The focus of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) on enthroning meritocracy in the nation’s civil service is in sync with President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda, especially his desire to run a government of national competence, Prof. Tunji Olaopa has said.
 
Olaopa, who is the Chairman of the FCSC, spoke at the weekend at a meeting during the courtesy call by the leadership of the Alumni Association of Legislative Mentorship Initiative (LMI).
 
The executive of LMI was led by its President, Abubakar Tijjani-Garba, during a courtesy visit to Olaopa in his office in Abuja. The LMI is a fellowship founded by Femi Gbajabiamila, the 9th Speaker of the House of Representatives and the current Chief of Staff to the President.
 
According to Olaopa, the FCSC is being repositioned to restore the prime place of merit in career management in the civil service, through a concerted strategy for a structured and more systematic execution of the merit principle, and therewith, reprofile its application in the implementation of the federal character policy within the framework of an overarching strategy to restore competency-based operations and human resource management in the civil service.

To him, the overall objective of the quest for meritocracy is the recreation of the glorious days of the civil service of the 1960s and the 1970s and thereby transform the service into a world-class institution.
   
The professor of public administration said that even before he was appointed as the Chairman of the FCSC, he had been interested in the notion of a government of national competence as espoused by the President.
   
Thus, he is interested in creating an enabling climate within the space governed by the FCSC that will encourage more talented youths and high-end professionals to want to make a career in the public service. 
 
According to him, the FCSC is aware of the imperative to make the civil service attractive to the millennial generation and Gen Z.