By Ladipo Adamolekun

“A value system rewards talent and enterprise, and it is talent and enterprise that will drive sustainable growth. I need to make this point because time and time again, we get arguments around whether the appointment of persons into public institutions should be based on federal character. The dominant principle should be merit. Federal character is essentially affirmative to create a balance, but even if we are to create that balance, it should still be based on merit.” – Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in Punch, October 4^th 2020.

 The rationale for the title of this essay is stated explicitly by the Vice-President in the above quote from a recent newspaper report. He juxtaposes federal character principle and the merit principle and asserts correctly that “The dominant principle should be merit”.

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Almost exactly four years earlier, another newspaper report revealed that the VP is a defender of the merit principle: “Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has identified the importance of merit in giving reward and said that quota system was detrimental to the progress of any society. According to him, the nation had placed quota before merit which ‘we know does not work’” (Premium Times, December 3^rd 2016).

The obvious conclusion is that the incumbent Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN), of which the VP is number two, is yet to accept and respect the primacy of the merit principle in making appointments into the country’s public institutions.

Although the International Criminal Court (ICC) is not a national public institution, the widely publicized recent woeful failure of Nigeria’s nominee to serve on the court raises a pertinent question about the dominant criterion that was used to select him.

Obviously, it was not merit because he emerged in the bottom group of a three-group qualification categorization: “Highly qualified”, “Qualified” and “Only formally qualified”. I would assert that if Nigeria had adopted the merit principle as the dominant criterion for selecting its nominee to compete for the ICC position, she/he would have emerged in the top category of “Highly qualified” candidates. And the country would have been saved the international disgrace caused by a poor performing candidate.

Following the above illustration of a negative consequence of bypassing the merit principle, I make a brief recall of Nigeria’s experience with the primacy of the merit principle in the past, with particular reference to the country’s civil services. The positive results recorded are highlighted.

Next, I provide an overview of Nigeria’s experience with the subordination of the merit principle to the federal character principle since the return to civilian rule in 1999, with particular attention to the civil services. The negative consequences are also highlighted.

I conclude with some observations on the strong linkage between the primacy of the merit principle and good development performance with some international illustrations.

Nigeria’s past experience, 1954-1965: Primacy of the merit principle and positive results

The following assessment of Nigeria’s civil services about eleven years after they were established in 1954 (a federal civil service and three regional civil services – a fourth was added in 1963) highlights “crude politics” as a factor that undermines the merit principle and “efficiency standards” as a consequence of the respect for the merit principle.

… civil services that are for the most part recruited on merit, that are geared to efficiency standards, and that are largely untouched by crude politics.

– Nigerian Opinion (a University of Ibadan-based public affairs magazine), Vol 1, No. 8, 1965, “Editorial”.

The quality federal and regional public/civil services praised in the above quote must have contributed hugely to the country’s low poverty level, estimated at about 25 per cent in the mid-1960s. A few years earlier, the Western Nigeria Regional Civil Service (WNRCS) was highly commended by the regional premiere in his valedictory speech in parliament at the end of his tenure in December 1959.

Our civil service is exceedingly efficient, absolutely incorruptible in its upper stratum, and utterly devoted and unstinting in the discharge of its many onerous duties.

For our civil servants, government workers and labourers to bear, uncomplainingly and without breaking down, the heavy and multifarious burdens with which we have in the interest of the public saddled them, is an epic of loyalty and devotion, of physical and mental endurance, and of a sense of mission, on their part. From the bottom of my heart, I salute all of them.

– Awo. The Autobiography of Obafemi Awolowo (1960, p. 293).

It is important to stress that the premier specifically mentioned the ability of the WNRCS to discharge many “onerous duties… heavy and multifarious burdens … in the interest of the public.” The following are some illustrations of the positive results that had been recorded by 1959: giant strides in the fields of agriculture, education, health, housing, transportation, industrial development and communication.

