By Tunji Olaopa In every administrative system across the world, the selection and appointment of critical officers and officials plays a very crucial role in the overall health of these systems. Indeed, the effectiveness and efficiency of any management system depend significantly on the helmsman who possesses the requisite vision, knowledge, drive and the bureaucratic competences to drive institutional reform and administrative progress. And when this discussion is situated within the context of an ongoing institutional reform process of a public administration system like the one Nigeria requires to manage the successes and consolidation of its democratic governance, then the issue of administrative leadership becomes even more cogent as it positions the public service at the very core of the building of a developmental state that Nigeria needs. No wonder then that an extensive debate over the succession plan for the next head of the civil service of the federation (HCSF) has focused on why the HE the President needs to take a critical out-of-the-box decision on the modalities that will throw up not just the next HCSF but ground a veritable civil service leadership and administration that will serve as the basis for a functional bureaucratic institution and reprofessionalised civil service that will backstop Nigeria effectively into the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions. That this protracted concern is being championed by the leadership of the Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) is even more significant. CORFEPS has over time become a veritable platform for interrogating germane issues revolving around the functionality and future of the civil service, as well as the operational mechanics and dynamics that could make for an efficient civil service. This responsibility could have become even more grounded if the National Association of Public Administration and Management (NAPAM), the public administration professional body, is currently and sufficiently functional as to also be able to join the fray of discussions and deploy policy-engaged research agenda to deepen the conversation. This is for the sole reason that NAPAM’s expansive membership—drawing on the communities of practice and service of the numerous associations of retired heads of service and permanent secretaries across the states of the federations, public administration researchers, scholars and development workers, etc.—would have contributed an even more rounded and focused debate that pushes the issues beyond the federal civil service to the appointment of heads of service in all the states as well as how administrative leadership in the civil service can complement political leadership. My op-ed pieces over the years have provided the critical grounds for interrogating critical elements of civil service administrative leadership as reform imperatives. I have especially explored for example the generalist-professional distinction as one important item in understanding the transformation of the civil service as a world class institution in Nigeria. For our present purpose, we take deep reflective direction from the African proverb—the fish rots from the head. This has become a metaphor for leadership vision, accountability and direction. When leadership falters, then the organization weakens and ultimately crumbles. Institutional and administrative reform is therefore ultimately about a leadership that invest frontier ideation, design thinking and policy acumen in visioning the present and future of a new civil service system that constitutes the mechanism for making the state work on behalf of her citizens. Within the Nigerian civil service, the focus and locus of this leadership template is the HCSF. And this is the most cogent reason why the administrative succession plan to install a new one is seen by those who should know to carry such a huge weight for the Tinubu administration and the bureaucracy itself. In my modest opinion, therefore, the best way to initiate the inquiry into the matter, and beyond the generalist-professional distinction, is the urgent need to rethink the most fundamental questions around the status and operational capacity of the HCSF that enable us to probe deeper into the directions that the system needs to take in terms of a functional, ethical and strategic leadership and the reform processes the leadership needs to drive. The fundamental questions are: (a) Who is the HCSF and what does the job entail? (b) How are the two elite cadres—the administrative and professional officers from which the occupants of the office are selected—related to the challenges of leading the civil service? (c) What are the competencies required of administrative and professional officers to lead institutional reform and provide leadership to the service? To tackle the nature of the leadership challenge and administrative succession the
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