Institutional memory, professional knowledge and the CORFEPS journal

THE Council of Retired Federal Permanent Secretaries (CORFEPS) is an association of patriotic former public servants that embodies administrative experiences, institutional memories and professional knowledge that could pull a lot of political and administrative weight within the reform imperative to transform governance architecture, the civil service and its ecosystem. As a multidisciplinary body of retired public servants with vast knowledge of the workings of the system, CORFEPS possesses a huge significance in connecting the institutional and reform dots in terms of where the civil service system is coming from, where it is at the moment and where it intends to be, given the democratic imperatives and development necessities of the current Tinubu administration. It is one of the most critical stakeholders in the public administration communities of practice and service that articulates a continuing professional and institutional interest in furthering the relevance of the civil service as a significant player in the development process in Nigeria.

The necessity of such a body derives from the fact that patriotic and meritorious service does not need to end with retirement. Indeed, more can still be done in entrenching the institutional memories that retired permanent secretaries embody. CORFEPS, under the able chairmanship of Mahmud Yayale Ahmed, has been energetic in its consistent push to regain the vocational honour, professional ethos and administrative efficiency of the civil service. And in furtherance of this enthusiastic push for the significance of the civil service system as one critical cornerstone of democratic governance in Nigeria, CORFEPS has just launched an amazing initiative: the CORFEPS Journal on Public Policy and Governance.

This significant initiative must be situated within a larger context of the institutional reform of the civil service system, especially its status as a value-based institution founded on merit, public-spiritedness and professionalism. That context facilitates a framework that allows the past and the present to initiate conversation, and for both retired and current public servants to incessantly brainstorm the future of the bureaucratic system and its capability readiness to shoulder the burden of public policy implementation. The journal, I must say, presses the advantage of escalating the fundamental significance of professional knowledge and its role in deepening institutional progress. In other words, through it, CORFEPS provides a rare forum—drawn, I dare say, from the administrative history of that golden era when administrative theorists (the gown) and practitioners (the town) were in conversation—within which administrative ideas, practices and initiatives could be discussed, extended and applied.

The inaugural edition of the CORFEPS journal is indeed a full, rich and exciting package that is sufficiently exciting to signal to the communities of service and practice that something new and challenging has arrived in the administrative space. This is because the editorial board went all out to create a splash, especially with the range of topics covered, and even more specially with the array of contributors and their unique specialities. As is to be expected, CORFEPS pulled strongly from within its own ranks for reflections that combine past administrative experiences with current observations from behind the scenes. The majority of the contributors are retired permanent secretaries who have served in one capacity or the other, and who have faced one crucial challenge or the other with wide-ranging levels of successes.

In this regard, the CORFEPS journal, in its inaugural edition, is drawing on the immense institutional memories and professional knowledge of its members to ventilate diagnostic, recuperative and reformative insights. And this is salutary in ways that serve to complement the mediatory role CORFEPS has been playing as a staunch and energetic stakeholder in the civil service reform project in Nigeria. We now have an opportunity to listen and take note, outside of the usual high-powered meetings, of the single-minded understanding of the civil service system from those who have manned its various aspects, especially the ministries, departments and agencies. Their reflections and analyses are complemented by others, critical watchers of the civil service, whose many years of dealing with the system make them significant participants in the ongoing efforts to transform it into a value-based, public-spirited, meritocratic and high-performing world-class institution.

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In terms of the range of topics and themes discussed in the inaugural edition, the CORFEPS journal becomes an automatic administrative keepsake. The inaugural edition is divided into eight parts. Each of the segments, with the exception of the last two, speaks intentionally to the most dominant issues involved in assessing and transforming Nigeria’s democratic governance experiment. This is indeed a well-thought-out scholarly first step by the editorial board. Part one, titled “The Nigerian Civil Service,” has four essays; part two with seven essays is concerned with governance tools; part three has just one essay dealing with Nigeria’s infrastructural development; part four has two essays surrounding leadership and management; the two essays in part five are wrapped around the theme of health and lifestyle; part six is dedicated to three book reviews; part seven signals recent appointments and tributes to distinguished former public servants; and part eight speaks to the activities of CORFEPS itself. In all, these thematic segments are all-encompassing. They are meant to lay on the table the diagnoses, prognoses and resolution frameworks for understanding the totality of Nigeria’s administrative and governance challenges and the ways forward to transcending them.

