Let me start by felicitating with Governor Oyebanji on the occasion of his second anniversary as the chief executive of this great state. I know it is very tough being the governor and pacemaker in a state as sophisticated as Ekiti. I should know this because I have been a friend of the state for a prolonged while, especially in terms of my institutional reform advocacy.
However, in two years of his stewardship, the indefatigable governor has kept up the optimism of the electorate that elected him through a consistent record of good governance. To organize a seminar like this for one’s own self-assessment speaks to three critical issues. One, it derives from a courageous sense of achievements. Two, it speaks to a willingness to learn from one’s omissions and commissions in order to be able to keep growing. And three, events like this signals a vibrant concession to doing more in governance terms.
This is why, in my reform advocacy framework, events like this are key to measuring the determination of institutional reformers, from a permanent secretary to a head of service to the governor of a state; to move institutions forward into positions of transforming policies into dividends of democratic governance for the Nigerian citizens. I am hopeful that the discourse here today will constitute another moment for governance and development progress in a state that has come a long way since its creation.
In this opening remark, I will like to set the tone by articulating my sense of the practical import of the notion of public service efficiency, against the background of what I have been calling bureau-pathology in the public service system in Nigeria. I hope that I will be able to connect this brief reflection to the significance of the concept of sustainable development in the march of Ekiti State under the incumbent governor and his formidable policies.
Ekiti State has come a long way in a short time. From 1996 till today, it has been twenty-eight solid years of consistently trying to make the state a corridor of good governance within a larger region that is trying to become the region to watch out for in transforming the performance scorecard of governance in Nigeria. Without turning this brief address into an entire development history of Ekiti State, permit me to just highlight some brief items in the development and governance trajectories of Governor Oyebanji. The government of Ekiti has a 5-point development agenda consisting of governance, job creation, human capital development, agriculture and rural development, and infrastructure and industrialization. These are key issues that any state that wants to shoulder the burden of development in Nigeria must pay adequate attention to. However, vision and visioneering are as strong as the strategies that bring the vision to tangible realities. And this is where the governance strength of the governor lies.
Governor Oyebanji is a quiet and determined achiever. His loquaciousness is not found on social media or on national news. It is situated poignantly within the joy of good governance that resonates in the lives of Ekiti people. When a governor makes it one fundamental policy block of his administration to invest in agriculture so that there would be enough food to feed Ekiti people and as comparative advantage and source of revenue, then we should take such a governor seriously. And when the governor highlights Awolowo’s farm settlement strategy as the method by which he wants to bring the governance objective to pass, then we know that he has the facts of history and the confidence of development assurance behind him. The investment in the abundant energies of the Ekiti youths to resuscitate the significance of agriculture and agribusiness is a smart and sustainable governance move. Given his promise to focus the Ekiti State fiscal policy next year on agriculture and welfare, the governor’s policy commitment to food security has already placed him and the Ekiti government in line for the achievement of seven sustainable development goals—(1) No poverty, (2) Zero hunger, (3) Good health and well-being, (8) Decent work and economic growth, (9) Industry, innovation and infrastructure, (12) Responsible consumption and production, and (17) Partnerships for the goals. And we have not even began to outline the significant infrastructural pedestals that the Governor has placed Ekiti state. The reformer in me deeply appreciates the critical strides that the governor has initiated in articulating the pension reform and the land administration policy.
Focusing this seminar on public service efficiency implies the governor and the Ekiti State government’s desire to unravel the binding constraints that limit the performance of the Ekiti State public service in delivering on the well-meaning policy intentions of the government. That in itself is a commendable effort. And I am very certain that the next two years will see the formulation of reform policies that will make the public service more performance grounded and productive in democratic and developmental service delivery for overall benefit of the Ekiti people.
