By: Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief & Luka Binniyat, National Assembly Correspondent

Attempts to stop last Monday’s  Competency Test among Senior Federal Government  civil servants failed even as those who led the protests did not only register but indeed participated in the test.  The test was written but the civil servants are not yet done with their protestation against what they described as an arbitrariness and insisted that the result of the test must not be used in place of promotion examination.

Officers under the umbrella of Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria  had gone to challenge the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Steve Oronsanye’s competence to ask them to write a test that would show if they have the capacity to function in roles assigned them. .

The workers had engaged Mr. Sunny Uche, to file their case at the Federal High Court, Abuja to stop government from conducting for them “today” or  any other date, any competency, pre-qualification or any other such tests as officers of the Federal Civil Service who are due for promotion, pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice

The  Head of the Civil Service, the Federal Civil Service Commission and the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice are the defendants to the suit.

Prayers- The workers, mostly deputy Directors, are seeking a declaration that having regards to the provisions of section 153 (1)(d) and (2) section 318 (2) and paragraph 11 (1) of Part 1 of the third schedule to the 1999 Constitution, the power to promote them is vested in the civil service commission and not on the head of service.

They are also seeking a declaration that “the commission in exercising its powers of promotion is not obliged to consult the head of service because the office is not among the offices mentioned in paragraph 11 (2) of Part 1 of the third schedule of the constitution.”

In addition, they want the court to declare that “even if the commission was required to consult the head of service with respect to their promotion under paragraph 11 (2) of part 1 of the third schedule of the constitution, that would not entitle the head of service to override, substitute or modify the conditions set by the commission for their promotion as officers.

Service dogged by patronage- Essentially, much of the trouble with the federal civil service was caused by those who have no competencies for effective service delivery and break the service rules on appointment, discipline and promotion.  The service is therefore left with a system where promotion is based more on patronage than merit.

Stagnation thus became the norm with a large number of qualified Deputy Directors, for instance, who have remained on the same level for many years and would not be promoted to the position of Director, simply because they refused to bribe their way through or had nobody to make a case for them.

Eight years Directorship- The situation led to the Tenure Policy of the current Head of  Service, Mr. Steve Oronsanye, which stipulates that those who have spent eight year as directors or permanent secretaries must leave the service to create vacancies for others.  This policy was vehemently opposed by those who were benefitting from the rot in the system.  In spite of vehement threats and blackmail, however, Mr. Oronsanye survived.

The competency test, he argued, became necessary because many directors don’t have what it takes to effectively function in that position.  This group of officers were the first to oppose the idea of a competency test.

The second group that fought and are still fighting are those who have passed their promotion examinations but were not promoted.  They insisted that they cannot write another test without having received the benefits of the last one which they passed.

FCSC states position- In a July 9, 2010 letter to the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), the association stated its opposition to any fresh promotion examination for Deputy Directors, DDs, who sat and passed the last promotion examination.  Of about 133 DDs who scored 60 per cent and above in the last promotion examination last year, only 35 people were promoted.

Senior civil servants protest- The Senior Civil Servants, in a letter signed by Com. Ayo Olurunfemi, Head FTC, were very clear, as they insisted that the FCSC has no justifiable reason to asked those who had passed an examination to repeat same examination along with those who failed or were writing it afresh.

The full letter reads: “I am directed to refer to your letter Ref No. FC6243/S.I/VOL.XX/136 dated 5th July, 2010 inviting officers of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria as observers in the conduct of the 2009/2010 promotion interview/examination for officers on Grade Levels 14 – 16 in the Federal Civil service. “I am further directed to recall the discussion we had with you in respect of the need to promote those in the directorate cadre who scored 60% and above in the 2008 promotion exercise as a panacea for solving their stagnation and frustration in the service.

The meeting was held on Wednesday 23rd June, 2010. “It was pointed out at the meeting that the Federal Government introduced an 8-year Tenure Policy to correct stagnation in the Federal Civil service. It was also observed in the meeting that the recent implementation of the 8-year Tenure policy led to exit of many Permanent Secretaries and Directors from service and this created consequential vacancies needed to promote Deputy Dire
ctors who were successful in the 2008 examination to serve as inducement and consequently propel them to increase their productivity in the service.

“I am also to refer to your position/recommendation that we meet with the Head of Civil Service of the Federation since that is the only office that can declare vacancies for the use by the Commission to promote the affected officers.

“We are happy to inform you that we had a very useful meeting with the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation on Friday, 2nd July, 2010 and he strongly shared our view that the consequential vacancies be used by the Federal Civil Service Commission to promote the affected officers who scored 60% and above in the 2008 promotion examination.

We could deduce from his exchange of views with us that a letter may have been written to your office on the issue and that the tenure policy was to reduce the incidence of stagnation in the service. It follows therefore that to allow such consequential vacancies created to lie fallow would defeat the objective of the policy and also put the officers who scored 60% and above in a position of psychological torture.

“We are persuaded therefore to strongly hold the view that there is no justification for those who sat and scored 60% and above to’ be invited for another round of the same examination. This may be the height of de-motivation that can give birth to low productivity in the service. This trend must not be encouraged if we are desirous of becoming one of the best 20 economies in the world come year 2020.

“For avoidance of doubt, the Head of Service believed as any other development oriented public servant that a situation where people sat for examination and score 60% and above can never be regarded as failure in any circumstance. We hold the view that by any standard in the world 60% is a very good result while 70% is excellent. An officer with such result should be spared the agony’ of repeating the same examination along side those who never sat and those who failed.

“It is against the intent of the 8-year tenure policy if consequential vacancies were not used to promote Deputy Directors who scored 60% and above.

