Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms, Dasuki Arabi, explains the importance of capacity building in the revamp of Nigeria’s Civil Service systems in this interview with DANIEL ADAJI
To what extent have public service reforms improved the MDAs and benefitted Nigerians?
Thank you very much for allowing me to speak to Nigerians through you.
The Bureau of Public Service Reforms was established in 2004 to, among other things, initiate, drive, monitor, and evaluate reforms and assess the impact of reforms—whether they were initiated by us or by other ministries, departments, and agencies of government.
You will recall that when former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government took over, one of the conditions for writing off Nigeria’s debt was for the Nigerian government to reform its public service. I link the creation of the BPSR to that action, as well as the establishment of SERVICOM and other agencies.
From the creation of Nigeria under colonial rule to the 1999 and 2004 reforms, we’ve had about 14 to 15 public service reforms.
Our strategy is encapsulated in the National Strategy on Public Service Reforms. This document was produced by BPSR in collaboration with resource persons from various sectors of Nigerian society. I am proud to tell you that this strategy is ours, created by Nigerians and being implemented by Nigerians, in contrast to other strategies that have been borrowed from outside.
The National Strategy on Public Service Reforms has four pillars.
Pillar one focuses on the governance environment. Our goal here is to improve transparency and accountability, fight corruption, and prevent corruption before it happens. While BPSR initiates these reforms, the Office of the Secretary to the Government and other agencies are responsible for their implementation.
Pillar two addresses national development plans. For many years, Nigeria lacked national development plans, but BPSR has worked with the Minister of Budget and National Planning and the Minister of Finance to produce the current development plans. We have Key Performance Indicators and a roadmap, allowing us to assess progress against our national development goals. This is a positive development for Nigeria, as it allows us to generate valuable data.
Pillar three focuses on public financial management. From the outset, we aimed to adopt technology in managing government resources. The tools developed by BPSR, such as IPPIS, the Treasury Single Account, and Bank Verification Number, have all enhanced transparency, improved efficiency, reduced the cost of governance, and allowed non-government actors to engage with government processes. The Treasury Single Account ensures all government revenue is collected into one account, making it easier to track and manage.
With IPPIS, government workers can no longer change their appointment dates, birth dates, or any other personal details. Once a person is employed in the federal civil service, their biometrics are captured, making alterations impossible. This system allows us to track staff salaries, promotions, and adjustments with accuracy.
We have also developed an ecosystem where contractors and suppliers must meet procurement requirements, including tax compliance. All agencies now work electronically, eliminating the need for paper and manual processes.
Pillar four focuses on civil service administration and management. Civil servants are the backbone of public service, and we are working to strengthen, train, and upskill them for 21st-century public service. In collaboration with the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, we’ve introduced performance management, succession planning, and mentorship programmes.
Gone are the days when employees would simply show up to work without accountability. Under the performance management system, civil and public servants will be held accountable for their work. Every MDA has KPIs and standard operating procedures to guide performance assessments.
As part of this, we are driving the digitalisation of public service. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when there were concerns about how the Federal Executive Council could meet, digital tools allowed us to continue operating. Our goal is for all MDAs to become paperless by 2030, but we hope to achieve this even sooner.
Over the past 30 years, Nigeria’s public service has undergone significant changes. We have collaborated with civil society, governments, and professional associations to enhance transparency and fight corruption. One of the initiatives is the scorecard programme, which ranks the performance of MDAs based on their websites and their ability to provide information and services online. We’ve expanded this initiative from 30 to over 300 agencies and aim to cover 500 in 2025.
A key focus is improving the digital literacy of public servants. Two years ago, we found that only 30 per cent of public servants were digitally literate. Since then, we have partnered with NITDA and the Office of the Head of Civil Service to provide training and improve digital literacy across the public sector.
Our goal is to engage all public servants at the federal, state, and local levels, ensuring that they are fully equipped to meet the challenges of modern governance. We are also working to ensure that local government financial autonomy is fully realised.
Some Nigerians believe that the civil service is still highly corrupt and that bribery is necessary to receive efficient services. Does this suggest that the reforms are ineffective?
I don’t fully agree with that view. We have seen a significant reduction in corruption due to the reforms we’ve implemented. However, change takes time.
The anti-corruption agencies are working tirelessly, and with initiatives like IPPIS and the Treasury Single Account, the government is in a better position to monitor and prevent fraudulent activities.
The most challenging aspect of reform is driving change, which is a gradual process. While we have made significant progress in reducing corruption, it is important to continue providing information about our successes.
The performance management system and digitalisation of the public service are part of our strategy to ensure greater accountability and reduce corruption.
As it stands, you cannot get a ghost worker on the payroll of the Federal Government now, and you cannot change your days of retirement for financial benefits anymore.
The most difficult thing to have is change. If the citizens will be fair to the government, over the years, I think corruption has come down. That’s while pillar four of the National Strategy is looking at cultural orientation. We are trying to see that we change not only the attitudes of public servants but also the attitude of everybody to service delivery.
