A proposition, over the weekend, by a veteran bureaucrat, Dr. Goke Adegoroye, bordering on the civil service reforms trended. Adegoroye, a former Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) and the National Publicity Secretary of the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS), in an open letter to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was widely reported to have pointed out that the country’s civil service is weak and inefficient as a result of poor leadership and structural defects.
The report also stated that the former DG expressed concerns over absence of administrative and human resource competence and discipline in the civil service, and that unless a reform is urgently introduced, the decline in public service delivery will continue non-stop.
Adegoroye anchored his position on the upcoming retirement of the current Head of Service of the Federation (HCSF), Dame Walson-Jack, which August 27, 2026, saying that the issue of appointing her successor has raised concerns about the leadership of the country’s bureaucracy, efficiency, and discipline, as well as the overall performance in terms of service delivery.
His major grouse is that for a long time now, succeeding governments have established a sort of tradition by elevating serving permanent secretaries to the position of the HCSF and other positions from professional cadres ahead of career administrators. This, according to him, is the quandary that brings the perennial setback for the civil service.
He agreed that while the Constitution empowers Mr. President to appoint any serving permanent secretary of his choice as the HCSF, such appointments had not produced any expected vision and policy performance or delivery, or the general well-being of the service. He, therefore, emphasised the need to prioritise competence, discipline, and capacity over seniority.
The HCSF, according to him, entails a broad experience in administration and human resources management. He said, “The OHCSF requires capacity and capability to execute its mandate driven only by national interest, devoid of personal interest. But constitutional and structural limitations demand a new approach. That is why I have consistently called for a Federal Public Service Council and the appointment of a Minister of Public Service.”
He lamented that, “Even the National Strategy for Public Service Reforms, which was developed with World Bank support and led by Professor Ladipo Adamolekun, recommended the appointment of a Special Adviser on Governance and Institutional Reforms. Fourteen years after the adoption of that strategy, no administration has considered it fitting to experiment with that recommendation. Compare that with the number of presidential advisers on Information.”
Ordinarily, Adegoroye’s observations and recommendations look good on paper; after all, that is what is expected of statesmen like him. However, it is rather surprising for a man of such stature with insider knowledge of the system and how it works to make such simplistic suggestions, thereby further introducing a needless debate on the competencies between ‘professionalism’ and ‘careerism’ in the civil service administration in the age of Artificial Intelligence.
Adegoroye holds a Ph.D in Eco-Physiology from the University of British Columbia. He was a lecturer, a corporate player-turned civil servant and retired as a permanent secretary of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA). In all his years in the service, he held different sensitive positions across the Ministries of Education, Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, and Interior before his retirement in 2010.
But it is important to point out some salient issues to Adegoroye. For instance, in the past four years, none of the best performing permanent secretaries have emerged from the core administrators that he has promoted in his view. This performance is measured against exposure to same selection processes for both professional and administrative officers and yet the outcome based on merits showed better performance by the professionals. It’s also important to draw Adegoroye’S attention that Human Resources Management is beyond a degree in business/public administration but encompasses human management and emotional intelligence
Over the years, there has been overwhelming evidence showing that civil servants from different backgrounds, other than the core administrators, have brought the ethical discipline associated with their professions to bear in service delivery ahead of many of the so-called career administrators. This is a verifiable fact.
It is on record that several senior officers with engineering backgrounds, for instance, who have the privilege to serve as permanent secretaries have, through the Protocol and Standard of Engineering, ensured that the government’s objectives of realising policies and programmes for service delivery are achieved at any given time.
Also, those with medical backgrounds have brought their clinical experiences into human management, ensuring that mandates are kept and people are attended to whether they know those in positions or not. Medical professionals and other professions also hold administrative posts even in their places of first calling.
Jettisoning seniority in the appointment of permanent secretary into the office of the HCSF will not serve the best interest of the nation, but just the interests of a few individuals who are bent on short-changing the nation in a digital and dynamic era where experience is needed to guide a bend-back syndrome.
At this juncture, it is imperative to ask Adegoroye, as a former DG of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, what reforms he brought into the civil service to reflect his current views. If he wages his sojourn in the civil service, travelling through different ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), where does he sit between professionalism and careerism?
There is a need to emphasise on this point because, what the retired PS has done is to diminish the huge contributions of the ‘professionals’ who were elevated to the positions of HCSF, PS, directors and other key positions in the civil service. He also seems to have forgotten the fact that there have been serious cases of underperformances, inefficiencies, and leadership weaknesses in the civil service prior to the reforms instituted by the last three heads of service.
The Federal civil service strategic implementation plan(2017 – 2020 & 2021 – 2025) which started since 2016 and ongoing is positioning the federal civil service with global best practice with introduction of performance management systems(PMS) , digitisation and enterprise content management(ECMS). PMS clearly spells out the key result areas and key performance indicators in alignment withthe Government priority areas, ministerial mandates and services wide mandates of the OHCSF thereby driving the national development plan of the country. The ECMS has eradicated the era of missing files as most files have been digitised and services delivered more efficiently with huge savings on papers and printing materials as MDAs provide faster electronic service delivery.
The IPPIS – human resource module allows for most HR functions to be performed online. The current personnel audit and skill gap analysis project that was approved by the FEC is the first in the civil service and came out of the need to reposition the civil service in appropriate capacity building to meet the civil service of today.
Is Dr Adegoroye really abreast of the happenings in today’s civil service? Is he also aware of the use of AI tools and the service wise ChatGPT in the federal civil service and global collaboration of Nigeria civil service with the UK & Singapore civil service to the extent that Nigeria civil service has hosted two international civil service conferences and becoming a place where African countries are already visiting for study tour and peer reviews?
Come to think of it: are we now saying that there are no ‘professionals’ with equally administrative competence, discipline, experience and capacity? The political will as pointed out by Adegoroye is quite correct. For appointive positions, discretions and judgements rest solely in the hands of the president in this context.
This pattern of argument is not new either. There have been debates in this country that only professionals should be appointed to head ministries and agencies of the government. But we have seen in this country where non-professional appointees performed better in office than the so-called professionals appointed as ministers and heads of MDAs.
In the appointments of his ministers, only a few professionals such as the Minister of Justice, Minister of Information, Minister of Works, Minister of Health, etc, were appointed by the president. Did the wonder FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, need to possess a Ph.D in administering a federal capital before he performs what he does best – making all of FCT residents happy with his breath-taking infrastructure revolution?
Does that mean that if appointed today as the Minister of Agriculture or Education, Adegoroye can’t perform well, with all his public service experience as an administrative colossus, simply because he was not trained as an educationist or agriculturist?
Let’s hit the nail on the head straight. If any system such as the civil service wants to function well and deliver on its core mandate, it will amount to self deception and day-dreaming to think or conclude that only career administrators will make it more efficient, disciplined and corruption-free. A system is first and foremost built on structures, and in many instances, while the law may spell out eligibility, competence and capacity not recognised by ‘eligibility’ may be more efficient than the prescription.
What Adegoroye stated in a chat with newsmen before the presentation of his book is the absolute fact: “If we can uphold integrity, transparency, and equity in appointment, discipline, training, and promotion, we would have solved 80 per cent of the problems of the civil service.” It is not about ‘professionals’ and ‘career administrator’ debates.
Any permanent secretary, who satisfies constitutional and civil service provisions, and who has a vision, courage, and is patriotic, can lead the civil service to its zenith of efficiency, discipline, and service delivery no matter their core discipline.
Ukanyi, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja