When the Civil or Public service is mentioned in our day-to-day lives, what readily comes to mind is corruption, lack of accountability, transparency and above all, inefficiency. Not to worry because from the very beginning, our colonial masters created the civil service and the model bequeathed to us was to say the least narrow in both objectives and structure.

It was done in such a way to allow our colonial master, Britain precisely, to neatly and successfully take away our resources, both material and financial needed by their controlling powers.  So from the very beginning, they left for us a civil service marked by lack of transparency and accountability.

And so over the years the above “legacy” continued unabated. Several commissions were set up to reform the civil service but I will not bore you with them as meaningful changes have over time emerged which has made the civil service much more stable to enable it contribute to national development.

But I can assure you that the civil service of our time is beginning to tinker with defined programmes and activities that will make it responsive to the present realities.

It was as if the current Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Ms Winifred Oyo-Ita had all these at the back of her mind when she kick-started notable activities just at her appointment, to change the face of the civil service at least for once.

One of such programmes is the re-enactment of human capital development, indeed training and manpower development. She embarked on tours of such institutions as the Public Service Institute, Centre for Management Development, Administrative Staff College of Nigeria and many others to breathe life into some of them to meet up with the objectives of the federal government’s change agenda for civil servants in human capital development.

Another innovative programme which she has been so passionate about is the Federal Integrated Staff Housing Programme (FISH), which also saw the ground-breaking ceremony as part of 2016 Civil Service week, to enable civil servants own their houses and live in decent accommodation, a novel idea that would ultimately motivate public servants for efficient service delivery.

In her speech at the occasion Oyo-Ita said the FISH programme with 1000 housing units at Tafyi District of the Federal Capital Territory was just the beginning as these will be replicated in the 36 states of the federation, adding that the delivery of the affordable houses would include group land acquisition from the FCT administration and the states across the country.

The development is also a synergy between government and the private sector since government had since realized that the private sector is an engine of growth. The arrangement is in partnership with the American Building System International (ABSI) and also Dangote Group of Companies.

However, she brought to fore the critical obstacles towards affordable housing for civil servants but reassured them that the FISH Inter-ministerial Implementation Committee has been established with relevant financial and international institutions like the Pension Commission, Federal Mortgage Bank, Federal Housing Authority Mortgage Bank, Un-Habitat, Shelter Afrique, to ensure the provision of soft and single digit interest loans for both developers and civil servants. What a novel idea!

Furthermore, she made civil servants realize her vision and focus in a civil service under her watch, emphasizing that under her stewardship, the service will be committed to achieving efficient service delivery to the citizens through the adoption of a new work ethos represented by the acronym “EPIC” which stands for “Efficient, Productive, Incorruptible and Citizen centered”.

The idea is to create an EPIC  civil service anchored on four goals and pillars through the development  and institutionalization of an efficient, productive, incorruptible and citizen-centered culture in the civil service, develop and implement an enterprise resource management system, develop entrepreneurship culture and commercial orientation in the civil service and finally improve welfare and benefit packages for civil servants. She however noted that the roadmap for the achievement of her vision and focus comprise of eighteen(18) clearly defined objectives, 29 initiatives and 157 measurable activities with expected achievements targets.

According to her, these initiatives include culture change, anti-corruption and transparency initiative, mandatory structured training programme, gender integration at all levels of leadership in the service, enterprise content management, ICT infrastructure development and training.

Others are: Human resource integration to the IPPIS project, Federal Integrated staff housing programme, Salary and compensation review project and transformation of MDAs from cost Centres to Revenue Generating Centres.

To drive home her points in one of the activities to mark this year’s Civil Service Day celebration she called on civil servants to cultivate a maintenance culture on equipment, machines and other working tools.

While commissioning the Fitness centre, Computer and Digital center including sporting arena all located at the Head of Service, Oyo-Ita noted that equipment notably at the fitness centre were all dilapidated because of lack of maintenance culture and warned them that the era of waste has gone for good.

At the Public Service Lecture to round up the Civil Service Week, Oyo-Ita called on Civil Servants to be innovative in order for the service to keep afloat in the increasing sophistication of the society, stressing that “innovation can only be achieved through a sustained programme to enrich  our knowledge”.

While harping on the need to imbibe the culture of computer education in order to bridge the digital divide, the Head of Service of the Federation admonished civil servants that they cannot become global citizens if they continue to operate in an analogue environment, calling on them to envision service delivery in a paperless economy, which is the ultimate goal of e-learning initiative. It is hoped that if these programmes and the implementation strategies are sustained, Oyo-Ita will, at the expiration of her tenure, delivered a civil service of our time!