees, have we made efforts to find out what level their classmates with no less than the same class of degree at graduation, but who joined the federal service after their NYSC are now in the civil service? Are they motivated enough to show their full potential for the service? The truth is, just like some of these political office holders, those of us who joined the service midstream (Transferees) have been more fortunate in placement and career advancement, and with greater opportunity to attain the pinnacle of their career that those who from graduation made the civil service their career. The million-dollar question then is: What is in the mainstream civil service that kills initiative and frustrates talent. That is the main challenge before the Bureau of Public Service Reforms; and I am determined to provide the leadership to face it, fish it out and remove it from the federal service so that initiatives can blossom and talents flourish, and the service can truly stand out to work for the people”.

The Tenure Policy that I was privileged to advocate and got the support of Steve Oronsaye to elevate to get presidential accent, went a great deal to remove stagnation, boost morale and, ultimately, it broke the web of the civil service God father dynasty. Unfortunately, that Civil Service web/dynasty that I thought tenure had dismantled may have been carefully reintroduced with the way appointments into Perm Sec positions have been made in the last fifteen years. Certainly, one of the key issues plaguing the Nigerian civil service and responsible for its ineffectiveness is Leadership. Like begets likes. Ineffective leadership breeds ineffective bureaucracy.

When I retired 15 years ago, there were several officers that I knew service-wide, including especially those that I worked with who at the time were on GL 15-16, that I was sure would make it to the Perm Sec grade. In the list were Kola Oluwatuyi, Babajide Olowodola, Morayo Alimi, Tunji Olaopa, Tijjani Umar, Anthonia Ekpa, Victor Mayomi, David Gende, Kehinde Adeyemi, Silas P. Ayuba, Chike Ogbechie, Yinka Olanipekun, Dr. John Olusola Magbadelo, and Mrs. Grace A. Ibrahim. Except for one, all were from the Administrative Officers’ cadre. They were highly dedicated, hardworking, and patriotic officers. All of them are now retired. Some of them had multiple commendations. Indeed, two of them had won the Presidential Award for Public Service Excellence. Only 3, namely: Tunji Olaopa, Tijjani Umar and Anthonia Ekpa made it to become Perm Sec. As it turned out, Tunji was the luckiest, being the fastest. He was the one the system invested in the most, who also reciprocally invested in himself. By the FCSC career progression charting of 3 years maturity for advancement between GL 08 and 14 and 4 years from GL 14-17, an officer is expected to attain the rank of Director GL 17 after spending 27 years. This leaves only 8 years to reach 35 years of service, and it is the basis of the 8-year rule in the Tenure Policy. Tunji was able to make it to Perm Sec in 25 years post NYSC. Tijjani did in 29 years. If he had condoned the 4 years he spent after graduation in Bauchi State, that would have been 33 years. Ekpa did it in 32 years. Both Tijjani and Anthonia could not help remarking their disappointment at how the system failed some of these their colleagues, notably David Gende.

As case studies using three officers, I have chosen in this book to dig deep into how excellent officers didn’t make it while examining the quality of those who were appointed in their stead. I can attest that some of them, if the system had given them the opportunity of becoming Perm Secs, would have done better than some of those who occupied the office of the HCSF in the last 10 years! They are the majority among those serving as members of the Planning Committee of this Public Presentation. The efficiency with which they performed the roles assigned or self-adopted by them brought back to my memories a nostalgia of my days with them in service.

Chairman, the Chief Guest of Honour, please permit me to invite, from the list that I read out earlier the remaining officers who didn’t make it to the perm sec grade to join me on this podium in celebration of excellence! Kola Oluwatuyi, Babajide Olowodola, Morayo Alimi, Victor Mayomi, David Gende, Kehinde Adeyemi, Silas P. Ayuba, Chike Ogbechie, Yinka Olanipekun, Dr. John Olusola Magbadelo, and Mrs. Grace A. Ibrahim. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, these are the faces of Excellence and Integrity that some leadership in the civil service failed to harness for the good of our nation!

But the challenge to uphold excellence in these appointments amidst pressures of patronage, political connections, and alleged inducements, compounded by ethnic, religious, professional, and personal biases, persists still. Victor Mayomi my former Technical Assistant at the BPSR, with eagle eyes for reform issues and an officer who retired as Director at the Ministry of Defence, brought to my attention the case of an effective officer in the system who has not been able to make it in the recent promotion exercise of the FCSC. I told him to give me a brief on the officer, and here is what he wrote:

“Undeniably, Blessing Alakpa Akpotu is one of the finest minds in the Federal Civil Service. A Bachelor’s degree holder in 1990 and an MBA holder in 2017, he is a fellow of the National Defence College (FDC) and a Member of the Nigerian Institute of Management. Currently a Deputy Director, in the Ministry of Defence, Blessing Akpotu should have advanced higher on the career ladder if the Federal Civil Service had been merit-driven and instituted the right mechanisms for ensuring that its top hierarchy was manned by its most ethical, knowledgeable, talented, innovative, competent and enterprising officers.

