ANALYSES AND LESSONS OF THE CURRENT GEO-POLITICAL DISTRIBUTION OF FEDERAL APPOINTMENTS - by: GSDI (Governance and Sustainable Development Initiatives) Limited, Abuja “Statistics are like Bikinis; what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital” – Aaron Levenstein, Professor Emeritus at Baruch College 1961-1981 Abstract Researchers at GSDI (Governance and Sustainable Development Initiatives) Limited, a management consulting and advocacy think tank on public sector whose Mission Statement is “to bring innovative and practical approaches in the promotion of good governance to the door steps of Government in pursuit of sustainable development” , have carried out an appraisal and detailed analysis of the list of appointees into federal establishment recently released by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as part of the Mid-Term Report of the Jonathan administration. Their findings, which reveal a number of vital information with far-reaching effects on our ethnic diversity management, underscore once again the magnitude of the bureaucratic capacity challenge facing the Jonathan Administration. The lessons, according to GSDI, are a tool for good governance and political engineering. Introduction During the public presentation of the Mid-Term Report of the Transformation Agenda, 2011-2013 of the Jonathan Administration on 29 May, 2013, carried live by major television houses, the one segment that not only caught attention of the staff at GSDI Ltd but became the topic for discussion over the next couple of days was where, in the Executive Summary of the Part 1 of the Report, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation(SGF) presented the Summary of Federal Appointees by State, as proof that the efforts of the administration in the last two years to correct the outstanding imbalances in federal appointments has begun to yield the desired results. GSDI management could not resist giving it an extra attention because of an on-going study involving a similar exercise on Nigeria’s Top Bureaucrats 1970-2012 and was eager to use the SGF data to authenticate theirs. GSDI found the initiative of the Office of the SGF to compile and release to the general public the list of federal government appointees into public offices highly commendable. The challenge, however, was that the data analysis and deductions were on the basis of the narrow prism of geo-political balancing. GSDI wished it had been expanded to examine the quality of appointees and their performance, in the mode of the on-going study at GSDI for which a Data Management Software (GSDI – DMS) has been developed. The Executive Summary of the Mid-Term Report highlights, on pages 15 -19 under Federal Character, a total of 551 Federal Appointees and the breakdown by States which show that Delta with 27 federal appointees, followed closely by Kogi (26), Anambra (25), Osun (24) and Edo (23) were the top five states while Zamfara (5), Taraba (6), Ebonyi (6), Sokoto (7) and Lagos (8) were the five least favoured states. Listed in the Report as the three outcomes of the 2 year efforts of the administration in balancing geo-political appointments are that: “ Confidence is building in each geo-political zone that adherence to the federal character principle guarantees a sense of belonging; Zones that had felt marginalized in the past now have a greater sense of belonging; and There is awareness that Governments can be held accountable if they subvert the federal character principle”. Details of these 551 federal appointments were later published in the Thisday edition of Wednesday 5 June 2013. At first, GSDI had difficulty reconciling the trends presented in the Data with the outcomes listed and was tempted to put it aside. On a second reflection, it was noted that the President, in his Foreward to the Mid –Term Report, had stated among others that the “Report presents very detailed and credible facts and figures showing the performance of the Administration at its half-way mark” …… “to let Nigerians see the progress made so far in implementing the policies, programmes and projects encapsulated in the Transformation Agenda (2011-2015)”; and that the “commitment and resolve of the administration are to ensure that the practice of democracy includes the overarching roles of credible persons and institutions that do not manage the political space as predators…as only such people and institutions can guarantee the political space for all”. Not only did GSDI find these statements from the President both inspiring and reassuring, as a management out-fit the company was equally conscious that the ability to take correct and timely decisions by a President is contingent upon the quality of briefs and data placed before him by his bureaucracy. Accordingly, buoyed by its Mission Statement, which is “to bring innovative and practical approaches in the promotion of good governance to the door steps of Government in pursuit of sustainable development”, GSDI decided to deploy its resources to carry