“In view of the above, the Chairman and the Commissioners are hereby requested to use their good offices to: –

“Use the consequential vacancies to promote Deputy Directors in line with this submission; “The Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria will not be in a position to be represented as observer in the 2009/2010 promotion interview/examination if the Commission insists on inviting the Deputy Directors who scored the mandatory 60% and above for this interview/ examination instead of promoting them accordingly by using the vacancies already declared by the Head of Civil Service of the Federation for that purpose. It may be difficult to guarantee industrial peace in such circumstance”.

FCSC Position on lack of vacancies-However, in a July 21, 2010 letter, the Federal Civil Service Commission was shocked that the association maintained its opposition to a fresh test to be used as a basis for promoting the backlog of Deputy Directors to the Director level.

The position of the commission was that directors who left office on account of the implementation of the 8-year tenure policy were technically on post and earned their salaries up to December 31, 2009; such vacancies could therefore be only utilized in 2010 in line with extant rules and due process.

It argued that promotion in the service is based on satisfying several criteria which must include availability. The commission therefore said that should the vacancies be filled by the DDs who have passed the last promotion examinations and waiting to be promoted, then there would be no 2009 and 2010 promotion exercise for the 280 potential officers who will mature for the 2009 and 2010 promotion examination to level 17.

The letter signed by the Director (Promotion), Dr. Egem-Odey, E.F.J, on behalf of the Chairman of the commission said the organisation  was trying to avoid a situation where those to mature for such promotion examination might embarrass the federal government through petitions.

ASCSN Faults FCSC on vacancies

But the association faulted the FCSC saying, “the argument of vacancy constraint cannot be defended in this circumstance because about 113 Directors were affected by the Government’s 8-year tenure policy meaning that 113 vacancies already exist to accommodate Deputy Directors that passed the last promotion interview/examination outside the 35 of them that were promoted.

In a petition to President Goodluck Jonathan, the Senior Civil Servants said  “the Association has kept on wondering what the Government was out to achieve by denying Deputy Directors promotion, when the spaces to accommodate them exist.

Our investigation has however, revealed that the quest of some powerful individuals within the service to bring in outsiders to fill the vacant posts of Directors was the main reason for the refusal of the appropriate authorities to release additional vacancies that will allow FCSC promote more Deputy Directors that passed the last promotion interview for advancement to the post of Director (Administration)”.

It therefore warned the president of the dangers of what it termed a dangerous plan to succeed, “ when we have highly qualified civil servants to fill the positions. Moreover, such retrogressive idea was one of the major reasons behind the introduction of the 8-year tenure policy by the Federal Government”.

The group urged that government must therefore avoid approbating and reprobating on major policy issues as doing so will send the wrong signals to the outside world that the Government does not know what it is doing.
It pointed out in the petition signed by the Secretary –General, Com A.B. Lawal, that “it is too early in the day for the policy introduced in January, 2010 to collapse like pack of cards within the first three months of its implementation. Such negative path should be avoided so that the impression is not created that Government is incapable of implementing any policy no matter how beautiful it is to its positive and logical conclusion”.

FCSC is archaic  – Olorunfemi

In a chat with Com Olorunfemi, he was asked why the Senior Civil Servants initially resisted the Competency Test, Com Olorunfemi said “this is the first time we are running a course of this nature and they are asking for exams. If anybody tells you that we have been running courses like these, it is a lie; a very big one.

“We (Senior Civil Servants), said look: ‘We know Countries that run programmes like these. The people they (the said Countries) want to assess, would be keep them in a place for about two months, and give them all the modules. Of course the modules I am talking about are full semester modules. And if you want us to treat the modules within two months, we will, but give us the enabling environment.

“You can keep us there for a period of one month and ask us to go and rest for 8 days and prepare for the exams and everybody will be happy and proud to be part of the system, but in situation where you just arrange a wishy-washy thing and put us in one place, because you want to make money from the process, we say no, nobody will use us again.

Asked why the senior civil servants changed their minds on the exams, he said, “I am referring to the first exam, not the latest one. You will agree with us that they use various forms of blackmail to tell the whole world that we don’t want to be tested, and our members said: ‘This is an insult, because most of them are University graduates. Virtually everybody in that category is a University graduate.

“There is no single person, who is not a University graduate. You can be talking about people who have masters or are Doctorate Degree holders and all that. So how can you on earth, say these categories of officers have failed exams.

“These categories of officers came to the Service via merit. When they came to the Service, it was not easy for people to come into the service. The Federal Government would then go into the Universities and pick them as a result of their extraordinary performance. So they said look: ‘these people are blackmailing us’

“I was with somebody, he is an Architect. A person who has been examining Architects, he has been assessing their competence and they said he is afraid of examination, what kind of examination.

“He is on top of the highest body of Architects. The highest body of Architecture in Nigeria is the Nigerian Institute of Architects and he is on top of that and you are saying he is afraid of test? Who are you ringing to assess him?

The Association’s Head FCT, insisted that the results of the controversial test would not be used for purposes of promotion.

His words, “we are saying it for the umpteenth time, that it cannot be used to determine promotion, because we would running foul of the rules. There is a provision in the rule that says this should be used in determining the promotion of officers. Even the promotion they are talking about, people have sat for these same promotion exams and have scored 70 and they were not promoted, so we are tired of these useless exams”.

Matter, he said has been clearly trashed out with the Head of service and the FCSC, as according to him, “we raised it and they said it is the number of vacancies for Directors released to them that they worked on, and we said now that we have released further documents on more vacancies to you now, you should act, because since those people have passed, you don’t need to say they should repeat, just let them fill the vacancies, but they said no. We feel this Commission is archaic and outdated in its ways”.