PUBLIC SERVICE CAPACITY BUILDING FOR AFRICAN RENAISSANCE: Lecture delivered to mark the Nigerian Civil Service Day in Delta State at the Unity, Government House, Asaba on Monday July 5, 2004 by Prof. B. L C. Ijomah Professor of Sociology

INTRODUCTION; Public Service has been defined as the. "action centre of government"; it is the instument through which the objectives and goals of governments are achieved. Public Service also initiates policies, formulates policies, advises on policies and also implements policies. Public Service serves as a network, co-ordinating all the activities of all departments of government. Consequently it becomes subject to the fate of every government in power. Every government has its own philosophy of governance and so introduces policies that drastically alters the status quo.

At Independence, Nigeria inherited the colonial Public Service designed to produce bureaucrats that would serve the needs of the mercantilist interest, and run the colonies for Britain. Those produced include Clerks, Secretaries and Administrators who fitted into posts designed for them by the colonial masters. There was no nepotism or tribalism.

Indeed as Bala Takaya put it,

The colonial public service was basically a rational instrument designed to facilitate political control and effective exploitation of the economies of the administered territories in the interest of the imperial power.

When we accepted independence, we accepted it with all the trappings of administrators and a public service making a transition from colonial dictatorship to civilian incompetence. Nigerian Public Servants were becoming fully conscious of Sir F. Lugard's prejudice that "the African Negro lacks power of organisation and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men and business". The colonial Public Service saw Africans playing subservient and dependent roles inspite of individual qualifications. At independence the Public Servants assumed responsibilities in spite of Lord Lugard' s prejudices. The politicians saw themselves as heirs to the colonial masters. They had no adequate apprenticeship. They were pre-occupied with enjoyment of their new status. There was subtle struggle to take over the houses occupied by the white colonial masters. The Permanent Secretaries basked in the euphoria that they would be more permanent than the white civil servants. They pushed files in the traditional system to get things done. But the subsequent Public Service needed more than file pushing. Time was never the same.

The politicians suddenly realised that they had to win the next elections, that they needed people from their areas to ensure confidentiality. Nepotism which was unknown during the colonial period became a salient yardstick for employment. Qualifications became watered down by another cliche, "IM" - Ima Mmadu. This IM has influenced employment, postings and promotions in the First Republic. After the First Republic, examinations became cosmetic as many other factors came into play. The intrusion of mediocrity into the system bequeathed to us by the colonial bureaucracy was made worse by the military, many of whom did not have the requisite qualifications for the positions they occupied. When a Mechanic in military uniform was made a governor, what would he know about bureaucracy. Yet, without bureaucracy, the efficiency of the Public Service would be merely putative and un-achievable.

My interpretation of the topic of this lecture is that the Public Service is in search of capacity building capability in order to fit into the expectant African Renaissance. Simply put, we are asking how the Public Service can make the necessary transition from what we have now to the Weberian rational legal model of authority which is what obtains in the Public Service of advanced Western societies. We must therefore try to understand the nature of Nigeria's Public Service during the colonial administration, after the colonial administration at Independence, under the military, and post military democratic governance. We must be able to x-ray the 'ills or the short falls' of Public Service, and pinpoint what we want it to be, and how we can build the capacity to make a transition from the present Public Service to the Public Service we want that will lead Nigeria through the period of African Renaissance. Time constraints prevents us from going into the necessary details.

External dominance and internal dependence created a situation which inevitably transformed the entire social fabric of the people whose countries are now underdeveloped; or as Ijomah put it, the colonial situation creates the Prospero and caliban syndrome (master/servant) syndrome which makes the colonised person accept his inferior status as ordained by God or as unavoidable. Unless the African in this Renaissance period can truly believe that he has come of age to interpret who he is without a master's prompting, unless he can commit some cultural iconoclasm, and reject what should be rejected in the Western constructed world, Western Technology and its attendant values will continue to knock the African into obedience and compliance, and the sought for renaissance might become a 21st Century mirage.