out detailed examination and analysis of the data, even along the prism of the geo-political balancing that it was developed, to see the extent of information it can reveal and how the administration can be further assisted in tackling socio-political problems relating to this kind of issue. Below are the findings: Data Integrity Examination Results There were some issues that call to question the integrity of the data assembling procedure: Duplication and Wrong Listing of Appointees. For a start, the total number of appointees involved in the SGF analysis was not 551 but 545, as four appointees namely: Alhaji Yusuf Usman Abdallah ,DG National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM); Mr Adebayo Atoyebi, Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Press Council; Alhaji Abubakar H. Tanko, Conservator General of the National Parks; and Dr Kabir M. Anka, Medical Director Federal Medical Center, Gusau, from Kano, Kwara, Niger and Zamfara States respectively, had their names and designations repeated while Professor Chinedu Nebo from Enugu State, already appointed as Minister of Power, was still listed as the Vice- Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti. Rivers State, which the Summary indicates as having 16 political appointees, had only a list of 15 names. Professor Oye Ibidapo Obe was listed under Lagos whereas he is from Osun State. Lumping of Career – Based Appointments with Political Appointments. Career–based appointments were freely lumped with political appointments. For the benefit of the general public, there are two types of Career-based appointments: Those made into the pinnacle offices of the career officers, the exit from which is into compulsory retirement on the basis of completion of a specified tenure or the attainment of mandatory retirement age or removal by the President, as in the case of Permanent Secretary, a career officer occupying a tenured Director General position in an agency , Secretary position in a Commission or a Service Chief within the Armed Forces of the Federation. The other career- based appointments are those of Provost of College of Education, Rector of Polytechnic, Vice Chancellor of University, Medical Director of Federal Medical Center, Executive Director of commodity- based Research Institute, Managing Director of River Basin Authority, among others, whose appointments are ring-fenced for the career public servants on those specialized fields and managed in such a way that the appointees are made to return to the mainstream at the completion of their tenures, provided they have not reached the retirement age. For example, the Medical Director of a Federal Medical Center is first and foremost an Officer of the Federal Ministry of Health, just as the Managing Director of a River Basin Authority is a staff of the Federal Ministry of Water Resources. Not only would each of the appointees have been pursuing the position they occupy on the radar of their career aspiration, they usually revert to their regular professional titles and return to the mainstream of their offices after the expiration of their tenures. On the other hand, political appointments are made without any reference to what job the appointee was previously holding, if he had any job at all. By way of an example, the recently appointed CEO of the Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) is from outside the industry, just like her two predecessors in that office; and it is doubtful if 3 weeks before her appointment she ever gave a thought to working in a place like that, talk less of aspiring to occupy the Chief Executive position. Heads of Departments within an Agency were Listed and Accorded the Same Status as their CEOs. By their laws the nomenclature of the Chief Executive Officers of certain federal government agencies are either Executive Director (as in the Act of the NTDC), Executive Secretary (as in the FCDA Act), Managing Director (as in the FHA Act) or Director General (for the Bureau of Public Enterprises, as provided in the National Council of Privatization Act). It was obvious that there was either a lack of understanding or a wrong interpretation of the nomenclature “Executive Director (ED)” in the compilation of the data, as some “EDs” handling Departmental and zonal responsibilities under the direction of their CEOs were accorded the same status as the CEOs. Accordingly, agencies like the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and even certain River Basin Development Authorities had listed their MDs as well as their EDs. The compilation was made worse by the fact that there was no consistency in the number, even within similar agencies; some agencies had as many as 3 to 6 EDs while some had only 1 ED! This error led to FERMA having a CEO and 6 Zonal EDs; FHA the MD plus 4 EDs; and NPA only the MD. Benin-Owena River Basin Development Authority, Chad Basin Development Authority and Lower Niger Development Authority all had listed against them an MD and 2 EDs each, whereas Sokoto-Rima