Without daring any in-depth review of each essay—which goes beyond the space of this piece—I will touch on some of the significant contributions. And of course, we start with the civil service system. This is key, even to the current advocacy responsibilities of CORFEPS itself. And the four essays in this segment did not disappoint. Their different focuses are without doubt current and contemporary—the status of the public administrator within the civil service and governance framework; the relationship between the civil service and the task of nation-building; the significance of the MDAs in the achievement of state capacity; and the relationship between administrative leadership and the performance management system. These are issues that are critical in reflecting on the challenges the civil service system is facing—how can we instigate the emergence of a public manager with twenty-first-century competences and literacies who can supervise a civil service system that is flexible, agile, technology-based and results-oriented through performance management that transforms Nigeria’s productivity?

In the second segment of the journal, containing the most essays, the contributors engaged with governance matters that richly scope the depth of the key issues. I am particularly thrilled by the essays that investigate (a) public financial management and development financing, (b) the intervention of the executive in the institutional autonomy of public institutions, (c) decentralisation and local governance, (d) capacity development to achieve service delivery and (e) the significance of corporate governance in the public sector. These issues connect with the earlier one on the administrative system. Budgeting and the financial management discipline that must attend it are critical for servicing development planning. And this goes beyond merely increasing budget size to the fundamentals of ensuring transparency and accountability in financing and execution that speak to sustainable outcomes.

I am also fascinated, as my many public interventions have demonstrated, with the place of local governance in Nigeria’s democratic governance. This also ties with the concern with the health of fiscal federalism in the Nigerian federation. Indeed, the author of the essay argues that constitutional autonomy to back the essence of local governance will be grossly less than optimal. Rather, what is needed is what he calls the “Nigeria Local Governance Reform Framework (2026-2035)” meant to reposition the local governments as key drivers of grassroots development. This is right on point. Similarly, the authors of the essay on training and capacity development attempt to recuperate training programmes “as genuine capacity-building instruments, anchored on competency-based needs assessment, transparent procurement, post-training accountability and the professionalisation of Nigeria’s training institutions.”

The third and fourth segments of the journal are tied together by the relationship between leadership and sustainable development. Sound leadership is the difference between successful and failed infrastructure projects. This then directs critical reform attention to the issue of leadership training and selection, the focus of the first essay in part four. Part five would seem to be off the path of a direct focus on administrative and governance subject matters in its focus on health and lifestyle. But that is not the case. Most reform blueprints, unlike the practice during the golden era of the public service in the 1970s, fail to factor in work-life balance in human capital development. This is crucial in the sense that when the public servant is healthy, it goes a long way in affecting performance and productivity. Thus, the two chapters on breast cancer and prostate health are key factors in institutional reform.

To recapitulate: the inaugural edition of the CORFEPS journal is really a mouthful! It is like a reader on institutional and governance reform that all MDAs and key parastatals must have in their libraries. More than this, the edition already raises the bar that the editorial board cannot afford to undermine, going forward. I have a series of recommendations in this regard. One, the journal must not attempt to be academic. It must rather be styled and intended as a journal for public administration and public service professionals. This then demands that the editorial board must give deep reflection, again, to the objective of the journal and its intended audience. The fundamental question in this sense would be: What does the CORFEPS journal aim to become in the next five years within the Nigerian communities of service and practice? This question impacts the idea of style and content. For example, every edition could then be themed around some specific subject matter of administrative and institutional reform, governance challenge, democratic consolidation, leadership, financial management, civil service mentoring, etc. Contributions can then be sourced from seasoned experts, public servants, and administrators, while online searches can also be made for syndicated columnists with innovative ideas and initiatives that speak to the concerns of the journal.

Indeed, special editions can be proposed on any theme for which the guest editor is renowned. Departments of public administration, as well as the MDAs, could serve as case studies for reflection on the overall health of the civil service system and public administration in Nigeria. Websites of other professional bodies will serve as veritable sources of publishable materials to introduce new ideas, tools, techniques, etc. Young mentees, volunteers and analysts could also be enlisted and commissioned to write features on some current affairs that are relevant to public administration. Interviews and autobiographical notes are critical elements for understanding the progress and reform of the public service. The editorial board must therefore also think of segmenting the journal to give room for special features, from interviews to critical reform highlights in some of the MDAs.

I will end this piece with a note of deep appreciation of those who thought the idea of the journal into existence. This is no mean feat in the total scheme of things concerning institutional reform in the Nigerian civil service system. Kudos, first, to Alhaji M. Yayale Ahmed, the National Chairman of CORFEPS and the distinguished publisher of the journal. And then to Ambassador Dr Godknows Igali as the chair of the editorial board. I recognise every member of the editorial board and commend the efforts that went into birthing this inaugural edition. We have commenced a journey into a legacy of reform activities.

•Professor Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary and Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja.