Re: The library without readers

Due to a series of mishaps on my IT systems, I missed out the responses of many readers to my articles. However, the good news is that I have been able to retrieve some of the responses and shall from time to time publish them. I start today the library without readers. Readers might recall that the piece was about my encounter with a well-built, wellfurnished and well-stocked library in the Gudu area of Abuja that was surprisingly without readers. When I enquired I found out that the library had been in that surreal state for a very long time because someone in the bureaucracy forgot to link it up with electricity. Murtala Aliyu who is obviously passionate about books and acquisition of knowledge responded thus:

I want to sincerely thank you for the write up on the state of our libraries, where they exist, and the shocking state of the extent of our growing indifference to scholarship. It should prick the minds of people in authority and even publicly spirited persons to do something about our future. We should bring our attention back to books. No society, no matter how currently successful, can sustain its lead if reading is thrown aside. It is a sad reality that we as a people give attention to a lot more mundane things leaving essential ones behind the door. Apart from libraries in educational institutes of higher learning one can hardly speak of a functional library anywhere. I can personally recall that in my primary school, then run by native authorities in the 1960s and 70s we had well-stocked libraries. We even had a student library prefect. That was the importance given to libraries then. Fifty years later even the analogue forms are fading away while the rest of the world is upgrading to include digital forms. It is sad.

Things have never been so bad for libraries alone. Worse has happened to bookshops. Just a few days ago, I was talking to a friend on how new books are introduced to the public by the authors and publishers. I told him that bookshops are used and the author will be there to autograph on the books for early buyers. Then I asked him, how can you do that here? I reflected, scanned through both Abuja and Kaduna and I could hardly recall any serious bookshop, noteworthy, not little corner kiosks. It is sad. So! Where are we heading to? I hope and pray that efforts like yours through the today’s article will prick our conscience and send our minds backs to our future, books, knowledge.

- Murtala Aliyu (FNIQS) Associated Consultants, Afri-Projects Consortium Plaza, Wuse Zone 4. Abuja.

In my two-part article of 8th and 15th August, I had observed that it had been the practice of most Nigerian Governments from 1970s to flip flop on the promotion and tenure of the top echelon of the Federal Civil Service. During the Musa Yar’Adua Administration however Steve Oronsaye as the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation upped the ante by rushing through a policy of tenure of a maximum of eight years for Directors and Perm Secs. The implementation of Oronsaye’s policy left in its wake sufficient anguish for this government to discontinue the practice. This government had also ab initio stopped filling the vacant positions of Perm Secs by exams and went back to the practice of appointment by selection. Recently in what I thought was a grand gesture to proponents of merit, which I support, the government allowed exams to be taken for vacant positions of Perm Secs. In fact 21 Perm Secs were so appointed in this manner. However, Ibrahim Suleiman has a contrary opinion which is reproduced below:

Thank you, Mal Gambo, for the concise review of development of Civil Service of Nigeria. I, however, choose to agree with the recommendations of the Adamu Fika’s Committee to reverse the tenure arrangements for certain obvious consideration, some of which I append in the succeeding paragraphs:

Being former seasoned civil servants Mal Adamu and co were quite conscious of the fact that it takes more than a summative exam to choose a leader albeit in the Civil Service. They know, through exposure and experience, that it requires assessment of the character disposition of the officer over time, his/ her effectiveness, leadership qualities, productivity among other numerous characteristics which exam, a mere academic activity cannot assess and determine.

Being purely an academic process within a restricted time, the Perm Sec’s exam, which is supposed to be impersonal, could be prone to manipulation, and already allegations abound in that respect.

One of the cardinal principles of Civil Service is the inherent discipline in its operations which is predicated on its hierarchical arrangement. This forms the basis of mentorship and loyalty in a bureaucracy. The fact that all officers of the rank of Directors are given the opportunity to participate in the exam gives undue advantage to those who are junior over their senior colleagues. In the event a junior Director emerges as the Perm Sec through whatever means camouflaged under the guise of exams, all his senior colleagues would be expected to serve under him. This would not only create crisis of loyalty but would go a long way in undermining the tenets of the Civil Service had over time been entrenched. The apparent consequences of this arrangement is what now obtains in the ministries where only three officers are working - the Minister, the Perm Sec, and the Director of Finance - all other directors with their subordinates are not involved except in circumstances where their technical import/input is inevitable.

We all know the tract records of Adamu Fika and his team which cannot, in all ramifications, be compared with that of the ideologue of tenure, Mr Oronsaye. At this juncture I may sound very subjective with no apology, typical of an ex civil servant, and to declare my preference and support to the impersonal, wise and honest counsel,, based on years of practical experience, of Adamu Fika and co than Mr Oronsaye whose record in the Civil Service was unknown until when flung to a position he never qualified to occupy going by strict Civil Service provision on that appointment. It was little wonder, then, he initiated a reform to destroy it.

Sir, while I cannot disagree with you that that the process has produced some good Perm Secs, it has equally produced some funny and ineffective characters that now (mis)manage mega ministries. These favoured individuals, had they been subjected to the erstwhile rigorous process of selection of the past with the robust criteria to be met, and not the present short-circuited exam process, many of them would not have been appointed Perm Secs. I therefore follow the wise counsel in the Civil Service and call on government to henceforth discontinue the exam selection and revert to the previous arrangement. Sir, since it is most likely that there will be many reactions to your very educating write-up kindly spare a week to reproduce them in your column. I am sure many, if not most reactions will be the same as mine. TRIUMPH OF REASON IS WHEN ORONSAYE’S IDEAS ARE REVERSED. - Mallam Ibrahim Suleiman.

Another reader said: Your back page column of Daily Trust 8/8/2017 refers. Examinations for appointments of Perm Secs were not started under Umaru Yar’Adua and Oronsaye but under Obasanjo and Yayale around 2004/2005. It was the tenure policy that was started under Oronsaye leadership in 2009. Please check your facts. - Yahaya Abdullahi.

Yahaya, I stand corrected.