BRINGING BACK MORALITY AND TRUST IN TO NIGERIA ’S CIVIL AND PUBLIC SERVICE

Comparing the Nigeria of my generation to the Nigeria of our founding fathers, one will certainly agree that, the later was far better than the present realities we are witnessing in the country. As a change advocate, I was privileged to attend a particular town hall meeting in one of the rural communities in Nigeria. While at the meeting, there was some thing one of the elders of the community said, which sunk in to my ear! He said: “When people begin to thing of the dead, it means the actions of the living are nothing to write home about; but if the actions of the living become something desirable, the people will forget about the dead”. This is a classical case of the situation in Nigeria! Each time I interact with the people of the older generation, they often talk about the good old days, most of them often prefer the past to the present, while some never see any hope for the future. The condition is even more miserable when one begins to take analytical look at the situation in the country today!


However, according to report, at the inception of our democratic journey in 1999, the Federal Government of Nigeria owned a total of 590 Public Enterprises. As at 1996, the Federal Government's investment in public enterprises stood at about $100 billion. It was also estimated that, about 55 percent of our external debts with the Paris Club of Creditors were as a result of the funds sourced to establish these public enterprises, yet, the return on these investments averaged less than 0.5 percent per annum. According to the Technical Committee on privatization and Commercialization survey, public enterprises accounted for between 30 and 40 percent of fixed capital investments, and nearly 50 percent of normal sector employment, but only about 400,000 persons were employed to work in these public enterprises.


Similarly, in a nation where youth unemployment figure is alarming, it was reported last year that, about 43,000 ghost workers were detected and eliminated from the Federal Government payroll. This was as a result of the introduction of a technology dubbed Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, a biometric system that captured the data of every government employee and payment made directly to their bank accounts. This shocking revelation was made by the Minister of Trade and Investment, Olusengu Aganga. Over N12 billion was saved from the first phase of the exercise which covered 7 Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the Federal Public Service. It was also reported in the editorial of The Punch Newspaper of Tuesday, July 19, 2011, that in March 2001, Nigeria lost N6.4 billion to ghost workers, this was due to emoluments paid to about 5,000 fictitious names on the Federal Government payroll. In 2010, it was also revealed that, the Nigerian Police Force had on its payroll, about 107,000 ghost workers. According to World Bank Report in 2001, quoted in the same editorial by Punch, “Examples of this category were staff who had more than one job in the public sector; staff who enjoyed levels of pay or allowances greater than their entitlement; staff who might be on temporary absence … yet continue to draw salary; and staff who had been transferred or retired”.


Furthermore, in February 2011, it was reported that, the Federal Government discovered 37,000 ghost pensioners. Also, according to the report of the Senate Ad hoc Committee on the administration of pensions in the country, between 2005 and 2011, a total of N1.025 trillion was received by all pension offices, but only N751, 444 billion was spent within the period, leaving a balance of N273, 941 billion. According to Senator Kabiru Gaya, co-chairman of the Senate Ad hoc Committee, about N1.76 billion earmarked for the settlement of the families of dead pensioners was diverted by officials at the office of the Head of Service to recurrent expenditure. The report indicted the members of the Pension Task Team of fraud, embezzlement, misappropriation, misapplication, illegal virement, contract splitting, and award of contracts without appropriations and outright stealing of pension funds.


Nigeria is one of the most religious countries in the world, yet, our actions are not confirming what we believe and profess daily in the Churches and Mosques! Section 23 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended reads: “The National Ethics shall be Discipline, Integrity, Dignity of Labor, Social Justice, Religious Tolerance, Self-Reliance and Patriotism”. The situation in Nigeria today, is the reflection of what Jesus Christ the great teacher said to the people of His generation when He said: “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned to you, and you did not lament”. Where the constitution and the Holy Bible and Holy Qur'an are saying the same thing about morality and ethics, what then can we say is responsible for a situation where depot owners will buy kerosene from NNPC at the rate of N40.90 per liter as export price, and sell them to marketers at a rate between N115 and N125? When the government had already subsidized the product for Nigerians at the rate of N50 per liter!


When I was a little boy in a nursery school, they use to tell us: “The young shall grow”, but, when the young have grown, instead of giving us the benefit of growth, they are now telling us: “While the young are growing, the elders will keep prospering! Today, we have millions of young people roaming the streets without job. We have millions of homeless young Nigerians without any idea of where the next meal will come from. We also have millions of young people, who are struggling to live for another day, and whose hope tomorrow is a pipe dream. As late King of Pop, Michael Jackson would say: “The man in the mirror, change your ways now”!


Comrade Edwin Ekene U, National President of Young Nigerians for Change.

No.29, Ben Mbamalu Crescent, Achara Layout, Enugu State.

07065862479, 08076134054
[email protected]

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Articles by Edwin Uhara