By Eric Teniola

OF all the mistakes made by the military, none is greater than the 1975–1976 assault on the bureaucracy in this country. It was termed “the great purge” by the media at that time. But that action destroyed the robust civil service system, and since that time, this country has lost its way. In any national development, there is no substitute for a strong civil service system.

Tampering with the bureaucracy is the foundation for the total collapse of the government itself. The military indulged in treating the civil service like a sporting event without knowing that it would lead to the decay and rot we are witnessing now. Bureaucracy means “the civil servants, the administrative functionaries, who are professionally trained for the public service and who enjoy permanence of tenure, promotion within the service-partly by seniority and partly by merit.”

The meticulous bureaucracy is also professedly apolitical. This basically insinuates that a bureaucrat is not to have a political agenda of his own but, preferably, to faithfully implement the policies of the government of the day. It also has another and presumably more important meaning, namely, that a civil servant’s allegiance and adhesion should be to the constitution of the land and not to any political party, politician, etc. Public bureaucracy is a very invigorating element of the development process. 

Bureaucratic capacity adjudicates what will get done, when it will get done, and how well it will get done. The more dexterous the bureaucracy is in implementing labyrinthine economic and social development plans, the higher the development potential of that society.“Bureaucracy epitomises the most consummate and rational way in which one can codify human activity, and methodical processes and standardised hierarchies are indispensable to maintain order, maximise efficiency, and eliminate favoritism.

“A bureaucracy appears to be impersonal. This predominantly, means that a bureaucrat is anticipated, to be guided by objective premeditation while enforcing rules and regulations in the scheme of implementing opaque policy measures and directives. In other words, a bureaucrat, a civil servant, or a government official, regardless of the name we choose to call him by, is not supposed to be guided by his idiosyncratic whims and fancies, biases, and prejudices in the dispensation of his official duties.” These are what we are told that bureaucracy stands for, according to Dr. V. Pardha Saradhi. 

In spite of the purge of 1975, what positive things have we achieved since then? Discipline erring officers, but don’t collapse the system. In an attempt to discipline certain officers, the system was brought to its knees in 1975-1976. We fought a civil war between 1967 and 1969, and we fought that war without borrowing a kobo, but the success of that war could be traced to the robust civil service that was in existence at that time. No doubt the military officers went to war as foot soldiers, but the backup energy was provided by the bureaucracy. 

In case we forgot, Mr. Nowa Omoigui wrote a comprehensive report on bureaucracy’s efforts before and after the civil war. He wrote that “for the ten months of the Gowon regime, there was no federal cabinet. Permanent secretaries, who dealt directly with Gowon, headed federal ministries. In the confusion of the weekend of July 29, 1966, the birth of his government at the Ikeja Barracks had been partially mediated by a group of federal permanent secretaries.

These included Abdul Aziz Attah, Phillip Asiodu, Allison Ayida, Musa Daggash, Ibrahim Damcida, HA Ejueyitchie, Yusuf Gobir, BN Okagbue, and others. Other prominent federal public servants included the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, Alhaji Sule Katagum. Along with others, as well as the British and American envoys, these men counselled caution in the heat of the events that were unfolding.

“These pre-war grand strategic and political machinations aside, the federal civil service played a complex role during the war, alternately being viewed as an ally or an irritant by the front-line military. Civil servants suggested the establishment of security and civil defence organisations in various states, tapping into logistical resources provided by various ministries.

They counselled the promulgation of many war-time decrees, such as the Public Security Decree (No. 31 of 1967), which outlawed the private possession of weapons and ammunition, and the Military Courts (Special Powers) Decree (No. 4 of 1968), designed to enforce discipline among federal troops. A whole variety of trade dispute emergency decrees were also promulgated to settle wartime trade disputes. Mr. Gray Longe, who later became the Head of Service, recalls that initially there was an Armed Forces Committee on the procurement of supplies.

This committee included the Deputy Permanent Secretary at the MOD, along with the Army QMG, Air Force Logistics Officer, and specialised differences between service needs. This committee gave way to a purely military Joint Supplies Board to reconcile competing requests. Then, in October 1969, apparently in response to abuses in the system as well as competition between Army divisions (who were each doing their own thing), Gowon created a central procurement committee that would make recommendations to him on the basis of input from the Joint Supplies Board.