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Obasanjo vows to sack corrupt public officers
"THE only person I can't sack today is the Vice President, who is on the same ticket with me... all these talks about political interference... as long as I am in charge, that will not be an excuse."
With these words, President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday responded to senior public servants' concern about security of tenure and constant political interference in the country's bureaucracy through the instrumentality of the reform agenda.
President Obasanjo made the clarification on Monday night during the closing ceremony of the three-day high level training workshop on Organisational Integrity and Strategic Corruption Control at the NICON Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
In his speech, Obasanjo played the role of a consummate preacher, quoting copiously from both the Bible and the Quran.
The workshop was attended by federal permanent secretaries and selected chairmen and managing directors, directors-general, executive secretaries and directors of key integrity pressure points of the public service. The event involved 43 ministries and agencies, including the Clerk of the Senate and Clerk of the House of Representatives who are now of permanent secretary status.
Earlier, the top public officers had told President Olusegun Obasanjo in two separate presentations by the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Works, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and the Managing Director of NEPA, Joseph Makoju that one of the major obstacles to the reform is "interference by politicians."
Other obstacles under "political issues" identified by the report presented by Makoju in the presence of the President are "Bureaucracy and Inadequate Political Will". The presenter had explained that sometimes, the political heads of the ministries and agencies do not allow free-flow of the reform process despite the President's commitment to the policy.
The public officers had added that the reform should recognise the expediency of protecting good, competent and loyal officers in the process of right-sizing, so that the baby would not be thrown away with the bath water in the process.
In his swift response to the two presentations, the President retorted: "All this talk about political interference, if it is about reducing the number ... the only person I cannot sack today is the Vice President who is on the same ticket with me... As I am in charge, that talk of political interference will not be an excuse... in the way of reform... Don't tell me about any minister who is not conforming... I can sack anybody."
While that declaration unsettled the top public officers, in the presence of the Head of Service, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed who chaired the ceremony, the President assured the distinguished audience that the issue of reform would not lead to any bloody revolution. His words:
"I don't want a revolution, especially a bloody revolution in Nigeria. I want an evolution of a public service that you and I should be proud of".
President Obasanjo had earlier stunned the audience when he personally read implications of "corruption" from a dictionary, a Koran and a Bible he brought to the podium.
President Obasanjo, who became impassioned at this juncture read from Suna 83 verses 1 and 2 "...Woe to those that deal in fraud... It is the spirit of injustice..." He also read Ecclesiastes 7:7 which states "...Extortion turns a wise man into a fool and a bribe corrupts the heart..."
According to him, he resorted to this because most times, contrary to some "in Nigeria we don't see corruption" as it is hidden.
President Obasanjo also declared that in 1994, Frederick Galtung, said: "Corruption is anti-development. A society where anything goes is a society in destruction".
He told the top officers that he had enough of workshops and that the most critical factor is the actualisation of conclusions and recommendations. His words:
"To him, it is not bringing out the recommendations, it is practising it. How do you follow up? How do you bring it out to those working under you?"
At a point, the President turned to the already distraught policy advisers and the ministers and warned: "Those working under you know you are corrupt."
Lamenting that the scourge of corruption has permeated the traditional institutions where people now buy chieftaincy titles, the President noted with regret that some public officers now go as far as Ghana to buy awards in the name of Kwame Nkrumah.
The President made it clear to his audience that his administration is serious about the reform agenda when he hinted of possible fatalities in the struggle. His words: "We will get ready for reforms in this country. We know it is not easy. But some of us may even lose our lives in the process. But it will be written that we tried and dared to change the system".
While welcoming the President to the podium, the Head of Service had noted that the President was invited to underline the fact that the interaction on Public Service Reform has become necessary because "Mr. President, you don't have any institution to fight corruption other than the civil service".
In his response to this, the President agreed that there is indeed no alternative to the civil service, adding that if the colonial masters had founded an alternative they could have found one before they handed over. He likened the indispensability of the service to women in the life of a normal man. Hear him:
"Civil Service is necessary. As every normal man needs a woman, every government needs a civil service. The British people who ruled us could not found an alternative to civil service. We can't find... We need a civil service to drive reform".
The top officers suggested a decentralisation of the Due Process Office and strengthening of the institutions that fight corruption to which the President responded that when the Procurement Act comes on stream, there will be a Procurement Commission, which is a form of institutionalisation and decentralisation.
The Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who heads the Steering Committee on Reform while responding to the first Group Report, said Nigeria can no longer stand aloof on the critical importance of fighting corruption, which she said is second only to infrastructure in the scale of critical factors that confront businessmen.
Before the President arrived, she had said government would consider the concern raised by the top echelon of the public service that the reform should not be carried out in a way that will discourage and hurt good and hardworking officers in the service.
She revealed that those driving the reform are aware that about 25 per cent of the public servants will never buy into the reform agenda, another 25 per cent will resonate with the reform and support it while about 50 per cent will just adopt a wait-and-see attitude.
The Finance Minister said the drivers of the reform need to know this element because as she put it "you need to focus on the 25 per cent that are with you. Use the 25 per cent to leverage the 50 per cent who are not sure..."
She said part of the consequences of being in the vanguard of reform is that people will get hurt and some victims of reforms will resort to lashing out at the arrowheads as some have started doing.
The former World Bank Vice President revealed that even at the venue of the workshop, some aggrieved and mischievous elements had brought some documents purported to have chronicled some alleged corrupt practices of the three arrowheads of the reform agenda namely, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala, Malam El-Rufai and Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili.
Her comment on the document, suspected to have been circulated by an embattled permanent secretary in the reform process: "It will be quite strange if people didn't lash out... It is very understandable when people are hurt; we will hear more of such stories of corruption around Okonjo-Iweala, El-Rufai and Ezekwesili. In the reform process we have to consider the human elements... the people driving it are human beings, they can make mistakes..."
She urged the participants to consider the key elements in their recommendations "reward, incentives, deterrent and training".
Accordingly, she said the presentation that elicited those elements "was quite good, if we can only hold on to just three of such recommendations, it will be great".
The Chairman of ICPC, Justice Mustapha Akanbi, who has been harping on under-funding of the anti-graft commission, attended all the sessions for three days. He was there while the President spoke. The President revealed that he had the opinion of 12 eminent consultants who all endorsed the nomination of Justice Akanbi before he appointed the former President of the Court of Appeal as ICPC boss.
A member of the Hong Kong Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, Mr. Tony Kwok, who was at the workshop as a facilitator revealed that Hong Kong used to be a citadel of corruption but that the scourge has been fought to a standstill by a dint of some political will and support of the people.
The eventful weekend retreat was organised by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) and Office of Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (BMPIU) in the Presidency and sponsored by the FCT Ministry.
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