The Accord Party’s presidential candidate, Professor Christopher Imumolen, says he will make wholesale reforms in the country’s civil service his top priority should he get the opportunity to become Nigeria’s president in next year’s general elections.
Nigeria’s civil service has for decades now failed to live up to its assigned constitutional role as the engine that runs government as it wallows in indolence and corruption.
Typified by excruciating bureaucracy that unnecessarily slows down the business of government at all levels, the country’s civil service hasn’t exactly earned plaudits over the years.
That is why it will be to the people’s benefit, he says, if the civil service is reformed and sanitised to make it more attuned to the demands of an incoming reformist government like the one he is intending if he gets elected president.
According to Professor Imumolen, the success or failure of any government depends on the civil service.
“Any government that wishes to fully deliver on its pre-election promises must not overlook the role the service could play in ensuring that because they are the oil that lubricates the engines of government,” he says.
“The civil service as presently constituted cannot fully fulfil its constitutional role of making government work effectively because of age-long habits that need to be curbed.
“A civil service populated by workers who got there on a man-know-man basis. A civil service where indolence and official corruption are the order of the day cannot make any government succeed.
“That is why, if I get the people’s mandate to become president, I’ll do all in my power to ensure that that status quo doesn’t remain.
“We are going to review the process of recruitment into the service.
“We are going to end the era of file-carrying and institute a proper system to ensure transparency and accountability in the running of government business.
“We are going to fully digitalize the whole civil service structure to make it more effective and result-oriented.
“Staff would be made to undergo computer training and retraining to bring them to the level we want them to be in the new regime of prompt and efficient service delivery.
“In my time as president, it will no longer be business as usual, as only those who are patriotic and progressive-minded, and who have the overall interest of the country at heart will be allowed the opportunity to work in the civil service,” he said.
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