Let me put it bluntly, when two cultures meet, the superior culture with higher technology and ideology will always compel obedience from the weaker culture. Unless the weaker culture can rediscover its values, hitherto discredited by the foreign culture, and by borrowing tools of advanced technology elevate his own culture to be at par with the foreign culture, cultural renaissance will be difficult to achieve. To achieve African renaissance, we must consciously break the cycle of dependence.

But how can this be done when Africa is so tied to the apron of the West, which dictates what African nations do in the name of development. I was quick to warn African governments in 1973 that foreign Aid would never help Africans develop to the extent of challenging and competing with the donors. Japan looked inwards during the Meinji period; and backed by the unifying force of Tokwugawa religion, it embarked on agricultural and technological revolution from what was available to what was achievable. China is currently importing and recycling scraps for iron. Renaissance requires something of a revolution, a radical departure from what is normative to something new. We shall see how this deviation from the norm is required to achieve the required capacity building.

To achieve external dominance, Western countries created export-oriented economies (Note the word "created"), traditional social structures had to be modified, and existing political authorities were compelled to accept their subordination to the foreign invaders. Indeed, imperialism in Nigeria had a double order contingency of destruction and regeneration - it destroyed the old society, its values, its God, its heaven (land of the dead) and ways of doing things and laid the material foundation of Western society, establishing its values, its God, its heaven^ its ways or doing things. African renaissance requires a critical re-assessment of the status quo ante and the status quo in order to create values and behavioural dispositions that can pull the African out of the present administrative decadence which certainly does not reflect the Weberian bureaucratic system of the Western Society.

What is implied here is that the public service is not independent of the society. If the society continues to be a parasite of the West, if the political system is corrupt and unstable, if nepotism rules the political system, if the economy is bartered by political and military kleptomaniacs, the public service cannot escape from the corrupting influence of its environment. A captive public service cannot freely work for capacity building. There will always be distortions from the Chief Executives, Commissioners and higli ranking political figures. There will be distortions from corrupt persons trying to beat the system.

E.A. Brett (1973) observes that countries which are unable to establish an autonomous control of their own developmental resources, and groups whose economic base can be undermined by technological innovation, can expect no coming advantage and cannot participate in the management of change process. Technology and modernisation dislocate societies, lead to declines in social solidarity, loss of trust and community feeling, the spread of conflicts and anomie, impersonalisation and emphasis on instrumental rationality. They generate more wealth, but the resultant wealth is used to mitigate the effects of the conflicts. But our oil wealth rather than be used in Nigeria is hidden in obscure banks around the world, and governments go to the youths and dislocated communities empty-handed to plead for peace. What peace can a people without homes, without hopes, without a future, without the barest minimum for subsistence get from those who negotiate peace from the luxury of NICON Hotel?

The Meaning of Renaissance and African Renaissance

Renaissance affected a change in man's attitude towards the problem of human existence. It distilled the classic elements out of the medieval synthesis, while the Reformation freed the Bible from the classical. Renaissance means - rebirth, or renewal. It was a movement of a few scholars and artists whose views later circulated throughout Europe, assisted by the recently invented printing press. Renaissance strictly speaking means a revival of classical learning. But in modem usage, it refers to a new venture which helps to shape the modem world. In its Italian native meaning, it is concerned "with the reclamation of Latin and Greek Literature".

Renaissance means a change of outlook as a result of which man began to view the old materials in new ways and thus arrive at new concepts. Techniques will have to change, the subject matter will have to change. This broadening of man's intellectual horizon opens new vista in which man offers a reinterpretation of self, others, and the environment, in which ways of doing things must change to quicken the changes going on. Renaissance was an acceptance of the increased possibility of the human mind and human will. Concretisation of ideas leads to inventions, and inventions revolutionised the world for good or for bad.

When therefore we talk of African Renaissance, we accept that the Public Service which was handed over to us was the "Premier Civil Service", the best of its kind. We would want to have its type back just like the renaissance brought back Latin and Greek, but it will be the type that must take into consideration the size of the modem Public Service, the country and its population, ethnic composition, politics, religion and all intervening variables. Public Service Capacity building for African Renaissance simple asks, what capacity should the Public Service have in order to effectively handle the service in the 21st Century and produce the classical efficiency in the Public Service as we had in the "golden period" when service was based on Weberian logico-legal system.