Basin Development Authority and Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority had listed an MD and I ED each while the Upper Niger River Basin Development Authority had listed the MD and 4 EDs! Grave Omission of the Non-Inclusion of Certain Agencies. For the NNPC and the CBN, what was listed were only the Group Managing Director and the Governor respectively. None of the 6 Group Executive Directors of the NNPC or the 4 Deputy Governors of the CBN was listed. The subsidiary companies of the NNPC are also missing. Non Regard to the Weight of Appointment. The weight of responsibility and, of course, the power and influence of an appointive position were not taken into consideration. Accordingly, by way of an example, the Governor of the Central Bank and the Executive Director (Services) of the Benin- Owena River Basin Authority were taken as individual and equal appointments! Non-Inclusion of Ministerial/Adviser Appointments & Appointments Arising from Electoral Processes. Appointments into Ministerial/ SGF/ HCSF/Special Adviser positions and the politically shared principal offices positions in the National Assembly (President of the Senate, Speaker of the House, Deputy President of the Senate, Deputy Speaker, Senate Leader and House Leader) were not taken into consideration. Data Preparation Methodology & Analysis The SGF data summary of federal appointees according to states can be broken down to 5 groups, namely: 25 and above appointees: 4 States - Delta(27), Kogi(26),Osun(25) and Anambra(25); 20-24 appointees: 7 States - Edo(23), Ogun(22), Katsina(21), Kwara(21), Kaduna(21),Imo(20) and Adamawa(20) 15-19 appointees: 5 States - Kano(19), Benue(19), Bayelsa(17), Abia(16) and Rivers(15) 10-14 appointees: 13 States - Borno(14), Ondo(14), Bauchi(14), Kebbi(14), Gombe(13), Enugu(12), Plateau(12), Akwa Ibom(12), Cross River(11), Niger(10), Ekiti(10), Oyo(10) and Nasarawa(10) Below 10 appointees: 7 States plus FCT – Yobe(9), Jigawa(9), Sokoto(7), Lagos(7), Ebonyi(6), Taraba(6) and Zamfara(4) The presence of Osun (a non- PDP State) among States with the highest number of federal appointees, Bayelsa (the State of the sitting President) among states with a mere average number of appointees, and Sokoto (seat of the Caliphate) and Lagos (most urbanized and most populous State) being at the rung of the ladder among the least favoured States, call for a more critical evaluation of the entire data. In order to achieve this goal, GSDI developed and deployed an Excel- based software that enabled the data to be queried, in a number of ways as was deemed fit. Recalling the famous statement of Aaron Levenstein, the Professor Emeritus at Baruch College, USA, 1961-81 that “Statistics are like Bikinis; what they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital”, GSDI was determined to dig beneath the suggestive to unravel all the vital information hitherto concealed by the “bikini” of the previous data presentation. Accordingly, researchers at GSDI Ltd decided to take a 3-Step approach to unravel the vital information carried by this Data: Step 1 Isolate the Career-based Appointments in the SGF Data to see their contribution and trend; Take the balance, being the truly public appointments in the Data, and see their contribution and trend; Add on to the original SGF Data the other political appointments, Ministerial, Bureaucratic and Elective, hitherto omitted, to obtain the Overall Total number of Federal Appointees per State to see their contribution and trend; Remove the Career-based appointments and the Sub-CEO Executive Directors in the SGF data from the new Overall Total Number of Federal Appointees just established above to obtain the true Effective Total Number of Federal Appointments Step 2 Having noted, as stated earlier, that the appointments carry different weights of responsibility and influence, we decided to take the Overall Total Number of Federal Appointees data (original SGF data plus our new additions) and ascribe some units to each category of identifiable appointment that exists at the federal level, based on their perceived functional power, influence and responsibility, as follows: Office Title / Weight of Responsibility (WoR) Score/ Point President 100 Vice President 50 ( Direct line of Succession) Senate President 45 ( In Line of Succession but with a less than 50% probability) Speaker of House of Reps 40 Chief Justice of Nigeria 40 Deputy Senate President 35 Deputy Speaker, House of Reps 30 Senate Leader 25 House Leader 20 Executive Chairman of Autonomous Body, including CBN Governor 20 National Commissioner/ Member of Autonomous Body 5 Resident Commissioner 5 SGF; COS-P 30 Honourable Minister ; HCSF 20; HMS 18 (irrespective of how “lucrative” or otherwise their deployment is) Permanent Secretary 15 (irrespective of whether their deployment is “lucrative” or otherwise) Special Adviser ; Deputy Governor CBN; Group Executive Director NNPC 10 CEO of Grade “A” Corporation/Agency 15 (including Special Advisers and Senior Special Assistants