In a paper yours sincerely delivered at a symposium by the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries, (CORFEPS) to mark its maiden Annual Week held in Abuja last week, (March 5-7, 2024) I released some facts from my reporter’s notebook of 36 years.

The symposium attended by retired federal Permanent Secretaries including His Majesty Oba Samuel Oluyemi Falae, The Olu of Ilu-Abo and Baba Oba of Akure Kingdom, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, Mrs Ebele Okeke, Mrs Ama Pepple, Dr. Bukar Usman, Ambassaodor Joe Keshi, Mr Danladi Kifasi, Dr. Goke Adegoroye, Chief Akin Arikawe, among others, revealed a great deal of crisis of coherence within the presidential bureaucracy. For instance, the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan who was to declare the conference open on behalf President Ahmed Bola Tinubu failed to turn up. She also failed to authorise serving Permanent Secretaries and Directors who were to be the major beneficiaries of the remarkable “reflections on the Nigerian public service: the way forward for good governance”. The founding Chairman of CORFEPS, Dr Philip C. Asiodu who just clocked 90, was celebrated by CORFEPS at the opening ceremony.

There will be more details on the very newsworthy absence of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation who could be accused of ‘insubordination’, after all. Below are excerpts from my reflections as an outsider, which the veteran civil servants enjoyed.
Opening remarks

I would like to thank the leadership of the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) for the invitation to speak here. It is an honour and privilege I won’t forget or take for granted. I know the influence of this remarkable body as I have covered the public service for more than three and half decades. Some of the officers I met as a journalist in Lagos and Abuja in the past thirty-six years have retired as permanent secretaries. The current Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Professor Tunji Olaopa is one of them. I met him in Lagos in 1989 as a reputation manager in MAMSER at Thorburn Avenue, Sabo Yaba office of the organisation then. I was then the Bureau Chief of the premier newspaper in Abuja, Abuja Newsday set up in July 1988. That was the time Olaopa began writing articles copiously in the newspapers as a public affairs officer. He was quite prolific, writing on various issues in the news of MAMSER. I suspected then that his profound writings must have attracted leadership of the organisation then in the presidency. Before I arrived in Abuja in 1990 as Editor of the newspaper, Olaopa had been moved to Abuja where he rose through the ranks and retired as Permanent Secretary. He is now Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC).

In the course of this job as a public interest journalist, I met the legendary Dr. Yayale Ahmed at the Interior Ministry when I arrived in Abuja in 1990 as Editor of the premier newspaper there. I witnessed his work and rise from the directorate cadre, to Permanent Secretary, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Defence Minister, Secretary to the Government of the Federation and now (still covering him) as Chairman of CORFEPS.

Before Dr Ahmed became HCSF I had met and covered Dr. Ahmed’s predecessor in office, Chief James Abu Obe who was elevated as the first Head of the Civil Service of the Federation in the 4th Republic in 1999 under President Olusegun Obasanjo. Obe was elevated from his office as Permanent Secretary, Police Affairs, Ministry. I covered Engr Ebele Okeke as first female Head of the Civil Service of the Federation and first Nigerian female Civil Engineer, Mrs Amal Pepple as Permanent Secretary and Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. I covered and met Chief Steve Oronsaye (Mr. Tenure Policy) as a Director in Finance Ministry, Principal Secretary and Permanent Secretary, State House and as Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. I was there and covered the complexity of the tenure policy under Mr. Oronsaye. I followed the same Oronsaye diligently when his committee was making the famous Oronsaye Committee Report, reputed to have attracted the highest number of unimplemented White Papers in our history. I met and covered Dr Hakeem Baba Ahmed even as Secretary to INEC, covered him as Permanent Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Works and even in the Office of SGF.

I also met other notables such as Professor Afolabi as Permanent Secretary and Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, and Danladi Kifasi too as Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. I won’t forget to mention that I met other great members of this Elite club who are respected diplomats including Ambassador Ignatius Olisemeka who invited me for his 80th birthday about 12 years ago. Ambassador Olisemeka used to call me regularly after reading my column. I also met and covered Ambassador Joe Keshi from the time he was coordinating the Diaspora Affairs in the SGF’s office so many years ago.

What is more, I covered very effectively the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation even from the military government days. I covered the office before Aliyu Mohammed occupied the office in Abuja. Even when Alhaji Gidado Idris received a copy of the 1999 draft Constitution from the late Justice Niki Tobi’s review Committee before it was decreed into law, I was there at the Federal Secretariat. I had in my diary at that time when the then president-elect, General Olusegun Obasanjo had the opportunity to take a look at the 1999 draft constitution to see areas he could amend as the leader who would operate it. The then transition SGF, Gidado Idris offered him the window, but instead of taking that advantage, he requested for a jet from the presidential fleet to travel abroad to inform his friends in Germany, France and the United States that he was returning to power on May 29, 1999.

Before that was Alhaji Aminu Saleh even the late General Oladipo Diya as Chief Of General Staff to the late General Sani Abacha would not forget even in his grave.

I was covering the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation when Obong Joseph Ekaette, a former federal Permanent Secretary, was appointed as the SGF and was there throughout the Obasanjo administration. It was from there Dr. Goke Adegoroye who was Director and Head Think Tank to the SGF, spotted me but never followed me, although I had followed him as Acting Director General of the then FEPA while I was Bureau Chief in Lagos.

I was on site when the same Dr. Adegoroye was appointed pioneer DG, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, (BPSR) on the watch of Alhaji Yayale Ahmed as Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. I was covering the office when he (Adegoroye) was appointed Permanent Secretary. I was pleasantly surprised when the very meticulous Dr Adegoroye requested me to write the Afterword for his first book he publicly presented the day he retired in 2010. I wrote the Afterword for his second in 2015. Besides, I covered the inauguration of the BPSR office then at Justice Mamman Nasir Crescent, Asokoro, Abuja.

It was the great expectation that “a man you can trust” Obasanjo was returning to office that made the media to scramble for me to head their Abuja bureau because of my background as the “Mayor of Abuja”. I got five offers to be their Abuja Editor then since I lost my editorship of the premier newspaper in Abuja to the June 12, 1993 crisis because the IBB junta closed down the newspaper for publishing some allegedly controversial stories and strange developments that IBB and Abiola were hiding then: Specifically, one day, amidst the June 12 crisis, in fact while the then SDP stalwarts were meeting in Benin over the June 12 debacle and how to reclaim of “Hope ‘93”, Abuja Newsday on my watch as Editor, disclosed that Chief Abiola with his wife Kudirat Abiola and son Kola, flew in to Abuja to see the embattled IBB who had annulled the election result. We published the unthinkable: ‘IBB, Abiola in Secret Meeting”. Shortly after that, the newspaper published another world-class scoop: ‘IBB’s Daughter, Abiola’s Son in Hot Romance” while the June-12 crisis their parents touched off was raging in the country.

Before that time, we had published a federal character story I had personally reported as Editor: IBB who moved into Abuja on December 12, 1991, had in February 1993, set up an 11-man presidential panel to look into the Future Administration (status) for Abuja.

The 11 man Panel was headed by Justice Mamman Nasir then President of Court of Appeal (from Katsina State) and a senior director in MFCT/FCDA then Abdullahi Umar, (Kano State) as Secretary of the Panel. The Panel’s Secretary is today known as Dr Umar Abdullahi Ganduje, former Governor of Kano State and now Chairman of the governing party, APC.

The newspaper’s offensive story line then had questioned why the 11-Man Panel had two core northerners as chairman and secretary and only two southerners from the East and West, Justices Paul Nwokedi and A.F.D Kuti as the only members none of whom could be secretary or chairman. Immediately the newspaper hit the street that Wednesday, the FCT Command of the State Security Services headed by the then Director Afakriya Gadzama arrested me (the writer and editor of the story). I was arrested from our office then at Fortlamy Street, Wuse Zone 6, Abuja. Recall that, that same Gadzama later rose through the ranks to be the Director of Intelligence, Director of Operations and Director in Kaduna SSS, before the Yar’Adua administration appointed him DG, SSS to succeed Obasanjo’ administration’s Col Kayode Areh. I followed and covered all these people, among others. There are others I have followed for more than 36 years now in Lagos and Abuja.

Lest I forget, I was also involved in covering the bureaucracy of this our National Assembly even before inauguration in June 1999. I had met Alhaji Ibrahim Salim at the International Conference Centre where the National Assembly Liaison Office relocated to, (from Wuse Zone 1, Abuja in 1997/1998 when I was Abuja Editor of The Source news-magazine. I wrote the first news cover of the magazine published by Ms Comfort Obi. The first cover was on Probing Abuja. I wrote the Cover as Senior Associate Editor and won the Nigerian Media Merit Award (NMMA) 1997/8- 1998/1999, respectively: two awards back to back with cover on Abuja…
To be continued…