Buhari should restore tenure policy in Federal Civil Service

After about seven years of implementation, President Muhammadu Buhari in June 2016 suspended the tenure policy in the Federal Civil Service.  The directive was contained in a Monday, June 20, 2016 circular to all Ministries, Departments and Agencies signed by the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita.  The HoS, in the circular, said the directive was from President Buhari and asked all concerned to comply accordingly. Until the suspension, Permanent Secretaries were appointed to serve for a tenure of four years, subject to renewal, while directors were appointed to serve for eight years, except the mandatory 60 years retirement age or 35 years in service catches up with them.

The tenure policy was fixed in 2009 by the Umaru Yar’Adua’s administration. The then Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Stephen Oronsaye, had, in an August 25, 2009 circular, announced fixed tenure for permanent secretaries and directors in the Federal Civil Service.

For avoidance of doubt, I am not a civil servant; never worked in the service. However, when this policy was introduced in 2009, I followed the arguments for and against it very keenly before supporting the move. I wrote an opinion on it which was published in the Daily Independent of Sunday, September 6, 2009, entitled, “In support of tenured civil service”.  There was no gainsaying that many northerners in the civil service kicked against the move by Yar’Adua to introduce the policy.  Some Northern elite said the policy would effectively drag their region back by 25 years in the service and condemned it as “a cruel and illegal way of removing the top civil service and an attempt to decimate the highest level of northerners in the civil service”.

I said then, and still insist, that one of the few things for which the late Yar’ Adua should be commended was the introduction of tenured appointment for the Permanent Secretaries and Directors. According to the circular which was issued by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation on August 25, 2009, Permanent Secretaries were to hold office for a term of four years, renewable for a further term of four years, subject to satisfactory performance, and no more. In  the case of directors, they shall compulsorily retire upon serving eight years on the post. The approval is said to be without prejudice to the relevant provisions of the public service rules which prescribe 60 years of age and/or 35 years of service for mandatory retirement.

As of 2009, there were 42 federal permanent secretaries out of which six had retired after reaching the mandatory age when the policy was introduced. Nine of the remaining 36 who were said to be mainly from the Northern region were, by the new rule, to retire as from January 1, 2010. Concerning the directors, the nation was said to have over 140 in 28 federal ministries apart from the MDAs while parastatals have between 83 and 100. However, those who were affected by the tenured policy circular were about 60 directors.

The mischief that the tenured policy was supposed to cure, according to the Presidency, was the fact that there was a chronic lack of vacancies at the top directorate level of the service and that subordinate officers were retiring ahead of their superior officers, creating a grave succession crisis in the service. According to President Yar’Adua’s spokesperson, Olusegun Adeniyi, “Ordinarily, the Public Service Rule prescribes three years as the maturity period for officers to earn their promotion to the next Grade Level, between GL.08 and GL.14, while the maturity period to move between GL.14 and GL.17 is four years. It follows simple logic, therefore, that an officer entering the civil service with a first degree would require a minimum of 27 years to attain the post of director (GL.17), leaving only eight years as maximum number of years that an officer could possibly spend on the two grades of director and permanent secretary”.

“Unfortunately, available facts reveal that the records of some officers are not in sync with this model; and the real situation is that there are directors who have spent 10-12 years on a post and still have more than five years to retirement, there are permanent secretaries who have been on the post for more than eight years and still have several years to retire, meaning a large number of hard-working and effective officers who could not be promoted due to lack of vacancies.” Is this the situation the antagonists of this reform want to sustain?

The tenured system, according to the Yar’Adua dovernment, was primarily meant “to institute due process in the appointment of directors and permanent secretaries, arrest the succession crisis in the service, create vacancies, reinvigorate the system and boost the morale of qualified and deserving officers”. That policy rendered useless the notorious practice of falsification of age and records of service by some of the civil servants. Since the June 20, 2016 circular said the policy was merely suspended, it is high time the suspension order was lifted so that many hard-working civil servants who have been due for promotion but could not move to the next level due to lack of space can earn their due promotion. In fact, state governors should introduce similar measures in their respective states in order to boost the morale of their bureaucracy. A stitch in time, they say, saves nine!