holding executive positions, some of who are in attendance at FEC Meetings) CEO of Grade “B” Agency 10 CEO of Grade “C” Agency 7 VC of Federal University 7 Executive Director under a CEO of a Grade “A” or “B” Agency 2 Rector or Provost of Polytechnics; Colleges of Education; 3 CMD of Teaching Hospital 3 Medical Director of Federal Medical Center 2 Having ascribed weights to the appointments, we were able to obtain Total Appointment by Weight of Responsibility, on the basis of which the States were again ranked. Thereafter, State population was introduced as a factor and the Data was analysed, one after the other, for: Overall Total Appointments per million State population ; Overall Total Appointment By Weight of Responsibility per million State population; Effective Total Appointment by Weight of Responsibility per million State population; and Effective Number of Appointments per million State population Step 3 Finally, all the analyses carried out under steps 1 and 2 above were aggregated on the basis of geo-political zones to see the trend. The results of the various analyses described above are as presented in the accompanying Tables. State Performance Trend After including the Ministerial/political appointments, Top Bureaucratic appointments and top Legislative positions, the list of the All-Comers Appointees went from 545 to 680. The original data provided by the SGF was disaggregated into Career-Based and Non-Career Based. The States with the highest number of Career-Based Appointees were: Katsina(12), Osun(12), Edo(11), Ogun(11), Kogi(10) and Kwara(10), Anambra(8), and Benue(8) while States with the least number of Career-Based appointments were Zamfara(1), Oyo(1), Nasarawa(1), Sokoto(2), Niger(2), Jigawa(2), Ebonyi(2), Taraba(3) and Lagos(3) It would be recalled that in the SGF data released to the public, the leading States in terms of federal appointments were: Delta(27), Kogi(26),Anambra(25), Osun(25), Edo(23), Ogun(22) etc. When the career-based appointees were removed from the SGF data, the leading States with Non Career-Based Appointees were: Delta(17), Anambra(17), Kogi(16), Kaduna(15), Imo(14) and Kano(14) while the least favoured States were: Zamfara(3), Taraba(3), Yobe(4), Lagos(4), Ekiti(4), Ebonyi(4), Cross River(4), Sokoto(5) and Plateau(5) States were the least favoured states. When all the political appointments at the Ministerial, Bureaucratic and Legislative levels were added to the SGF data, the leading States in terms of Total Appointments were: Anambra(35), Delta(34), Kaduna(29), Kogi(28), Kwara(28), Ogun(27), Osun(27), Edo(26), Adamawa(26), Imo(24), Katsina(24) and Bayelsa(24), while States with the least number of Total Appointments were: Zamfara(7), Taraba(7), Lagos(9), Ebonyi(9), Yobe(11), and Sokoto (11). The trend described above represents a slight departure from the SGF analysis. Major departure from the trend of the SGF analysis began to emerge when the number of appointments was weighted according to the responsibility that each position carries and the results were further evaluated on the basis of the State population. Ranking on the basis of Effective Total Appointments showed the leading States as: Anambra(26), Delta(24), Kaduna(23), Adamawa(18, Kwara(18), Bayelsa(17), Kano(17) and Kogi(17). Ranking on the basis of Effective Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility followed a similar trend as follows: Anambra(285), Delta(277), Kaduna(261), Bayelsa(252), Imo(209), Kano(196), Kwara(194), Benue(185) and Rivers(184). The least States were: Taraba(35), Yobe(55), Lagos(60), Zamfara(70) and Ekiti(70). The result of analysis on the basis of Overall Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility thrust up Kaduna, Bayelsa and Benue into the fold and Delta regained the lead such that Delta(337), followed by Anambra(331), Kaduna(288), Bayelsa(272), Adamawa(259), Benue(237) and Kwara(230) became the leading States while Taraba(43), Lagos(67), Zamfara(72), Yobe(77) States hold the rear positions. The lead by Delta was due to the presence of more appointees attracting greater weight of responsibility points than Anambra’s. For example, Delta has 2 Ministers and a Chief of Staff, each carrying 20 points on the basis of WoR , compared to Anambra’s one Minister only in that category. Further analysis and ranking on the basis of Overall Total Appointments By Weight of Responsibility per million population showed that Bayelsa(160 units) was by far the leading State, followed by Kwara (97), Delta(82), Adamawa(81), Anambra(79), and Edo(67) while States with the least Overall Total Appointments By Weight of Responsibility per million population were Lagos(7), Taraba(19), Zamfara(22), Kano(23), and Jigawa(26) States. On a comparative scale, Bayelsa is about 200% more favoured than Delta, Edo and Anambra States, each of which is, at least, 800% more favoured than Lagos State. On the basis of Overall Total Number of Appointees per million population, Bayelsa(10) was followed by Kwara(9) and Kogi(8) States. Delta, hitherto