The most notable of these achievements was the introduction and successful implementation of the “First in Africa” Universal Primary Education (UPE), launched in January 1955. All these region-wide development activities were effectively implemented through the time of the 1965 praise and for a decade or so longer.  And the overall quality performance of the central and regional civil services contributed hugely to keeping the poverty level in the county low up to the mid-1960s, estimated at about 25 per cent.

Nigerian experience since 1999: De-emphasis of the merit principle and negative consequences

De-emphasis of the merit principle in public service recruitment was inherited from the departing military regime by the in-coming civilian administration in 1999.

To date, no serious effort has been made to return to the merit-based civil services of the mid-1960s either at the federal level or at the subnational level. (A few exceptions at the subnational level have not been maintained over a sufficient time period to ensure its sustainability).

Strikingly, too, successive governments at the central and subnational levels (almost without exception) have consistently cited the weak implementation capacity of their public/civil services as a major explanatory factor for the limited positive results from their development policies and programmes.

As correctly flagged by Vice President Osinbajo, it is the federal character principle that has become the dominant criterion for appointments into public institutions including the public/civil services.

As defined in the 1979 Constitution and maintained in the 1999 Constitution, the federal character principle is intended to ensure that Nigeria’s diversity is accommodated in appointments into both political offices and public/civil service offices.

With specific reference to public/civil services, almost every modern state seeks to assure some degree of representation of geographical, class, ethnic, communal, religious, gender and other such interests. These considerations are commonly summed up as the principle of representativeness (diversity). However, countries that seek to ensure well-performing public/civil services subordinate considerations for representativeness to the primacy of the merit principle.

Significantly, the subordination of the merit principle to the federal character principle is made worse by the fact that no guidelines have ever been provided for its application as far as public/civil services are concerned. Consequently, it is sometimes or oftentimes interpreted as a crude quota/patronage system and it is unclear whether states or geopolitical zones are used for determining quotas. Overall, its application has had negative consequences for public/civil service performance.

I would argue that there is a strong linkage between the country’s low to mediocre scores on governance performance today (notably, Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world since 2018) and public/civil services that have been weakened by the de-emphasis of the merit principle.

Conclusion: Primacy of the merit principle and good development performance

 As used here, development performance refers specifically to a country’s progress in growing its economy, reducing poverty, assuring security, and moving towards prosperity for all its citizens. In this concluding section, I provide evidence in support of the following proposition: countries that uphold the primacy of the merit principle in appointments into public/civil services tend to record good development performance.

Without question, the merit-based Western Nigeria Regional Civil Service that was praised by the regional political leader ensured good development performance as highlighted earlier in the essay.

Although this was only a subnational government, it is appropriate to include it as part of the evidence in support of the proposition stated above. Botswana in Africa, France in Europe, and Singapore in Asia, are three examples of countries with merit-based public/civil services that recorded good development performance at specific historical periods.

Botswana’s civil service has been acknowledged by both its political leaders and outside observers as one of the key factors that made it possible for the country to emerge as one of only thirteen (13) countries world-wide that recorded sustained high growth (seven per cent and above) for 25 years or longer during the second half of the 20^th Century (Commission on Growth and Development,2008).

Regarding France, the impressive recovery of the country from the devastations of the Second World War within a decade (between 1946 and the mid-1950s) is widely attributed to the country’s civil service with a critical mass of technocrats (technical and administrative professionals) in its upper echelons.

And in the case of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, a former prime minister, highlights the contribution of the civil service in the country’s rise “From Third to First World”.  And in 2008, the country’s Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, asserted that Singapore’s civil service has remained critical to the country’s good development performance: “[Singapore’s Public Service] is our most sustainable competitive advantage. The investments in Singapore’s future are only realisable with a first-class public service”.

Given the evidence provided above, including one that is home-grown, any political leadership in Nigeria at the central or subnational level that would like to record good development performance, similar to those highlighted in the preceding paragraph, must commit to upholding the primacy of the merit principle in making appointments into its public/civil services.

Professor Ladipo Adamolekun writes from Iju, Akure North, Ondo State.

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