Akpotu was employed as an Administrative officer, SGL 08 in 1992. He was confirmed in 1994 but was only promoted to the next rank of administrative officer I (SGL 09) in 2002 after 10 years of stagnation for inexplicable reasons. This injustice and sheer abnormality, especially at the point of entry, was not corrected despite several pleas he made to the relevant authorities to remedy it. The consequence was that he was disadvantaged from the outset in terms of career progression, culminating in his supersession by his colleagues, and juniors who were far below him in terms of visioning, focus, depth, commitment, enterprise and capacity for delivering on goals, targets and milestones. Akpotu was further bruised when he was promoted to the post of Deputy Director in 2020 after he had missed his much-deserved elevation in 2019. Sadly, he was also not promoted to the post of Director in the recently concluded 2024 promotion exercise despite his sterling qualities as an exceptional officer of uncommon pedigree.”.

I decided to bring up the case of the officer here to catch the attention of the current HCSF, Didi Esther Walson Jack, who is showing every sign of wanting to make a difference, in the hope that she will bring it to the attention of the FCSC led by Prof Tunji Olaopa who, as a reformer, I am counting upon to use it as a case study of the FCSC mode of assessing officers for promotion to higher grades that seems incapable of arresting how effective officers are left behind. I am sure that the Chairman understand what I am driving at because, even he with all the recognition of his brilliance, was said to have failed the FCSC exam to the grade of Director GL 17 not less than two times.

I have spent the last 5 decades in the service of my fatherland Nigeria. Most importantly, in the last 35 years, from 1990 to date, working and later in retirement, I have been observing and analysing the federal bureaucracy, not as a paid consultant but out of love for my country as my patriotic duty. I have written extensively to advocate excellence and integrity in governance. The book that we are presenting to the public today narrates my story. I believe that the lessons, tips, and recommendations provided therein offer a pathway to enhancing leadership effectiveness in the Nigerian civil service.

But the challenges persist
How Can we Enthrone a Merit Driven public service when not just the body language but the open directives of our principals are driven by political patronage?
With Public sector corruption becoming the oxygen of politics in Nigeria, how can the civil servant be emboldened to stand up to uphold the public trust?

In the day-to-day operations of MDAs, the line between the political class and public servants has now become so blurred, and their cooperation so seamless, that it is often difficult to distinguish the initiators, aiders, executors, and beneficiaries of corruption. Ask any integrity driven Accounting Officer of an MDA—be it a Permanent Secretary or Chief Executive Officer—who is approaching retirement, what they look forward to the most. In nine out of ten cases, the response will be that their greatest relief is the prospect of being finally free from the so-called oversight of the numerous committees of the National Assembly (NASS).

It is up to the President to deploy the necessary political will to implement these recommendations. Afterall, in the words of Ladipo Adamolekun, Nigeria’s foremost Professor of Public Administration, former Dean of the Faculty of Administration at the Obafemi Awolowo University and a former Lead Public Sector Management Specialist at the World Bank, in his review of RGGN in 2015:

“In the final analysis, the onus for ensuring quality leadership of the civil service is on the president: just as a people gets the government it deserves, there is a real sense in which a president gets the civil service he deserves”.

In a democracy, state capture will always be the goal of political electioneering. To the populace, the distinction between the state and the executive is so blurred that they see the Head of the nation as embodying the State. That perception is not helped by his four titles of the President/Head of State/Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces/Chief Executive of the Federation, through which state organs are easily appropriated to sustain power. Arising therefrom, the civil service and judiciary have become the citizens’ last institutional defences to uphold public trust and protect national interest.

As career public servants, we must appreciate Public Service as a sacred duty, a moral obligation to serve the public good, and a commitment to uphold the interest of the citizens and the nation. Capacity, Competence and professionalism are needed. But, only until we can demonstrate the courage to make integrity a defining factor in the selection of leaders in the public service can we begin to see commitment to public service as a sacred duty.

It is my hope that the book that we are here to present to the nation today, Leadership in the Nigerian Public Service: Five Decades of Lessons in Performance, Encounters and Triumphs, will prick our conscience as a nation to enable our leaders at all levels of governance chart a new direction on the way forward.