Professor Tunji Olaopa speaking at the Strategic Meeting of South West Heads of the Civil Service, held in Lagos on Tuesday, May 27, 2025

The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has listed some measures for ensuring the emergence of  a viable civil service of the future.

Olaopa  spoke at the Strategic Meeting of South West Heads of the Civil Service, held in  Lagos on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.

The professor of public administration whose keynote address was entitled “Deepening Professionalism in the Civil Service Towards Improve Service Delivery”  decried the existing state of the civil service. He lamented specifically  that  the civil service at the state level does not have “autonomy and relative insulation from politics to operate within the classic functional authority line in politics/policy-administration/implementation dichotomy as conceived in public administration praxis”.

Consequently, he listed some steps that the civil service could take  to  ensure professionalism and meet the demands of the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions with their attendant technological challenges such as those posed by Artificial Intelligence.

According to him, there should be a clear vision of who a civil/public servant is, and that all public service rules, regulations and procedures governing career management in the civil service need to be reviewed and aligned.

Olaopa highlighted the need for the strengthening of the political-administrative interface for effective governance and service delivery.

He also stressed the strengthening of the constitutional mandates of the CSCs, to ensure  that recruitment/appointment into the service are merit-based and insulated from politicisation .

” Indeed, strengthening the pre-entry requirements and implementing rigorous recruitment and selection processes will entail enforcement of clear guidelines to prevent non-meritocratic appointment practices.”

For Olaopa, there is the imperative of enforcing professional norms, codes and standards of professional practice for public administration. “This will need to be revalidated through a value audit, to establish the new professional standards that assist to weed out unqualified personnel and which in turn provide a framework of principles which guide  professional behaviour and actions as part of a carefully implemented cultural adjustment programme and values reorientation.

” In this regard, a recognised process of accreditation that includes a deepened but compulsory induction programme that serves to introduce new entrants to the civil service, and also educates them about ethics and professionalism and which at once challenges them to embrace the values and mandate of constitutional democracy

“Such a process if regulated by recognised public administration professional bodies that bring members of the profession together through a mechanism that is outside routine business, creates

a community of practice, and therefore allows for cross-cutting concerns to be addressed to enable professional autonomy and self-regulation, knowledge sharing and development

and mutual support of practitioners, researchers and other development workers as is badly required if the public service will get back its ability to act independently as a profession insulated from politics.”

He said that the complex body of knowledge relating to the administration, methods, procedures and technical practices of public administrators that have accumulated over time need to become the basis for comprehensive training for new entrants to the field, and ongoing professional development for those within the profession to stay current with the evolving standards and body of knowledge inherent in the profession as continuous professional’s competency framework of skills for running the business of government.

According  to him, addressing ethical lapses, bureaucratic corruption, and poor performance within frameworks of performance, ethics and accountability is critical to reinstituting professionalism in the civil service.

” There must therefore be strong accountability mechanism in place to streamline practices for dealing with transgressions and to institute actions for losses, and training cum development of correctional frameworks.”

Olaopa noted the need for the utilisation of distinguished former public servants as mentors, coaches and champions of system’s turnaround programmes.

” This strategy will indeed draw on the experiences of revered former administrators particularly in areas of expertise that may be lacking in current workforce . There will of course be a policy guideline that will address how the coaches and mentors will function, their roles and responsibilities. This will make the arrangement a structured approach with clear expectations and performance standards”.

He said that there should be screening to establish the risk profile of applicants and their criminal record, financial situation,  integrity levels ,  psychometric tests and truth veracity tests  before appointment.

On remuneration, he said that wage reform should aim to ensure that employees receive compensation that is fair and that recognises the value of staff contribution, and  that it must be designed to be competitive, and  reflect  the cost of living to attract and retain skilled professionals.

“A sustainable wage policy must also achieve cost saving and ensure fiscal sustainability through institutional rationalisation of entities and programmes.

Compensation reforms may include better and enhanced benefits such as healthcare, retirement plans and other perks, packaged to make public jobs more attractive and competitive. It may also introduce performance-based pay systems thus linking salary increases to individual and organisational achievements”, he said.

“The mission statement of every MDA must include the promotion of continuous improvement in service provision and commitment to service standards, benchmarked against high-performing comparator-agencies.

This will include plans for staffing, human resource development and organisational capability building tailored to service delivery needs.

Improving service delivery calls for a shift from inward-looking bureaucratic culture to a new way of working that put the public as customer first”,he added.