Sen Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi represents Niger North Senatorial Zone in the Senate. A veterinary doctor-turned-politician, in this interview, explained how ministers contribute to the rot in the civil service.
How will you compare life in the Senate and civil service which you just left?
It is quite exciting for me because I joined the political terrain on the mantra of change. Incidentally before I left service, I was involved in a programme of change where we tried to transform the agricultural research system of this country. I was the leader of that initiative. Having been a public servant, I have seen how the sector has been neglected and I have also seen how the institutional framework of this country has been left to decay. Many instances abound where government comes up with programmes to provide change and those programmes were scuttled.
Who are those who scuttle government programmes?
There is lack of sincerity of purpose on the part of the political class. In many instances, the programmes that they bring are not well cut out. Let me give you a classical example, when a minister comes in and you prepare briefing document for him, you will see that he is interested in only areas where there is money. If the money is not rightly put in that place, he will insist it must be done. So as a civil servant, I have come to realize that we can create things out of nothing. There are departments in some ministries that if given all the support and wherewithal can turn around a sector and in turn generate fortunes for any ministry. The support might not necessarily be money, all they might require are approvals in the way they do their things. Everybody is aware that it is not possible for you to provide agricultural growth without taking care of your research system. Studies have confirmed this; African Development Bank and other institutions have confirmed that the engine of growth for agriculture is research. In Brazil, they were having problems some years back and decided to explore their agricultural sector. They went into research and the system came out with technology that will produce the kind of food they will need. They started providing their food sufficiently, it reduced their import bill and they turned their attention to export, based on their comparative advantage.
You said minsters are only interested in funds. But can a minister tamper with public funds without the connivance of the civil servant?
It is true and false. Let me take the false aspect first. When a civil servant is employed, there are procedures for his discipline and promotion. He knows his schedules and rights. He is expected to be given a schedule and which expenditure will be incurred. Within that scenario, it is easy to see when a civil servant is going wrong. If you give a civil servant responsibilities, with the right kind of monitoring, evaluation and non-interference, he will do his work successfully. But that is not the case in Nigeria. A civil servant is given responsibility but the political class or those supervising him will not allow him to do it. Even for a permanent secretary, when he goes to the minister and the minister does not see his interest, he will never give approval. We have seen cases like it in the last dispensation, where minister of agriculture had issues with a permanent secretary and he was removed and sent to public service institute before it was reversed. And it has to do with the picture I painted for you and the minister saying the man was frustrating his work. The case was simply that the consultant the minister brought was not following civil service rules. The consultants will write on a page and give it to the minister who will approve and then send it to the permanent secretary to approve. And these people will want the money the next day and when the permanent secretary said, no, there are procedures to be followed, it amounted to sabotage. That is the plight of the civil servant. They cannot talk because of the rules. So the reality on ground is that the civil servant is being cowed. If the permanent secretary is removed simply because he wants to enforce the rules and regulations of governance, tell me, how will a director, deputy director and assistant director have the guts to challenge the minister?
Are you saying civil servants are not liable for corruption in the service?
I am not saying that because it is not in my place to say who is corrupt in Nigeria today. I don’t look at corruption from the stand-point of stealing money. There is political corruption, institutional corruption and social corruption. So corruption is the entire system.
How then do we end corruption in Nigeria?
We have to go back to the basics which is following rules and regulations. Let me give you an example, a public servant is employed and all he or she will know is the technical issues. That is where the civil servant is being short-changed. In those days, you have to go back to the basic training of public service rules and you will know what to do. You will be given your twenty-eight days’ basic allowances. When I was employed, somebody tried to short-change me but I knew the rules. But these days, civil servants do not get these things; anyone who does must have a godfather backing him. Government must also employ only competent people. Government must not be appointing people and placing them above those that have experience and capacity. They just sit in the office and frustrate those below them who really know the job.
On the agricultural sector, what will it take Nigeria to revive the sector and make it viable?
First and foremost, I will tell you that the federal government should be firm about its policies. The first policy that every country must give priority to is food. Food security must be in place. A lot of efforts have been made but whether they have achieved the desirable result is a different ball game. We need to have availability, accessibility, affordability of nutritious food in the right quantity as part of our food security policy. A situation where a bag of rice is being sold for N15,000 means it is not available for the common man. We have been building Silos but they are empty. As a country, we are supposed to have enough quantity of food so that when you begin to see hunger, you release them and stabilize the price before solution will be found. There have been lots of efforts made but we need to do more. Our government must strengthen our agricultural sector especially now that our oil resources are dwindling.
The immediate past administration put a lot of resources and energy into the agriculture sector, would you say it was a success?
Well they tried, but I cannot classify it as success. They said by 2015, we will stop importing rice. But now we are in 2015 and we are still struggling with waivers. They said by this year, we will have cassava bread everywhere; but have you seen the bread anywhere? Farmers were getting two to three bags of fertilizers and they said they want to turn agriculture into business and you say it was a success? I can tell you that that system was the worst because we did a research on agricultural development in countries. It was a global studies and the essence was for us to see if government is investing enough in agriculture. You know research is the engine room of turning around situation. I can tell you that up to 2010, the studies shows that, everything was good in Nigeria. But immediately the last administration came in, they severed the budget and it affected agriculture. I can tell you that funding to that sector has gone down. We tried to see how we can transform the research system so that we can do what research did for Brazil and funny enough, the minister said he wanted to transform Nigerian agriculture to that of Brazil, but he couldn’t do it.
-Leadership