NIGERIANS are quite aware that civil servants both at the state and federal level have over the years remained a stumbling block to the smooth running of government.

Though, it is equally right to say they are, in some ways, great contributors in the effective running of government. But most times they hide under bureaucracy to commit a lot of atrocities, thereby giving government a bad name.

Taking advantage of the ignorance of some elected and appointed public office holders on the rules and procedures of the civil service, the civil servants often mislead such people into committing mostly financial crimes while in office, thereby putting their integrity at stake.

One time Minister of Health, Professor Adenike Grange was removed from office unceremoniously because she mistakenly fell into the traps of the civil servants over unspent budget funds. There are several other cases that are not known or open to Nigerians. Ordinarily civil servants are expected to be partners in progress with government and the people, but more often than not, they have turned out to be the clog in the wheel of progress as being witnessed in Abia State presently, where some of them are opposing the biometric data capturing system introduced by the state government in its ongoing civil service reforms.

While some of them are allegedly opposing it in connivance with the Heads of Service in some of the council areas in the state who saw the exercise as a move to stop their excesses of recruiting ghost workers and diverting their salaries, others saw it as a move to curb their high level of truancy to work which has done more harm to government’s activities than good.

But it appears that they are meeting and might continue to meet brick wall in their oppositions to the policy, especially as they are dealing with a governor, Chief Theodore Orji, who was once a seasoned and career civil servant. Given Governor Orji’s background, knowledge and position on the matter, it is obvious that there is no hiding place for the erring civil servants who over the years saw the state civil service as a platform for corruption and self-enrichment. It could be recall that the level of corruption among the civil servants and public office holders at the council areas before 2007 when Governor Orji assumed office, was mind-boggling and alarming. By the time the last elected council chairmen in the state left office, they had accumulated N2.9 billion debt, ranging from unpaid salaries to money borrowed from financial institutions which Orji’s government was compelled to offset and it has done so.

So why should any genuine civil servants in the state oppose the policy. Even those who were opposed to it have no cogent reasons for such rather they want business to continue as usual.

All over the world, biometric data capturing is the order of the day. It even helps security agents in proper identification of people, especially in crime fighting. The recent proposal by the Federal Government to embark on a new national identity card project with biometric data registration underscores the importance of the method in any society that wants to be progressive and effective.

When the then Governor of Enugu State, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani’s government employed the biometric data capturing in the civil service of the state in 2005, it was discovered that more than 1000 civil servants were ghost workers who were used over the years by some elements in the civil service mostly Heads of Service to divert government money for personal enrichment. Such ghost workers were equally used to block vacancies in the civil service where teeming unemployed people could be employed. That is the case in almost all the states of the Federation. But it takes a governor who is courageous and has an idea of the civil service system like Orji to go the extra mile to checkmate such excesses that have eaten deep into the civil service.

Very baffling and worrisome is that some of the civil servants whom their monthly salaries are known, become amazingly wealthy overnight, obviouly through the shady deals and manipulations they engage in at the detriment of the government and the rest of us. That is why they are always averse to change such as the biometric data capturing that was introduced in Abia State civil service.

Clearly, the current reforms introduced in the civil service by Governor Orji’s government which included the transferring of non-indigenous civil servants to their states of origin and the compulsory biometric data capturing of all the civil servants in the state is purely altruistic and is in the interest of the state. Whosoever is opposed to it does not mean well for the state and its people. Every genuine civil servant in the state has nothing to fear, lose or regret by submitting himself or herself for the capturing, especially with the readiness of the Orji’s administration to pay all the workers the N18000 minimum wage.

For those senior civil servants in the state who have before now, thrived in the corrupt practice of padding monthly salaries and allowances for ghost workers which they would later put into their individual private pockets, it will appear the door has finally been shut against them for now.

Mrs. OBIANUJU ADANNAWOYE, a retired civil servant,  wrote from Umuahia, Abia State.