African Renaissance in the age of globalisation must demonstrate that it has arrived on stage, and must understand globalisation not to become its stooge in another polished form of colonialism, but as equal partners in the use and appreciation of electronic gadgets for Civil Administration.

As I walked through the offices, I noticed, even in some Commissioners' offices that the ribbon type-writer is still in vogue, stencils are still being used; many offices do not have telephones and are not connected to the Internet; about 50% of the Secretaries who have computers use only the word processors, and know nothing or little about the computer; many Heads of Ministries keep computers as status symbols and do not actually use them. In the Renaissance of our dream, manual type-writers and stencils are out-dated and everybody should be computer literate.

The Problems of The Public Service

1. The Public Service must examine itself against public criticisms that tend to negate its great achievements. There is the need to reorganise the service with focused re-orientation which would accelerate the modernisation of the present administrative structures- What was upper-most in the minds of Nigerians at Independence was finding qualified people to fill the vacancies created by the withdrawing expatriates. Besides, as Kirk Greene pointed out, Nigerians were proud to be identified with what was regarded as the premier civil service in the world. Consequently the structures designed as an instrument to facilitate the political control and exploitation of the economies of the colonies persisted even when they were anachronistic. What is uppermost in the age of technology which has uprooted our cultures rather violently because Nigeria lacks the transitional period that would have prepared her for the technological invasion is training suitable manpower that can apply modem techniques and methods to the Public Service.

2. The Military struck in 1966 and so altered drastically the philosophical foundation of the colonial system. The Public Servants, like flexible materials must adapt to the new system. At independence, economic institutions and structures did not actually exist. What existed belonged to foreigners. It was the duty of government to create economic structures and institutions. Here, the Civil Service readily comes to play the roles of economic planning leading to the floating of economic institutions such as companies. When people say that the Public Service was not developed, I see it as a semantic subterfuge because many people do not actually appreciate the meaning of the word "development". The Public Service in Nigeria cannot be compared with that in Britain. Both have the same ideal - the Weberian logico-legal bureaucratic system. None has attained the ultimate ideal. Therefore every service must be examined in terms of its capacity to serve the political master in policy initiation, formulation, implementation and so forth at its level of development; it must also be assessed in its capacity to hold the nation in spite of whatever happens to the political masters. The tenacity and brilliant performance of the Nigerian Public Service during the turbulent periods in this country earn them commendation, but only at that level of development. Without the Public Service's determination to remain a national structure willing to serve one Nigeria, especially during the hectic period of January 1966 to May 1967, when the army was engulfed in a major crisis that shook its stability and legitimacy, disintegration of Nigeria would have occurred. We will later consider the Weberian - logico-legal model of bureaucracy which I consider imperative for the African Renaissance.

3. On Friday, 21st Novermber, 1975 when Brigadier 0. Obasanjo then Chief of Staff spoke to the Permanent Secretaries and Heads of Departments, he said inter alia,

the dominant role which civil servants had played in policy-making and direction of government policy must be reduced both in the interest of the service itself, and in the interest of the nation... The Civil Service must prepare itself for an elected civilian rule where civil servants will be executors of policies rather than initiators of policies or policy makers.

The third problem of the Public Servants comes from the nature of the new civil political masters, whether during the 1st, 2nd or fourth Republic. Their incompetence pushed governance once more on the shoulders of Public Servants. As was fully discussed in my book, Afrocracy, the phenomenon of Military incompetence saddled the Public Servants with political responsibilities of initiating, formulating and implementing policies. Public Servants became so powerful that some were appropriately called "Super Permanent Secretaries".

4. Most people believe that some people were bad eggs among the Public Servants who were alleged to have been trained by the Politicians of the First Republic and the Military that fought the civil war. They in turn taught incumbent Politicians how to be corrupt, or how to amplify their corrupt tendencies. As B.J. Takaya put it, the Public Servants "are (next to foreign businessmen and contractors) the most depraved vectors of corruption. Any political class that comes to power, whether through the ballot-box or the barrels of the gun, invariably gets corrupted within a very short span of time. It is the belief of many analysts that public servants and corrupt business men, teach the politicians Just as they taught the military, the technics of how to do it and cover up the loots from the public. I must say that in Delta State, very few are corrupt, and ecologically, they are located in some known Ministries. May God touch these very few who give the Ministries bad names.

