Undeserved assault on the bureaucracy

OF all the mistakes made by the military, none is greater than the 1975/ 1976 assault on bureaucracy in this country. It was termed The Great Purge by the media at that time. But that action destroyed the robust Civil Service system and since that time this country has lost its way. In any National development there is no alternative to a robust civil service system. Tampering with the bureaucracy is the foundation for total collapse of the government itself. The military indulged in playing the civil service like a sporting event without knowing that it will lead to the decay and the rot we are witnessing now.

Bureaucracy means “the civil servants, the administrative functionaries who are professionally trained for the public service and who enjoy permanency of tenure, promotion within service- partly by seniority and partly by merit.

Bureaucracy, meticulously is also professed to be apolitical. This basically insinuate that a bureaucrat is not to have a political agenda of his own but preferably, faithfully effectuate the policies of the government of the day. It also has another and presumably more important meaning and that is: a civil servants allegiance and adhesion should be to the constitution of the land and not to any political party, politician, etc.

Public bureaucracy is a very invigorate element of the development process. Bureaucratic capacity adjudicate, what will get done, when it will get done, and how well it will get done. The dexterous capacity of the bureaucracy to implement labyrinthine economic and social development plans, the higher the development potential of that society.

Bureaucracy epitomizes the most consummate, and rational way in which one can codify the human activity and that methodical processes and standardized hierarchies are indispensable to maintain order, maximize efficiency, and eliminate favoritism.

A bureaucracy is ostensible to be impersonal. This predominantly, means that a bureaucrat is anticipated, to be guided by objective premeditation while ensuing rules and regulations in the scheme of implementing opalescent policy measures and directives. In other words, a bureaucrat or a civil servant or a government official regardless name we choose to call him by – is not putative to be guided by his idiosyncratic whims and fancies, biases and prejudices in the dispensation of his official duties”.

These are what we are told that bureaucracy stands for by Dr. V. Pardha Saradhi.

Inspite of the purge of 1975, what positive thing have we achieved since then. Discipline erring officers but don’t collapse the system. In an attempt to discipline certain officers, what was done in 1975/ 1976 was to collapse the system in itself. We fought a civil war between 1967 and 1969 and we fought that war without borrowing a kobo but the success of that war could be traced to a robust civil service that was in existence at that time. No doubt the military officers went to war as foot soldiers but the backup energy was provided by the bureaucracy. In case we forget, Mr. Nowa Omoigui made a comprehensive report on the efforts of bureaucracy before and after the civil war.

He wrote that “for the ten months of the Gowon regime, there was no federal cabinet. Permanent Secretaries who dealt directly with Gowon headed Federal Ministries. In the confusion of the weekend of July 29, 1966, the birth of his government at the Ikeja Barracks had been partially mediated by a group of federal permanent secretaries. These included Abdul Aziz Attah, Phillip Asiodu, Allison Ayida, Musa Daggash, Ibrahim Damcida, HA Ejueyitchie, Yusuf Gobir, BN Okagbue and others. Other prominent federal public servants included the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Alhaji Sule Katagum. Along with others, as well as the British and American envoys, these men counseled caution in the heat of the events that were unfolding.

These pre- war grand strategic and political machinations aside, the federal civil service played a complex role during the war, alternately being viewed as an ally or irritant by the front- line military. Civil servants suggested the establishment of security and civil defence organizations in various states, tapping into logistic resources provided by various ministries. They counseled the promulgation of many war- time decrees, such as the Public Security Decree ( No. 31 of 1967) which outlawed the private possession of weapons and ammunition, and the Military Courts ( Special Powers) Decree ( No. 4 of 1968) designed to enforce discipline among federal troops. A whole variety of Trade disputes emergency decrees were also promulgated to settle wartime trade disputes.

Mr Gray Longe, who later became the Head of Service, recalls that initially there was an Armed Forces Committee on the procurement of Supplies. This committee included the Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MOD, along with the Army QMG, Air Force Logistics Officer and specialised differences between services needs, this Committee gave way to a purely military Joint Supplies Board to reconcile competing requests.

Then in October 1969, apparently in response to abuses in the system, as well as competition between Army Divisions ( who were each doing their own thing), Gowon created a central Procurement Committee that would make recommendations to him on the basis of input from the Joint Supplies Board. However, initial offers for weapons, ammo and supplies were to be channeled directly to the Service Chiefs and the Director- General of the Armed Forces Medical Services.

But there were other angles. The mobilization of personnel and resources across the country was stepped up at an unprecedented rate. For example, control of monetary and banking policies were more tightly controlled by the Federal Executive Council. The Central was empowered to purchase, sell, discount and rediscount Treasury Bills and Treasury certificates in order to increase borrowing power of the government at war. When the consortium under the Standard Charter of Britain became reluctant to do so ( because of wartime risks and export disruptions), the CBN was also directed to finance produce- marketing boards. Mr. I. J. Ebong, then Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, chaired the first wartime propaganda committee.

Civil Servants even participated in some military operations. When Lagos was threatened by the Biafran invasion of the Midwest and West, initial holding action was achieved by the destruction of the Shasha Bridge on mile 82 of the Ore road. However, the subsequent epic battle of Ore on August 29, 1967, at which eastern troops advance towards Lagos was decidedly reversed, was conducted with disused old colonial maps of tracks in the area.

The maps were provided by a surveyor in the civil service who passed them on to the Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MOD. Such vital intelligence enabled the encirclement and destruction of eastern troops in that sector. To limit the utility of internationally exchangeable money allegedly looted by secessionists from the vaults of the Central Banks in Enugu, Port Harcourt and Benin, the Federal Government changed the Nigerian Currency in 1968. As various localities were recaptured by Federal Forces, normalcy administration loans were granted to help reactivate local industries.

Civil Servants in the Foreign Service traveled to numerous countries all over the world on diplomatic missions in support of the war effort.