To therefore be fully optimal in its commitment to the optimisation of human resource management of the civil service system, the FCSC needs the assistance and support of NAPAM and partnership with other key players in the community of practice. Whether we like it or not, the gatekeeping imperative in the civil service system is too significant to be left to the FCSC all alone. It demands all hands to be deck in the collective need to facilitate the emergence of a vocation of public service.
Indeed, the FCSC itself requires the optimal operations of the professional bodies like NAPAM and other stakeholders to be able to articulate the merit metric that is required to make the civil service system a meritocratic one that effectively and efficiently achieve service delivery to Nigerians.
The vocational status of the civil service system in Nigeria for instance requires rethinking in terms of what it means for an average public servant to be public-spirited and professional—what it means, in other words, to genuinely serve the public, rather than one’s own immediate gratification or livelihood.
The professional administrative bodies therefore complement the Heads of Services, the Civil Service Commissions in terms of providing the structural, institutional and procedural dynamics—platform for sharing and learning through learning events, publications, research and advocacy; keeping the body of knowledge of the profession in the cutting edge, enforcing professional ethics, standards and codes of ethics and practice, etc.—that could determine the emergence of a meritocratic, effective and efficient institution that Nigeria’s democratic experiment needs.
This is where the various communities of practice—Centre Africaine de Formation et de Recherché Administrative Pour le Development (CAFRAD), the now defunct Commonwealth Associations for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM), African Associations for Public Administration and Management (AAPAM), the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), International Institute of Administrative Science (IIAS), and so on—constituted the comparative frameworks and platforms for disseminating and refracting global best practices that would assist Nigeria in coming to term with its governance imperative.
Interestingly, this is also the juncture for measuring the significance and continuing relevance of national bodies like the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) becomes poignant. This is a body that embodies administrative experiences, institutional memories and professional knowledge that could pull a lot of political and administrative weight within the reform imperative to transform the civil service and its ecosystem. As a multidisciplinary body of retired public servants with vast knowledge of the workings of the system, CORFEPS,if networked with States’ professional bodies for retired Heads of Service and permanent secretaries, possesses a huge significance in connecting the institutional and reform dots in terms of where the civil service system is coming from, where it is at the moment and where it intends to be, given the democratic imperatives and development necessities of the current Tinubu administration.
Unfortunately, NAPAM—the critical stakeholder that ought to be at the critical core of the community of practice and service in Nigeria’s administrative ecosystem—is comatose. And yet, its effective presence is required if the civil service must enjoy a full complement of institutional support. What is to be done then? NAPAM requires an urgent institutional reawakeningthat is backed by total commitment and the administrative will from all stakeholders.
A summit of some core champions among theactive and concerned stakeholders is needed to articulate a concept note that will determine the next step to take in terms of a) reestablishing its relevance within the structural and institutional reform of the civil service, b) the technical support that is needed to resuscitate it, and c) the constitution of its secretariat and constitution. NAPAM will require, for instance, a competent public sector specialist to act as the head of its secretariat, an interim executive committee to oversee its structural renewal, and the commencement of a membership drive to stimulate awareness.
There will also be the necessity of launching some flagship programmes that will bring the professional body back into reckoning within the Nigerian administrative ecosystems in terms of initiatives that connect it back to the critical issues on ground regarding the efficiency of the Nigerian civil service system as a vocational professional tasked with the responsibility of making the lives of Nigerians worth living.
I dare say that the responsibility for making this framework of resuscitation work lies between CORFEPS, States’ associations for retired Heads of Service and permanent secretaries, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and of States, the Federal and States’ Civil Service Commission, some departments of public administration in our universities and concerned stakeholder.
Between these institutional platforms, bodies and associations, NAPAM stands a chance of resuming its professional mandate as a gatekeeper of the community of practice in Nigeria in the very nearest future and now.
Concluded.
Prof. Olaopa is Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission. He wrote from Abuja.