showing up as the leading State, occupies a joint 4th position with Edo and Osun States with a score of 7 positions per million population. It is instructive to note that even when the entire 100 units assigned to the weight of responsibility of the position of President was removed from the Bayelsa point, on the justifiable assumption that the President was not representing Bayelsa per se but the South-South zone and that the entire Nigeria was his constituency, the Overall Total Appointment by Weight of Responsibility per million population for Bayelsa (89) was still the highest. States with the least Number of Effective Appointments per million Population(political office holders ) were were: Lagos(1), Akwa Ibom(2), Jigawa(2), Kano(2), Katsina(2), Sokoto(2), Taraba(2), Yobe(2) and Zamfara(2). Geo-Political Zone Analysis The geo-political zone segregation of the SGF data showed that South-South led the way with 105 appointments, followed by North Central (98), North-West (95), South-West (88), South-East (79) and North-East (76). The same trend repeats itself when the overall total appointments were segregated to zones: South-South led the way with 133 appointees, followed by North-Central (120), North-West (119), South-West (111), South-East (97) and North-East (94). Based on this type of data analysis one might be tempted to conclude that the least favoured zones in terms of federal appointments are SE & NE. Such a conclusion falls on quick- sand when the data was analysed on the basis of Overall Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility, as the zonal total figures were: South-South (1288), North-West (1151), North-Central (1055), South-East (957), South-West (922) and North-East (794). The corresponding zonal averages were: South-South (215); South-East (191); North-Central (176); North- West (164); South-West (154) and North-East (132). The zonal disadvantage of the SE in terms of number of States appears to have been corrected in the total appointments by weight of appointees as its score of 957 is higher than those of South-West (922) and North-East (794), each of which was the total for 6 States. Noting that the variation in the number of States per zone from 5 for SE to 7 for NW while the others were 6, was responsible for the big jump in the SE data to 2nd position on the basis of the zonal averages, an alternative calculation, based on population, was considered a fairer option. The resulting analysis revealed that zonal figures, on the basis of Overall Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility per million population, were South-South (61) followed by South-East (58), North-Central (56), North-East (42), South-West (33) and North-West (32). In terms of Effective Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility (a measure of the weight of political appointments), per million population, the figures were: South-South (52), South-East (52), North-Central (47), North-East (36), South-West (28) & North-West (28). In an attempt to confirm the extent of intra-zonal cries of marginalization the analysed data was segregated into highest and lowest States within the zones. The results showed that the zonal highest performing States in terms of Effective Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility were: SS – Delta (277); NW – Kaduna (261); SE – Anambra (255); NE – Adamawa (225); NC – Kwara (194) and SW – Ogun (175); while the least performing States within the zones were: NC – Plateau (105); SS – Akwa Ibom (100); SE – Ebonyi (100); NW – Zamfara (70); SW – Lagos (60) and NE – Taraba (35). When the Zonal Median (established by averaging the scores of the highest and least States in each zone) for Effective Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility was calculated, SE came 1st with 192, followed by SS (188), NW (165), NC (145), NE (130) and SW (117). In order to find a simple and objective way to show the extent to which a State is being “marginalized” within a zone, the State with the least score was weighed against the State with the heighest score, and the results were as follows: NC, where the score of Nasarawa was 56% of Kwara, came 1st as the zone that tries to demonstrate some level of equity in the distribution of Federal appointments; SS was 2nd as the score of Akwa Ibom compared to Delta was 36%; SE was 3rd as Ebonyi was 35% of Anambra; SW was 4th as the score of Lagos was 34% of Ogun; NW was 5th as the score of Zamfara was 27% of Kaduna, and the zone with the highest variability, an indicator of State marginalization within its zone is NE where the score of Taraba was a mere 15.5% of the score of Adamawa. On population basis, however, the results of the Best State within the Zone in terms of Effective Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility per million population showed that: for the SS- Delta(67) was displaced by Bayelsa with 148 points (or 89 with the removal of the points attached to the weight of the position of President); NC – Kwara (82); NE – Adamawa (71); SE – Anambra (68); SW – Ogun (47) and NW – Kaduna (43). The least performing States per zone were: SW – Lagos(7), NE – Taraba(15), NW – Zamfara(22), NW – Kano(23), SS – Akwa Ibom(32) and SE – Enugu(39). Interpreting the Data What Factors Make Certain States to Fare Better than the Others in Career-Based and Political Appointments? In an attempt to find answers to how the States and geo-political zones have fared, GSDI tried to identify a number of factors which in public discussions have been peddled as determinants of political favours and evaluate their individual contribution to the trend observed: the influence of political god- fathers; Does this explain the 2 Ministerial positions in certain States like Ogun & Delta, or the general performance of Delta, Anambra, Kaduna, Bayelsa, Adamawa, Benue States etc? If that is so, what are we to say of States at the bottom of the ladder like Lagos, Ebonyi and Sokoto; Is it that their god-fathers went to sleep or that their efforts were of no effect? How has the influence of the respective god-fathers shaped the deployment of certain Ministers and Permanent Secretaries, especially those deployed outside their verifiable areas of expertise and competence? influence of powerful members of the Cabinet that readily get the listening ears of the President; How have the States of these group of Ministers fared? Can we ascribe all the appointments made in favour of indigenes of their States to the sole impact of their respective influences? alignment of state ruling party with the federal ruling political party; If the PDP States are expected to fare better than the non-PDP States why are Sokoto, Rivers and Ebonyi States lagging behind Osun State? the President’s State of origin/ethnicity; What is the performance of the President’s State of origin? State’s access to education; Is there any correlation between the least favoured States and any history of lack of access to education? For example, the data showed that States with the highest number of Career-Based Appointees were: Katsina(12), Osun(12), Edo(11), Ogun(11), Kogi(10), Kwara(10), Anambra(8) and Benue(8). The history of each of these States in terms of educational development in their various regions is well known. Could it explain the presence of Osun among States with the highest number of appointees? If that is so, how do we explain the presence of Oyo and Nasarawa States at the bottom of the ladder with only 1 career-based appointee each? State’s public service track record etc? How have States with track record of public service, like Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Enugu, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers, Lagos, Osun, Ogun performed? Data Analysis of Federal Appointments as a Tool for Good Governance & Political Engineering The position of GSDI after examining the above listed factors is that the factors at play in determining the performance of States in terms of federal appointments are multiple and operating at very complex multi-layer levels. Accordingly, GSDI is convinced that in order to assist the President to achieve the “commitment and resolve of his administration to ensure that the practice of democracy includes the overarching roles of credible persons and institutions that do not manage the political space as predators” as declared in that Mid-Term Report, it is the responsibility of the bureaucracy supporting the President to identify and manage these factors. That responsibility starts with not just the capacity to carry out the right type of analyses but the pro-active deployment of that capacity to solve an emerging problem. For example, with the SGF data which presented Bayelsa State as having only 17 positions and ranking 14th there was nothing to hold back the President from making his next appointment for a CEO of a Federal agency from Bayelsa. On the other hand, if the President were to be presented an analysis of the Overall Total Appointment by Weight of Responsibility which shows Bayelsa as not just being the highest but more than double Delta State that is occupying the 2nd place, he is likely to have a second thought. Similarly, the SGF data, which was carried in detail by Thisday Newspaper, had presented the following as Total number of Appointees for certain States: Ebonyi (6), Sokoto(7), Ekiti(10) and Rivers(15) making them to rank 34th, 33rd, 26th and 16th respectively. When the political appointment from all categories were added, despite the increases in numbers, the same trend was maintained as follows: Ebonyi(9) 33rd, Sokoto(11) 31st, Ekiti(12) 28th and Rivers(20) 15th. However, further analyses based on incisive examination changed the trend as follows: Effective Total Number of Appointment: Ekiti(6) 32nd , Ebonyi(7) 31st, Sokoto(9) 29th & Rivers(20) 15th; Effective Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility: Ekiti(70) 32nd, Ebonyi(100) 30th, Sokoto(130) 22nd & Rivers(184) 10th; Effective Total Weight of Responsibility per million population: Ekiti(29) 