Prince Adesegun Olusola Ogunlewe, recently retired from the Lagos State civil service after 34 years. A prince from Igbogbo in the Ikorodu area, he formally bowed out as state’s Head of Service, HoS. He was appointed HoS in May 2010, a position he occupied for three years before retiring on October 10th, 2013.  Ogunlewe, in this interview with Olasunkanmi Akoni, shared his experiences with Labour Vanguard. Excerpts:

WHAT attracted you into the public service of Lagos State, 34 years ago?

I deliberately joined the public service of Lagos State in 1979 because I was brought up in public administration at the traditional level. I have the privilege of being the last child of late Oba Festus Molaja Ogunlewe, the Adegoruwa of Igbogbo in Ikorodu Division. The post of a traditional ruler in itself is a public service.  I witnessed public administration at the traditional level all through my childhood.

I had my primary and secondary education in Igbogbo, Ikorodu. That gave me  the opportunity of being at home till about 16 years when I eventually completed my secondary education and got admission into the university. From my childhood, I learnt that the best place to touch lives was to work in the public service. That was what encouraged me to join the public service of Lagos State after I completed my university education.

*Prince Adesegun Olusola Ogunlewe

Was there a time you  regretted joining the public service?

The public service career is always challenging. There is no end to human needs. As public servants, we are expected to make lives more meaningful for all citizens at all time. I joined the public service after my university education as a GL-08 officer in the administrative officer’s cadre in 1979. There are values in public service. Once you understand and uphold those values, you will not find it difficult to move up consistently and gradually in your career.

What are these values?

First, you all went to school to acquire knowledge. You must be able to apply that knowledge appropriately to your duties. Second, you must be hard-working because the load of responsibilities in public service is very huge. Except you are very hard working, you may not be able to cope. Third, you must be honest in the course of discharging your responsibilities. You must be able to endure because the salaries are nothing to talk about, even till date. Fourth, you must be able to render selfless service with a mindset that you are rendering service to God and humanity. Then, what is your remuneration will be secondary once what is uppermost on your mind is your belief and readiness to service the people.

Getting fulfilled

These are the principles that guided my intention, and I did not find it difficult progressing in service and getting fulfilled at every point of my career.

Are there differences between when you joined public service and now?

Of course, the whole essence of having a good government is to make progress. There must be changes. When we started in the public service, there were no computers, even though we had typewriters.

Service now different with technology

Some of them were manual type writers to type letters; prepare minutes; roll stencils and so on. But in this age, we have computers that work faster than typewriters. We now have software that we use in our human resource management procedures. By mere clicks of the mouse, we get information that will ordinarily take two or three weeks to get  within minutes.

All these have made the system better than what it used to be. What it used to be was that our communication system was not functioning well. Rather than phoning somebody, you may go and deliver letters. But today, things have changed a lot. You can take advantage of short message service (SMS) or information and communication technology (ICT) through which you can send information out, not just to the public servants, but also to the general public. So, these are things that have made the difference between then and now.

Was there any conflict between public service and your family?

As I said earlier, you have to be very hard-working to cope with the responsibilities of public service. Once you have an understanding wife who is ready to fill the gap when you are not around, you will not find it difficult to manage your family. Let me give an example. I was in the Governor’s Office for five and half years, serving as a private secretary to three governors. Then, before I got back home in the evening, my children must have slept. By the time I was leaving in the morning, they would still be sleeping. But then my wife was there to take care of those gaps. She would prepare them for school. She would also bring them back from school. She always made sure they did not feel my absence.

It was during that period that I had three of my children. I have four children. Whenever we wanted to do child christening, I normally pleaded with the Reverend to be in my house by 7:00 a.m. By 7:30 a.m., we were done with the child christening. By quarter to 8:00 a.m., I should be back at my desk in the office. There was a particular child christening we had then; the governor did not even know about it because I was already in the office before 8:00 a.m. Once you know your responsibilities, you must be able to manage them with your home affairs, as a responsible officer.

The public service creates an opportunity to take a two-day leave. What stopped you from getting a one-day leave, just for the purpose of your child christening?

No, it is not always like that. It depends on the nature of work you handle. As a private secretary, I was in charge of the daily assignment of the governors. I mean daily assignment. It was not something I could hand over to somebody else. If I did, I would create a gap. The gap could be very embarrassing to their excellencies. That was why I must manage and ensure that there was no gap at all. It was not enough for me to give an excuse that I had a child and would not report at my duty post. When the governor is embarrassed, the whole state is embarrassed. So, that was the reason I did not give room for any gap.

I served as a Private Secretary between August 1987 and March 1992. I first served under the administration of Navy Captain Mike Akhigbe between August 1987 and August 1988, with Colonel Raji Rasaki between 1988 and 1991, and finally, Sir Michael Otedola between 1991 and 1992.

After 34-years experience in the civil service, how do you advise civil servants?

It is important for upcoming public servants to know that the service requires selflessness. It also requires demonstrable application of knowledge acquired and the need to serve the people with all sense of purpose.