5. One more problem emerges from a situation of pre-mature gratification. Public Servants, they say, began seeing money they were not used to; they began comparing themselves with business men who accumulate material wealth. They lobby, in what Takaya calls "the politics of postings" to be posted to lucrative Ministries. The important thing now is the "extra-legal materials ripped from one's office. For some unscrupulous ones, pension funds and even salaries are manipulated to yield interests that go into their private accounts. Very often, professional recommendations lack merit, because they must incorporate the interest of the Public Servant in charge. In this way, contracts are inflated, and government pays more than is necessary. It is because of this that F. W. Riggs describes what goes on in developing countries as "The Sala Model" or the "Bazaar-Canteen" economy in which the bureaucrats are the sellers.

6. Nepotism in everything throws merit overboard. In the colonial times, people are posted on merit. But the situation has changed. Officers often time, request for specific persons to be posted to them. Nepotism influences every aspect of Public Service from recruitment to promotions, contract awards, admission to institutions, etc.

7. Some Public Servants, they say, often forget that their positions are temporary, that one day, we shall all give accounts of our stewardships. When some Public Servants are interested in a project, or a contract or on any matter, the consideration of what they will gain compels their initiatives and commitments. But if they perceive that they would gain nothing, they frustrate the matter. In many cases, the files would disappear, and even when temporary files are opened, they also disappear. But, for every matter that is on anybody's desk, God has already taken a decision. Some one may delay the fruition of God's plans with due consequences to himself/herself; but it is better to be the little hand that pushes rather than frustrates God's plan. God is a jealous God!

8. Finally, it is the public view that public servants today see their offices as stepping stones to business. They do everything to facilitate their retirement into their business even at the expense of their official duties.

This is the Public Servant in the eye of the Public.

If the public service must build the capacity for African Renaissance, it must address the above mentioned ills. Such ills must not be allowed in the new age of Public Service. The ills are possible because the Public Service is a captive service with limited room for initiative. Political and private variables have greatly distorted the capacity of the service to face the challenges of the 21st Century.

CAPACITY BUILDING

I will examine capacity in quantitative and qualitative terms. In quantitative terms we would want to know:

1. How many public servants of different cadres will be required to fulfill the required capacity?

2. How much resources will be required?

3. How much resources will be made available?

In qualitative terms,

1. what will be the minimum qualification required?

2. What rules and regulations must be obeyed to ensure that appropriate ethical principles govern the service?

As we prepared for independence, there was a cautious rush to increase the number of qualified people. Scholarships were given to qualified students on merit, and not on quota basis. As at 1957 there were only 937 senior civil servants in Nigeria who prepared to take over from the colonial civil servants. The figure naturally fell below expectation. As the population increased, and more states were created, every state as well as the Federal Government has taken steps towards increasing the manpower requirement of its government. Unfortunately Government still commits less than 6% of its total expenditure to education. It is expected to spend 26% on education. Governments' effort to train enough manpower for the nation still falls below the required number for capacity building. From the statistics available, only 19.84% of the candidates who applied for Polytechnic and University Jamb Admissions were offered admissions. More than 80% of secondary school leavers roam about, in search of what to do. Nigeria needs to pay greater attention to manpower training and development. The required education goes beyond the formal education. Even those already in the service need regular up-dating. It is only by so doing that we can produce the quantity of trained personnel needed to revive the golden age of the Public Service.

Delta State has done very well. In spite of scarce resources, the government of Delta State has not at any time stopped recruitment into the service. From 1999 to 2000, staff strength increased by 4,838; from 2000 to 2001 it rose by 2,871; from 2001 to 2002, it rose by 4,673. From 2002 to 2003 it rose by 1,785, and from December 2003 to May 2004 there is an increase of 628. The total staff strength in the service as at May 2004 is 38,345. From the inception of this administration, more than 14,795 persons have been recruited. The figures given here do not include the figures for the State Primary Education Board (SPEB) and the staff of tertiary institutions. Quantitatively, the figures appear impressive, and one can say that Delta State is ready in terms of numbers for the African Renaissance. But if we consider the political distortions on recruitments that do not follow the laid down procedures, we will sympathise with one Chairman of a Board who complained that 50% of the staff in his establishment are irrelevant to the jobs. They were sent there by the big politician or some persons higher up there. Modem service will not require the number but quality. Modem service will lay emphasis on qualified persons who will fit into the administrative requirements of the 21st Century, replete with modem sophisticated gadgets.