27th, Sokoto(35) 21st , Rivers(35) 21st & Ebonyi(46) 13th position. The implication of the above highlighted results is that, on the basis of the earlier analysis, Ebonyi was thrust up as being in dare need of attention while Rivers State was shown as having been fairly taken care of. It was the Weight of Responsibility data that helped to show very clearly that the fewer appointments of Ebonyi had more weight than those of Ekiti, for example, and that on per capita basis (per million population) Ebonyi State is, indeed, far better placed than Ekiti, Sokoto and even Rivers States. States which showed a clear trend of relative advantage in political appointments were: Anambra, Delta, Kaduna, Adamawa, Kwara, Bayelsa, Edo, Kogi, Ogun, Imo, Benue, Oyo, Katsina and Rivers. It would be recalled that the zonal figures, on the basis of Overall Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility per million population, were: South-South (61), South-East (58), North-Central (56), North-East (42), South-West (33) and North-West (32); while in terms of Effective Total Appointments by Weight of Responsibility (a measure of the weight of political appointments), per million population, the figures were: South-South (52), South-East (52), North-Central (47), North-East (36), South-West (28) & North-West (28). The poor performance of the North-West, North-East and South-West Zones in the current geo-political distribution of political appointments has political implications for the President. It therefore requires a pro-active action. It is easy for those around the President to wish it away with a wave of hand, that these were in the past the high riding geo-political zones and as such must now stew in their own juice. The more politically correct position would be to make the President court them, in realization that the current predicament of these zones might both galvanize and spur them to greater battle readiness, if only to free themselves from this quagmire in the next available opportunity. The political wisdom in a position that would advise the President to court them lies in the realization that the combined population of the NW, NE and SW zones is 82,621,598, compared to the combined population of the current highly favoured zones, NC, SE and SS, which stands at 56,393,343. Lessons and Way Forward The lessons of this exercise are very clear: First, this study by GSDI Ltd have revealed a number of vital information that are very useful, not only for the management of our ethnic diversity but perhaps for President Jonathan’s political engineering; Second, noting that the ability to take correct and timely decisions by a President is contingent upon the quality of briefs and data placed before him by his bureaucracy, the inability to unravel the above highlighted vital information in the presentation at the Mid-Term Review underscore, once again, the magnitude of the bureaucratic capacity challenge facing the administration of President Jonathan. While commending the effort of the office of the SGF to compile those data and place them in the public domain, there is no doubt that a lot needs to be done to ensure that the type of errors highlighted above which seem to question the integrity of the data are avoided. The data and the entire section on Federal Character under which it was published, on pages 15-19 of the Executive Summary, are nowhere to be found in the main volume of the Mid-Term Report. Could that have been because it was rushed? Who put the data together and what was their agenda? Stories going round the service indicate that the bureaucrats in the Department with mandate for this kind of issues, within the office of the SGF, were not in the picture and accusing fingers are being pointed at the political aides in that office. Political aides, by their nature, are opportunity seeking short-timers who would use official closeness to their principals to high-jack the duties of bureaucrats in the direct line of executive authority. The challenge for this administration, and in particular for the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, is how to take the benefit of institutional memory and build upon it by ensuring that offices with statutory responsibilities are no more sidelined in the performance of their duties. On many occasions, civil servants have been derided as incompetent, too slow and lacking in initiative. Political office holders would not be helping the situation if the statutory responsibilities of career public servants are regularly and brazenly being given out as contracts or assigned to short timers masquerading as Special Assistants. The situation described above is not peculiar and limited to the Office of the SGF. It is pervading across many Ministries. GSDI believes that Nigeria can draw a lesson or two from the experience of other countries which, even under an open and transparent policy, had faced a similar challenge. In 2006 at the Conference on 21st Century Public Services: Putting People First, Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, after reviewing the nearly 10 years of his administration’s reforms, stated that one of his regrets was his late realization that by his administration’s out-sourcing policy they were “dummying” (eroding the technical know-how and expertise of) the civil service. The Nigeria Federal Civil Service is dying and we do not have the luxury of 10 years to come to Tony Blair’s type of realization. The considered opinion at GSDI is that the way to revive our civil service begins with allowing the civil servants to perform their statutorily assigned duties. If they fall short of expectation, the system should assist in building their capacity. If, after all the efforts, they are still not measuring up to standard, the system should muster the required courage to ship them out. It would have been interesting to isolate and analyse the appointments made in the last 2 years along the steps itemized above and see the trend. The data presented by the SGF, which formed the basis of GSDI verification study, is a composite of the subsisting and emerging appointments. While, for obvious reasons, GSDI may have decided not to isolate appointments of the last 2 years for a focused analysis, it is advised that the Office of the SGF takes action to carry out that assessment to enable the administration begin to address the issues it might raise. The marginalization cries of certain sections of the country relate to that segment of the data. The results presented in the preceding paragraphs should be appreciated within the contex of the buffer provided by subsisting (pre- 2011) appointments. The cries of marginalization, even within the zones, sometimes muddle our collective national sense of reasoning to make us take our eyes from the ball of national development. Some Yoruba, for example, would not hold back on attacking Obasanjo as being the god-father that made it possible for Ogun State to have two Ministers, forgetting to acknowledge the fact that the two Ministers, being outstanding professionals in their fields, are among the few round pegs in round holes in the administration whose performance are verifiable contribution to the development of the country. Similarly for Drs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Bright Okogu, who may have originated from Delta State but who by their antecedents, qualifications and experience belong to the league of global professionals who qualify to hold their current positions in any of the top league of countries in the world, had they been born there. However, what should be said of the allegation that the federal appointees from Ondo State into Ministerial and Special Adviser positions are all from within a 10 mile radius of the polling booth of the Governor! Even if that is true, the Governor is not the only one guilty. How about those others who have the listening ears of the President? How have they performed so far? The commitment and resolve of the administration of President Jonathan to ensure, as he declared during the presentation of the Mid-Term Report of his Transformation Agenda, “ that the practice of democracy includes the over-arching roles of credible persons and institutions that do not manage the political space as predators”, will not be achieved until the key figures around the President are able to rise above the retrogressive tendencies of parochialism, ethnicity, inducement and “settlement” in making their submissions to the President on not just political appointments but on all issues of national importance. The real issue of national concern is why in, both official and unofficial platforms we must always consider federal appointments within the narrow prism of geo-political balancing of the sharing of national cake, a procedure that is highly prone to manipulation by those who (using the words of the President) may have been “managing the political space as predators”? Recognizing that the constitutional provision of the federal character principle to protect ethnic diversity is not mutually opposing to merit and competence, in how many of the cases of names on the current list of federal appointees can this administration beat its chests that it has not only ensured that the best available in every State or Zone are the ones chosen and that, having assigned all the appointees to portfolios that match their integrity, educational training and cognate experience, Nigerians are satisfied with their performances in terms of moving their respective sectors forward? That, and not the sharing of federal appointments, is the issue and the position of GSDI (Governance and Sustainable Development Initiatives) Limited. Dr. Goke Adegoroye, a retired Federal Permanent Secretary and pioneer Director General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms, is the Executive Chairman of GSDI (Governance & Sustainable Development Initiatives) Ltd, Abuja
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 16:26:22 +0000
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