Kaduna rages in avoidable storm. Imo has convulsed like a child possessed. Abia roils in crude conflict. Delta, Anambra, Ondo, Oyo. They’ve all been hit by mortal assault from the marauding mob. Even Lagos, once thought safe, on the banks of the Atlantic, has tasted the venomous slime of the irate army.
Go north. Same story, even worse. Borno is an eternal theatre of war. Adamawa, Katsina, Yobe, Gombe are not spared the spear of the killer gang. Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue has shouted, yelled for his people, his state; their fate. The louder his scream and plaintive cry, the more the bloody engine of the goons roar with menacing manic.
Everywhere you look, every place you go, fear is a feast. Blood is the new flood in the streets. Violence has long possessed the land. Hitherto presumed fortresses had been violated and breached. Police stations, military formations. None is safe any longer. These are darkling auguries. They tell of a future frozen in fear. At the core of these quakes is the contest for power and religious intolerance. The next general election is a good two years ahead but it’s obvious the power mandarins are already mounting barricades and sponsoring garrisons of angry recruits to outdo the competition.
Recently, we have added a destructive dish to the national menu of violence: burning of INEC offices. In a matter of weeks, arsonists have torched about two dozens of such offices across the country as if it’s now a national pastime. Election is the veritable recruitment tool in a democracy. The more we burn INEC offices, the body statutorily mandated to conduct elections in Nigeria, the louder our message to the world that we abhor democracy and everything it stands for.
The latest is the feud in Kaduna where Malam Nasir el-Rufai is governor. The fight, highly avoidable, is about civil servants. The governor wants a smart and lean civil service. He has instituted some radical reforms. Very commendable innovations like testing the competences and capability of teachers; auditing the state’s civil service to weed out ghost workers and those with fraudulent academic credentials. Nothing wrong with purging a notoriously criminal and ineffectual civil service – which is what the aggregate national civil service is – of redundancy, dead woods and obvious academic crooks who cannot defend their certificates.
El-Rufai has been revolutionary in his approach to governance and it shows in his pronouncements and actions. But in doing so, the accidental public servant violated basic rules and the law. He upended the norm to achieve what he considers the ideal public service. You don’t use wrong to correct wrong. Caution is needed here. Kaduna, just like other states and the central government, has a bloated civil service. And that, the governor was willing to prune. He calls it right-sizing. Ideally, right-sizing is not a bad management concept. Coated in contemporary nomenclatural nuance, it simply means sacking some workers to cut cost, achieve efficiency and optimise productivity.
In the organised private sector where merit, not nepotism or some primordial persuasion shoo people into offices, right-sizing does not necessarily mean weeding out the misfit or unqualified. A capable hand may be shoved out of employment even when such staff flaunts outstanding certificates and qualities. It might just be that the employee’s department and job description are no longer considered critical for the growth and survival of the organisation.
This is not the case with el-Rufai’s Kaduna. Some staff in the state civil service are simply not fit for the jobs they were recruited to do. Under this circumstance, you cannot blame the governor for instituting a regime of reforms which consumed the jobs of such persons. To keep a primary four teacher who could not pass a simple exam meant for primary four pupils is to deepen the grave of academic retrogression in that state. This is where those who accuse the governor of sacking civil servants get it wrong. The Nigerian civil service is not working. Bloated and corrupt, it is the reason the nation totters. It has been turned to a dumping ground for the academic flotsam and jetsam; a festering ground for those who could not fit into the more competitive private sector. Haven’t we seen torrid cases of directors who could not string a passable memo? Cases of heads of departments who could barely interpret their duties and effectively discharge same abound. The recent case of a certain Ibraheem Al-Hassan, who functioned as Head of Public Affairs at the Code of Conduct Tribunal office still haunts us as does his odious press statement in defence of the his boss, a statement woven with the blighted threads of illiteracy, illogic and incomprehensible infelicities. That press statement mirrors the inherent decay and acute incompetence in the public service which is what el-Rufai strives to correct in Kaduna. But, again, he must follow due process. It’s his abuse of due process and basic rules of engagement that angered the organised labour. In a democracy, there is no quick fix even when it is glaringly expedient. Democracy may be slow but that is also its strength. It’s in its seeming slowness that it filters out arbitrariness, demagoguery and the rule of one man.
Much as I welcome the effort of el-Rufai to reform the Kaduna State Civil Service, he must do so within the precincts of the law. Hiring and arming thugs to attack peaceful protesters adds to the conflagration of abuse of the rights of the people. El-Rufai should never have trodden this ignominious path. He has no reason to seek help from thugs.
Add these to the already asphyxiating cases of terrorism, banditry, kidnapping, among others, what you get are darkling auguries. Strangely, leadership has relapsed into selective amnesia and selective response. There appears no sincere resolve from the leadership to arrest this drift to the brinks. Rather, there seems a deliberate determination to play the possum while the ravenous vultures gather in their millions and with reinforced zeal. But the nation must not continue to hope against hope. Leadership must lead by raising its voice against the gathering clouds. It must match words with action. There is insecurity in Nigeria in a manner never before witnessed. And Nigerians are asking: where is our president?
This government must act fast and decisively too. We must arrest the darkling auguries. President Muhammadu Buhari, an accomplished Nigerian General, anticipated to lead the nation out of the entrapment of terror and violence must live out his name and reputation as a no-nonsense man. The buck still stops at his table as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
The military, police, DSS, and other allied anti-crime agencies must wean themselves of grandiose negligence. The same military and police who while outside the country on rescue missions perform creditably have no reason not to replicate such sterling performance at home. They cannot afford to fail in their own home.
Unfortunately, the Nigerian government is asking the people to pray. I believe in prayer, but not all things answer to prayer. Violence in Nigeria requires a marching action from the government; not the intercessory prayers of the people. This is a war. Actions, not words, win wars.