We will now discuss what I call phenomenal bureaucracy which Delta State must imbibe to wipe away the above ills. This is imperative because the nation reposes very high hopes on the public service. The fact that some of the eggs are bad does not mean that there are no good eggs in the market. Since I came to Delta State, I have come across many Public Servants who are excellent by all standards. My first official visit to the Office of Head of Service left me with the impression that Michels Iron Law of Oligarchy will be equaled by Mr. Ekphiwre's iron law of bureaucracy. If we can apply the necessary bureaucratic principles where necessary, and with integrity, we will then have the moral courage to examine "capacity" in terms of quality for African Renaissance in Delta State.

We have discussed the ills of the Public Service due to decline in official ethics and attitude to work. These are qualitative. By applying the Principles of bureaucracy we can contain these problems arising from human nature.

Bureaucracy is government by rule or by administrators appointed and vested with power to make rules. Max Weber believes that as offices become complex, because people from different backgrounds are accommodated, bureaucracy is the only way to cope with all the administrative requirements. Considering all the problems of the Public Service as discussed in this paper it is my considered view that the Weberian - logico-legal system, bureaucracy, offers the best instrument to administer the Public Service when the quantitative requirements have been made. This is the only way to ensure that the Public Service has the capacity to offer objective administration in the age of Renaissance, when individualism has replaced nepotism that characterises contemporary experience.

What rules and regulations should we have in order to build the required capacity for African Renaissance in terms of Quality?

1. In Delta Public Service, activities should be fixed, regular and continuous over time, and should not be dictated by the whims and caprices of politicians. There should be officials whose duties it is to assign tasks as official duties for which performers have rights, privileges and remunerations which are restricted by a series of rules. For a staff to remain in the system, he must perform satisfactorily, duties assigned to him. He must carry out instructions which come from above. Sentiments and nepotism will easily be eliminated if Public Service is based on rules laid down, and the authority structure is one in which there is a clear rank-order of policy-making roles and structure. This reduces the probability that any conflicting policies will be developed simultaneously. This aspect of earlier Public Service, must be given the required re-birth so that objectivity required in the 21st Century Service will be achieved.

2. While obedience comes from below the structure, staff can appeal to higher level authority for justice. This means that in the African Renaissance, there will be no room to appeal to whom you know to beg your boss. I must admit that this African phenomenon will be difficult to eliminate from the system. It will be one of those distortions in a bureaucratic set up that cannot easily be wished off in the African setting. Weber's logico-legal system was possible in a Europe turned upside down by civil wars and revolutions, where the family had almost been destroyed. Nevertheless, adhering to rules and regulations will help us minimise the influence of nepotism.

3. Decisions should be documented and can be easily referred to. This helps to avoid contradictions. Decisions of management usually depend on input from below the hierarchy. In a good system based on laid down rules, decisions are difficult to reverse unless there are new and weightier reasons.

4. Promotions should be based on qualifications and capability, seniority or a mixture of both. There should be no room for any other criteria such as a friend assisting a friend.

5. There should be separation between official duties and private life of the official. Public money and property are separated from private property, and the executive office is separated from household; public business is separated from private correspondence, and public assets from private fortunes.

6. Officers do not own the resources of government. They only manage the resources provided them, and cannot convert the resources of government to their private use.

7. To manage the resources of the Public, there is the implicit assumption that the official has skills, talents, qualifications and expertise to do so. One cannot be a Permanent Secretary any more without a degree or its equivalent.