This is a fight and a war to be fought by every Nigerian, not only from the government. I am hoping that by the time we’re able to digitise our civil service and man-to-man contact is reduced by up to 100 per cent, there will be nobody who will demand a bribe from you.
It is also important to recognise that corruption is not limited to government workers. It is present in many sectors of society, from transportation to markets. The fight against corruption is ongoing, and it is the collective responsibility of all Nigerians to combat it.
What key performance indicators would you use to measure the success of a reform project?
Just before this interview, we were in a meeting setting up our agenda for the conduct of impact assessment perception surveys of the reforms that we have either initiated and have been implemented or have been initiated by other ministries, departments, and agencies of the government. For every reform initiative, we have target result areas, we have set objectives, and we have what we expect you to produce, for example, the adoption of the use of information technology. We say you have digitalised the process of work in your agency 100 per cent; you have performed. We have been looking at the digitalisation of employment processes in the civil service, like the recent advertisement by the Federal Civil Service Commission, which is online.
We have a federal monitoring and evaluation framework that we are using to measure the performance of the MDAs vis-à-vis the performance indicators set.
What are some of the challenges the BPSR has faced in implementing reforms, and how did you address them?
As I said earlier, driving change is very difficult. It is not easy to get people out of their comfort zone. One person will be happy, and the other will not. We have tried as much as we can to overcome those challenges. To drive reforms, you need to be patient, you need to have interest in the job, and we have that, and we have been patient. Rejections have been shown in quite several quarters, but we have developed that deep skin that no matter what we do, throw stones at us, we will still come back. What is helping us is that some of those reforms are not coming as options but are attached to policies of the government, so you either key in or drop by the side and do not benefit. We are trying very hard to fight the obstacles and make sure that everybody is on board.
We have the interest of the leadership, and that makes adoption very easy and simple; however, when we started, a lot of our funding was coming from development partners, and that has reduced drastically because some of them have changed their focus and so believe they have done enough and the government should take over, but then, reforms are hardly funded by national budgets.
We are still in talks with the development partners to have a rethink and come back and talk to you.
Another challenge we have is institutional rivalry and the struggle for relevance. And that’s why one of the things we are trying to do is encourage collaboration between the MDAs so that we speak the same language of reforms.
That’s why you see me as the DG of BPSR embarking on quite a few courtesy calls and visits to chief executive officers of MDAs to get them to work with us. The president is also encouraging that we work together to speed up the reforms we are driving.
None of us can succeed alone.
What are your plans for a total overhaul of the public sector, given its crucial importance to the execution of government policies?
We plan to make sure that we fully implement the plans captured in the national strategy on public service reforms, which has the agenda saying that Nigeria’s public service must be among the first 20 public services in the world. We are in 2025, but we are not there yet. We have identified what we call building blocks, agencies of the government that have reached world-class standards, and we are making sure that we help them sustain their performance at that level so that they don’t come down until we get others to get to that level. We will work with the drivers of the government masterplan to make sure that even before 2030 all the MDAs are 100 per cent paperless. Through our work with sister agencies, we have deepened the adoption of artificial intelligence.
Now, there is an artificial intelligence adoption strategy by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
That’s why we are calling on the government and encouraging it to come up with a special incentive that will make us develop a hub of IT technicians and fintech companies in Nigeria. This has already started, as the president has already converted one of the houses of Nigeria in the United States into an IT hub, and we are working with Google, Microsoft, and others, but I want us to go beyond that. I want us to come up with specialised policies and programmes while we identify those who have the skills and give them all the support they need to do all that is expected of them in Nigeria.
In closing, I want to emphasise that the citizens who have placed their trust in us expect continuous improvement in the quality of public service provided by the government.
Nigeria’s commitment to the Open Government Partnership leaves us no choice but to engage with citizens and deliver quality services. This is why the focus on customer experience is timely.
It allows us to assess how citizens feel about the services provided and what more we need to do. As the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, we will continue collaborating with various departments and agencies of government to ensure we speak the same language, follow the same path, and align our efforts. This coordinated approach will enhance public service reforms and improve the overall quality of service delivery.
We are open to discussions with everyone involved in this process, and even with those not yet directly involved, we will reach out to ensure broad participation.
Additionally, I urge all states to establish their public service reform programmes, similar to the federal government’s efforts. This will ensure that states and local governments also benefit from the reforms being implemented at the federal level. A significant portion of Nigeria’s workforce is outside the federal public service, so once reforms are extended to state and local governments, we will see even greater improvements in the country.
We will also continue with capacity development programmes. This year, we plan to collaborate with several research institutions to develop initiatives that focus on the immediate needs of the public service and identify areas that require change. For instance, as seen in the U.S., where the President’s emphasis on public service transformation led to swift changes, we aim to drive similar progress.
Finally, I want to call on our development partners in Nigeria to continue supporting us and other government agencies. Your collaboration is essential in helping us meet our targets and fulfil the goals outlined in our strategic plan, particularly about BPSR. We are committed to working with international organisations to enhance our efforts.