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Humility: Hallmark of public service
SIR: The current clamour by the Senate for the removal of the FCT Minister, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, for his uncomplimentary remarks about the Senate is symptomatic of an ethical crisis in Nigeria's public service. Those who have anything to do with government ministries or agencies would understand what I mean. It is worse if you are coming from the corporate world where the code is service excellence and you have been schooled (alas wrongly) into believing that services excellence is the code everywhere.
But the public service is not deficit in codes anyway. There are codes of conduct, standards of ethical behaviour, code of service and so on. In addition to these codes, some elements of efficient service delivery are basic. For instance, a public servant should be humble in order to serve well. If he holds a leadership position, he should be ready to serve and not wait to be served. And to be a good servant, a leader should be honest, accommodating of contrary opinions, gentle, patient, diplomatic and respectful. What is more, a little smile, usually taken for granted, is vital to service excellence. It is always hard, if not impossible, to be impolite or insolent at the same time that you are smiling.
Too bad the minister is chronically deficit in important attributes of a public servant, a disability that has made controversy his second nature; but beyond him, public servants generally need a re-orientation, that is, if they had any at all, on civility and public relations. We are too mature and enlightened as a people to have to content with problems ordinary home training could have prevented when other serious matters of state remain unattended to.
Uchenna Ossai,
Abuja, FCT
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