8. The position of the officer is a career. People move from lower (bottom) to the top.

INTERFERENCE WITH THE SYSTEM

Anytime that the bureaucratic system is intereferred with, there are lots of innocent casualties. The 1975 retrenchment exercise ostensibly to weed out the dead eggs, weeded many good eggs, and in the absence of qualified persons, mediocres were promoted to replace them. The Public Service did not recover from this shock when President Babangida came up with his reforms which replaced Permanent Secretaries with Directors-General. That the system failed was evident in the return to the pristine nomenclature of Permanent Secretaries. In my opinion, these two factors contributed immensely to the destruction of the Public Service.

CONCLUSION:

I believe that if we want a re-birth, and a new spirit of commitment that will enable the Public Service tackle the problems of the 21st Century Africa, we must accept the eight bureaucratic principles I have enumerated above.

If decisions are made according to laid down rules and procedures, it will reduce the level of corruption in the Public Service. If the senior officers supervise the younger ones, all will be committed, and some of the pranks we take for granted will be curtailed.

Regardless of what people say, there is as yet no better and more objective method than the bureaucratic method. I admit that sometimes it can lead to inefficiency or trained incapacity to think, or to occupational psychosis which prevents some officials from using their initiative. But it remains the best, if Public Servants are to be assisted to effectively be

i) the custodians of the conscience of the Public Service,

ii) the permanent structures in the system,

iii) the possessors of records,

iv) the permanent advisers on professional and technical matters.

Having arrived at the above conclusions, it is necessary that an enlightened Public Service must begin to view the Internet as possible alternative. We must begin a redefinition of the Civil Society as contemporaries, and we must use contemporary means to evaluate issues in our contemporary world. The computer and the Internet are fast relegating old methods and techniques into the archives. A Public Servant with Internet connectivity is a blessing to the service.

REFERENCES

J.A. Atanda and A.Y. Aliyu, Political Development: Proceedings of National Conference on

Nigeria since Independence.

E.A. Brett - Colonialism and Under-development in East Africa, New York. NOK Publishers Ltd., 1973.

Peter Duignan and L.H. Gann (eds), ^Fhe Economics of Colonialism. Vol.4 of Colonialism in Africa 1870 -1960, London, Cambridge University Press, 1975.

V.H.H. Greene Renaissance and Reformation, Lond. Edward Arnold (Pub.) Ltd. 1958

Robert Holt and John E. Turner, The Political Basis of Economic Development: An Exploration in Comparative Political Analysis. Princeton, NJ. D.Van Nostrand Company, Inc. 1986.

B.I.C. Ijomah Afrocracy: Basis For National Stability, Benin-City, Idodo-Umeh, 1988.

B.I.C. Ijomah Essays on Social Controversies, Benin City: Idodo-Umeh Publishers, 2002.

B.I.C. Ijomah "Social Characteristics of Nigeria's Political Decision Makers Before Independence", Proceedings of African Studies Associations Conference Philadelphia. USA, 1972.

B.I.C. Ijomah "Structural Decay and Indiscipline in Nigerian Institutions: The Fault of governments," in Paths to the Sustainability of Higher Education in Nigeria: Abuja. Social Science Academy of Nigeria, 2001.

A.H.H. Kirk-Greene, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria. Vol. 1 and 2. London: OUP 1971.

Sir F.D. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa. Edinburgh, Blackwood, 1922.pp.l32.

O. Obasanjo "Speech by Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, to Permanent

Secretaries and Heads of Departments at Dodan Barracks, Friday 21st November 1975.

Anne Phillips, The Enigma of Colonialism: British Policy in West Africa, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.

F.W. Riggs - "An Ecological Approach: The Sala Model in F. Heady and S.L. Stokes (ed.) Papers in Comparative Public Administration. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1962.

Hugh H. Smythe and Mabel M. Smythe, The New Nigerian Elite. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1960.

Bala Takaya "Growth, Adaptation and Morality in the Nigerian Public Administration since Independence", in J.A. Atanda and A.Y. Aliyu, Political Development pp. 143-158

Victor Turner (ed) Profiles of Change. Vol. 3 of Colonialism in Africa. London, Cambridge University Press 1975.

T.M. Yesufu "Development of Human Resources" in T.M. Yesufu, The Human Factor in National Development in Nigeria, Ibadan: Spectrum Books Limited 2000, pp. 314 - 357.