On returnee civil servants

There is a need to return to the rules and regulations that barred civil servants from partisan politics in the First Republic. It was these and other terms that ensured the independence of the civil service and impartiality in the conduct of government affairs. The top echelon was able to tell truth to power. Comments […]

There is a need to return to the rules and regulations that barred civil servants from partisan politics in the First Republic. It was these and other terms that ensured the independence of the civil service and impartiality in the conduct of government affairs. The top echelon was able to tell truth to power.

Comments in favour of the active participation of civil servants in politics and membership of political parties draw legitimacy from the various rulings of the Supreme Court whose foundation is “the freedom association” provision of the Constitution and its derivatives. It’s my firm belief that this freedom should be qualified to exclude civil servants from membership of political parties and partisan politics. That provision has seen the desecration of civil service ethos, such that in many states civil servants are denied promotion and even salaries because they are perceived to be members of the opposition party. It’s a matter of bewilderment that a civil servant of the rank of Permanent Secretary or Director could “resign” from service to contest an elective political post only to confidently return to his juicy seat having failed in his ambition; a classic case of head I win, tail you lose.

The civil service has become an institution of “anything goes” especially in the last two decades. The country’s drift towards disintegration  – after the military had done its worst in 1966 – was halted by a civil service led by technocrats who were free from partisanship. The civil service must be returned to its apolitical state to provide safeguards against the country’s unstable politics.

M. T. Usman can be reached at:[email protected]