Nigeria's Government Officials: Where Did They Go Wrong

A friend, a former civil servant, leveraged his experience in the federal civil service to explain the failure of governance in Nigeria. After observing that the worst of Nigerians usually ended up holding high political offices, he enumerated those who get appointed into the Nigerian civil service.

Many less qualified, or even unqualified, candidates joined the civil service, mainly because they are the children, relatives, concubines, acquaintances or wards of elected or appointed public officers or those connected to them.

They become the inept and corrupt bureaucrats who, in turn, coach elected or appointed public officials on how not to govern well, to steal and plunder the commonwealth while perpetuating themselves in power.

These unqualified entrants offer unintelligent counsel to the usually ignorant political appointees. Between these two groups of destiny wreckers, Nigeria reaps heaps of inappropriate policies that further sink the country into poor governance and slow economic growth.

Just take a good look at some of the harebrained economic and political policies of some state governors, and you get a drift of the dross that has overtaken Nigeria from the beginning of this beleaguered Fourth Republic.

Look at the litany of woeful choices made by the governments of clueless President Goodluck Jonathan and absentminded President Muhammadu Buhari, who looked the other way when his tribesmen went on a rampage throughout the country.

Then take a look at the inappropriate responses of the current government to help Nigerians cope with the (albeit necessary) economic policy choices it has made to address years of structural economic defects that have sent many Nigerians to the poor house.

But after his critique of the poor performance of Nigerian bureaucrats, this gentleman gave an explanation which favours the bureaucrats by drawing a nexus between their poor remuneration and the poor quality of the service they render to Nigerians.

He concluded that the disgraceful salaries and conditions of service of Nigeria’s civil servants will forever distract them, as they worry and focus on their financial inadequacies when compared with the high cost of living in Nigeria.

The Joint National Public Service Negotiating Council recently demanded for N154,000 minimum salary for officers on Grade Level 01 Step 01, automatic periodic review of salaries and allowances that reflect inflation, and implementation of non-monetary incentives, like subsidised transportation and affordable housing.

JNPSNC noted, “Despite their contribution, public service workers continue to face severe economic hardship due to the rising cost of living and the declining purchasing power of their earnings and are effectively living a ‘life of servitude’.”

The government is forever in breach of the cost-of-living adjustment mechanism, the statutory provision that requires the national minimum salary to be reviewed every three years upward, to reflect current realities of living.

When the military government of Major General Muhammadu Buhari introduced austerity measures in the mid-1980s, and the prices of everything went up, the prices of new saloon cars rose beyond N30,000, while the car loan offered to some levels of civil servants was a little above N4,000.

This suggests that workers were not expected to own cars, the car loans offered to them being only a token, a mirage, that was more of the appearance than of the reality of personals car that workers should aspire to own.

JNPSNC noted, “The last major adjustment (of N18,000 national minimum wage to N30,000 in 2019, and N70,000 in 2025) in workers’ remuneration have not sufficiently kept pace with the current economic realities.

“Many workers are now struggling to meet basic financial obligations, which has inevitably affected the morale, motivation and overall productivity within the public service… An upward review of workers’ salaries and allowances is a desideratum.”

The organisation notes that despite the depreciation of the naira, after the recent removal of subsidy from petrol, electricity and foreign exchange, there has been no commensurate increase in the remuneration of those who serve the nation.

Even the recent reluctant increase in the remuneration of university lecturers cannot really be said to be appreciable. These increments are not on the same seismic scale as the high cost that trailed the removal of subsidies.

When you pay peanuts, you attract monkeys, and when you come cheap, you get what you pay for. But when you are economical with the use of your resources, you get your money’s worth, or good value for your money. These aphorisms are self-explanatory. But further elaboration on this obvious reality is as follows.

When you pay low wages that are not commensurate with the output in an industry, the more intelligent talents in that industry move on to more lucrative sectors. One good job deserves good remuneration. You cannot blame anyone, with ambition and responsibilities, who follows the money.

Anyone who thinks that Nigerian medical doctors and nurses who move away to other countries are not patriotic needs to be educated about patriotism. It is not patriotic to take low pay home to one’s family and dependents.

Before now, the likes of Simeon Adebo, Teju Alakija, Jerome Udoji, Abdul Attah, Ahmed Joda, Philip Asiodu, and Allison Ayida served First Republic politicians and the first set of military rulers with brilliance and decency.

They carried themselves with decency, not in the indecorous manner of their successors, and served Nigeria with their best. If there were any one of them that wasn’t too competent, or was corrupt, they were few and far between.

If you met bureaucrats working in the foreign ministry or the Federal Ministry of Finance of those days, you knew that you were truly in the presence of men with presence, culture and raw brilliance. They were the elite corps of the civil service.

But somehow, the worst of Nigerians are showing up at the executive suites of Nigeria’s bureaucracy. And they come with a huge sense of entitlement and an open display of intent to rip off the commonwealth of the nation.

If Nigeria decides to pay its workers well, it will be saved from the tyranny of incompetents. It takes good and very competent men to run a system. Iran, which is standing up stoutly against the onslaught of the combined military arsenal of America and Israel, depends on a crop of articulate technocrats as bureaucrats. And by their fruits you can know them.

Joseph Kent, who recently resigned as a director in America’s counterinsurgency agency, to protest America’s involvement in the new Middle East War, gave a heartening testimony about the competence of those who run, or steer, Iran to stand up to America and Israel, the two bullies who are currently running amok in the Middle East.

Kent said, “Most of the people that are… running Iran… are doctors, (another word for PhDs). They are university professors. They are science people. Most of the people in government are no different from (United States of America) leaders. Well, actually, they are better. I don’t think they take money for their jobs, like ours.”

This may be Kent’s way of railing against the bunch of incompetent American public servants working with a confused President Donald Trump, who is deploying America’s war arsenal in a perfidious, unjust and unnecessary war.

Kent should note that Nigeria also has unintelligent and corrupt bureaucrats, who aren’t able to offer good counsel to save their lives.

X:@lekansote1, lekansote.com