Public service efficiency as a theme for this anniversary, is a smart choice because it speaks to the urgency, in government business and operations, of improving the quality of service delivery while significantly reducing the cost of running government. However, as many are aware, the cost of governance is a crucial issue even at the federal level and for the Nigerian government. And we do not have to look too far for the source of the bloating of the cost of doing government business. It lies, in one breath, in the whole ensemble of governance architecture of the Nigerian brand of federalism, electoral process, the presidential system and the politics that the Nigerian elites play with the development future of the great nation. And in the other, in the collapse of the internal administrative mechanisms of the public administration system: the systematic planning for short and long-term needs; forecasting of retirement; attrition rates; anticipated vacancies founded on periodic functional reviews―to determine changes in tasks as a result of government’s new policy targets and programme emphases— structural changes and quantum of workload incidental; basic restructuring undertaken due to privatization of government concerns; outsourcing practices as we witnessed with the compromised monetization policy for example; periodic personnel and process audits; review of the scheme of service; abolition of vacant posts; control of the creation of new post, units, departments and agencies; accounting for voluntary retirements, retrenchments, and staff reduction due to process reengineering; automation and system changes; adversarial nature and consequences of industrial relations practices on the macroeconomy; etc.
Unfortunately, cost keeps skyrocketing while efficiency was plummeting. This is due significantly to duplicated agencies and manager functions, complex and non-value adding business processes, the continuance of manual processes that could easily have been automated, in-house activities that could have delivered less cost if outsourced, resource use inefficiencies arising from procurement, creation of ad hoc structures and units of government business parallel to the existing bureaucratic structures, and lots more. And so, on a collective basis, we are forced to deal with the dead weights of the terrible waste management culture, the resource curse, the poor assets or facilities and poor maintenance cultures. And everything culminates in bad governance. And even when we get good people in governance, the negative weight around the neck of the system swallows up every policy option.
The traditional resolution of the numerous challenges of public service efficiency, especially the matter of public expenditure, has always been around expenditure reviews, audit functions, media scrutiny of public expenditures, and most significantly the legislative oversight mostly through the roles of the public account committee. The federal government even has an efficiency unit in place in the federal ministry of finance to combat the cost of governance. This is the way to go—making the public service the focal point of efficiency-rooted institutional reforms that is processed through standardization, innovative modernizing of structures and the pooling of resources. The public service system is the engine room of government’s efficiency, and hence becomes critical in the bid for good governance that will transform the lives and well-being of the citizens.
The key drivers of public service efficiency to then look out for are the following. One, there is a crucial need to deploy the force of political will power to enforce and institutionalize competency-based recruitment in the public service that will expedite the hiring of expert managers to reduce the dependence on consultants and consultancy services and the costs that accrues from it. Two, the need to reduce fraud and other fiscal and financial irregularities through efficient financial auditing. Three, the establishment of redeemable efficiency proxies as the basis for efficiency target setting in the MDAs through centralized reporting to monitor these proxies. Four, the need to co-locate responsibility in the MDAs for policy and operational teams, especially through innovations like shared services, one-stop-shops, etc. five, new technologies need to be leveraged to achieve service redesign that will enable self-service, joined-up governance, etc. And last but not the least, digitization becomes crucial, especially in substituting digital processes and solutions for manual ones.
To conclude: the Ekiti State government has made a very critical choice of theme for this seminar, and it serves a notice to the government itself—its political and bureaucratic leadership—that there is more to be done. It brings to mind Chief Simeon Adebo’s reaction to Chief Awolowo’s political slogan in the old western region. The Action Group operated on the slogan of “Life More Abundant” as the basis of its political manifesto. And Adebo translated the slogan into bureaucratic call-to-action as “Work More Abundantly” as a signal to the public servants that there is more to be done.
I am glad that the government has taken the bull by the horns already, and that the Ekiti people are about to witness more rounds of governance efficiency by a government that is ready to keep delivering the goods.
Originally titled, Ekiti State, public service efficiency and sustainable development, being speech by Olaopa, Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, as Chairman of the 2024 Ekiti State public service forum and award of excellence ceremony marking the 2nd anniversary of Governor Oyebanji, held at Lady Jibowu Hall, Government House, Ado Ekiti, on Monday, 14th of October, 2024.
Olaopa is a Professor of Public Administration, and Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja
