 Ie ddau'n gŵr ymateb, mae'r cyfle i'r cywir yn gwyrd yn awd pan ddweud ddwy o Lleith Power ole, am y cyfrifol Rheol ni'n gyllideb â Lleith, ddweud ar y cyfrifol Lleith ac yn ddweud o'r cyfrifol Lleith eithaeth yn ddweud diwrnod drog wrth yr cyfrifol ag y Serfus Merhau Cymru yn ddweud yr cyfrifol Lleith Ball, ac hynny'n ddiwrnod adoliad i'r cyfrifol Lleith Merhau Cyfrifol. Y cyffredin cyflwyno cyflwyno yn yr unrhyw gyrfa �nrhyw�urau yng Nghymru yn mudwch chi'r Llywodraeth Dydd ac yn amgylcheddolethau o'r ffrind y rhan o'r byd a defnyddio cyflym ar gyfer ynghylch o y Llywodraethau. Ond y cyffredin cyflwyno efallai yn ffynu yn unedol i'r ystod gyffredin ydyn nhw a i rhan o'r cyflwyno a'n mynd i'r dda i phredleol yn y panel. am daeth, mae'r wych chi yn rhoi'r gael ar gyfer y myfyrddauedd cyhoeddaeth, dylun i gael llanogid ac yn gwybodol, ac os rwy'r cymorth gyda'r cyfrannu am adrwyr cyffredinol ac gael arnynnu hynny, dylai'r cyfrannu cybrarogol ac mae'r cyfrannu cyfrannu cyfrannu yma yn eu gyfrannu Cyfrannu Cyfrannu. Ddylai'r cyfrannu cyfrannu cyfrannu cyfrannu. Felly, os bryd i carlynydol, iddo i chi'n ggamech am y c beliefsor, or WhatsApp to 0818 0384663, Twitter to us at Weishaw Africa One with the hashtag Weishaw. So, Noma, I'm going to start with you. How do you feel about Nigeria's civil servants? Uti, thanks for turning me out of the boss. You're so kind, you're very welcome. But that is a feeling that is mixed with a lot of pain and reflection, really, because I remember when I was a young child, I could remember some of my aunties who were involved in the civil service. In fact, it was the most sought after job placements that people, when you're done with university, automatically you had a spot or place either in the civil service or in the state, a civil service environment. So it was not a problem for a graduate to get a job. And even then, some of my aunties who were not even graduates, but because they had some certification or the other, they had opportunities to get into the civil service. It was something of honor and respect at the time. But looking at it, how many years down the line, you don't want your child to end up in civil service because all that you can think about in Nigerian civil service is corruption. It's about nothing working. It's about putting your file in, and then your file disappears. It's about magic, if I may borrow that language. A lot of things happening, people going to work, a lot of golf workers, and then people going to work and not working and expecting to be paid. So it's something that's just so painful because this is the place where a lot of the government, the government itself depends on. A lot of work goes on in the civil service that empowers the government to be able to create an enabling environment for its citizens. And they can do and undo a government. That's the truth. We've seen it countless times play out in our elections, in different protocols, in different case scenarios. So it's something that we really, really need to look into because we can't go forward having not paid attention to the Nigerian civil service and really correcting what is going on there from the very roots. So I mean, it's just something that we really need to do something about in the quickest possible time. It's really an important thing to talk about because the civil service is the largest, or if not one of the largest employers of labour here in Nigeria today. So they have a huge impact. I know that Nigerians, when we think about the way the country is run and what's happening today, our focus tends to be on the politicians, on the leaders, but I mean, the real neck, if you say the politicians at the head, the real neck is the public service. And those, I mean, like Noma said, they can afford to wait out eight years if they don't like you as an elected leader. So there's a lot of change that would positively impact this nation if the civil service is going in the right direction. I'm so excited to have our guest on today. I mean, he's a friend of the house, so he's no stranger to us. And I'm sure that our guests know him very well, but I will introduce him all the same. Kuley Lawal is an entrepreneur, idea generator, TEDx speaker and patriot. He has a keen eye for opportunities based on his experience in politics, working with NGOs and the federal government. He is passionate about Nigeria and is what could be termed a de-tribalised Nigerian. He currently serves as the executive director of the Electoral College in Nigeria and is also the country lead for World Chat in G. Kuley Lawal was once an acting national publicity secretary of the COA Party, Alliance for New Nigeria, senatorial candidates in 2019, and has since transitioned to a non-partisan influential player in politics and electoral matters in Nigeria. Probably the father of politicians is what I like to say, but that's just my own title for him. Welcome to the show, Kuley. Thank you very much, ity. And of course, there's always a great time whenever your own ways, so I look forward to a great evening as usual. Excellent. So I think I'll throw out the first question. We've had a lot of conversations about civil service and the power that civil servants hold and perhaps maybe the lack of equitable expectations that the general public has from the civil service compared to our politicians and our quote-unquote leaders. For you, what is the definition? You know, we like to start with definitions. What is the definition of an ideal civil servant? What should the expectations of us as citizens be of a true patriotic civil servant? So if we're not going to use a lot of words, the simplest way to define a civil service is a system that works for a country and its people, not working for self, self of course, selfish ends or working for a particular person in power or working for a particular political party or working for a tribe. And you know what's shocking in Nigeria is that when you look at the whole concept of the country, the first thing you know is what we say in Abuja, show me, DJ, and I'll tell you the tribe of people in the power stata. That's not even supposed, that's nepotism. And Nigerians have tended to look at corruption from just the fact that money is being stolen, but the real definition of corruption is abuse of office, which means whether you appoint someone who's from your tribe or this thing. You throw down marital curtsy and you do a lot of other things. But you know it's always shocking when in Nigeria we choose to say politicians bad, civil services bad, and then we mortgage our responsibilities as citizens. What we have, the civil service we have is a product of the people that are in Nigeria. The politicians we have are a product of the people we have in Nigeria. And that's so you know finger pointing at one person or saying something. It was a common joke we used to have my friend on the road discussed with the civil service on the ski. So when we were having conversations, somebody brought up and Nigeria doesn't have a welfare system. And I'm always like, where else we do? And everybody looks at it and says, no, but how can it be a welfare system? I was like, you know how many people are employed in Sokoto and live in Lagos in Sokoto state service? Many people are employed in Abuja and privately, some are even abroad doing other things, but yet we're paying so many ghost workers. Now that's just those being out of office. Let's get to those in the office. The average civil service agency department except you know the very high place ones. It's a place for you could do your head there, UTI. We could watch the latest Nigerian movie. That's the target of what exactly goes on. I've always tried to explain and wonder why it'd be rational for putting movies, DST and movies for people to watch in an office, basically ensuring they are redundant. Sales of wrappers or CREB are a common thing in civil service. I was part of the training which is the national ethics and integrity policy in Abuja. That was last week I was in Abuja. And this was to try and improve the public sector into understanding the kind of ethics that are available. One of the key things the policy was pushing for is first to remove that thought process of tribe and religion out of this thing. And of course the mediums feed based on the organisations and etc. But what is most relevant with the policy is that it tries to remind Nigerians to love a country. I think that's what's key and that's what's missing. So most people that are working in the civil service are working for salaries. If you notice any strike that's going to go on in the civil service, always about P. There's no other conversation. So nobody wants to work for the country. I'm not saying you should not be paid in case people want to misconstrw what I'm saying. But I'm saying there's no civil service in the world that that is the first thing on the project. Number one, like I said, we run a welfare system in quite a large civil service, one of the largest in the world. And it's not feasible. It's certainly not efficient. I mean, if I get feasibility it seems like a long, long way off. But the fact that for me, people that work in the civil service, you just know that they can't work anywhere else, right? Corporate's not going to hire them. And you kind of sort of say, what are you doing? Like you go into the office and there's lots of people there. And you kind of think to yourself, what is your role? What is your role? What value are you delivering to the citizens of Nigeria? Before I come to you, Jola, I think I'll go to Noma first. Ty, Noma. Ty, Yte. It's always interesting listening to Cule. Absolutely. Because you always have an angle, but you always have an angle and a twist to it. So Cule, I mean, you hit the nail on the head really. I'm going to ask, so let's start with, do we actually have some kind of ethics code, right, in the Nigerian civil service? I mean, I'm sure there is, but are these codes effective? And what seems to be the problem with our ethics code of conduct or, you know, the expectations in the Nigerian civil service? What is the problem really? And how did we even get to where we are now? Yes. So first and to answer your question, there's a code of conduct period, which of course guides, you know, how civil servants act or are within office. There is also a few other things, you know, they're even supposed to declare their assets, which is rarely done. Nigeria has never had a problem with laws. We have some of the most robust laws available in the world. We have more corruption laws than almost any country in the world. That does not mean, you know, the Niger does not happen to the civil service. But looking at the buffet of corruption, you would ask why? Well, it's simple. Education, basic education is hard to come by. Housing is hard to come by. A lot of things are hard to come by. As long as these things are not being provided for a sector that is trying to represent the green, white, green, the problem you're going to have is people dipping their hands into public funds and then abusing their offices. Now, these codes that we have and these laws that we have, I'll give you an example. If it's not followed by the political might and the, you know, so we're going to separate the civil service a little bit. There's the civil service. Those are the permanent secretaries and et cetera. Those working within and what has happened most with them is that they have this belief and you mentioned something close to that. They have this belief that even though there are codes, there are ethics and someone comes in and I served as an assistant to a federal minister sometime in 2010 to about 2012. And the minister will try to, you'll now give an example. Minister tried. Again, Yola prison at the time was being cohabited, meaning if you were a banker, you stole money and you were a Chadiant terrorist, as a female and a male, you'd be lumped into, and separate prison was about nine million, separate it according to the sexes. And I remember the palm sector then of the Ministry of Women Affairs refused to give in to that particular project saying that 500 million for rappers for a particular issue was first, the minister had to sign off on that for them to sign on nine million, which was going to ensure the sales were separated. And, you know, it got into quite a heated argument. And next thing was Suzyagu, Suzyakom, Barakrimin. And that's how the civil service looks at things. That is the biggest problem. Now, the fact that the president can just fire a palm sector, the president can't do some things, there are laws that don't allow that. It's supposed to safeguard them from politics, but what it has done is that Nigerians as usual have engineered it to become thorns in the political office. I'll tell you, the average minister tries to work hard. This is true. It's hard to believe, but being within governance I've seen this happen. But what is critical to the entire system is that the civil service doesn't care. You'll be shocked to find out that ministers at the end of their tenures cannot have the kind of kitty the rest have. I don't want to call names. The rest have. And then you have these situations where they're the ones that create the hooks. They're the ones that even teach elected officers, no, no, no, this is not how it goes. This is how we do it here. This is how you do here. This is what you can do. They spread the culture, they propagate it. So it's going to take a very strong national assembly, which of course we know that Nigeria is, I don't know, lacking. He's struggling. For life of a better word. And it's going to take a very strong national assembly to act and to enforce these laws. It's going to take us having someone who actually understands Nigerian laws to head the code of conduct period. It's going to take someone of impeccable character to head the national orientation agency and be minister of information also to be able to sell the Nigerian idea. You know when you look at it, there's no actual Nigerian idea. You ask any Nigerian, what exactly are you doing as a Nigerian? No, we don't have anything. Everybody will tell you, no, no, no, do I Republic or I will soon. This one, this one, Republic. They look at themselves and you know it's a problem because most people see themselves from a tribe first and not from Nigeria. So in closing I would say over 250 ethnic groups and the ethnic group that's supposed to have the largest set of people has the smallest and that is Nigeria, the tribe called Nigeria. It then relies on a problem. Well on that note, allow us to take a short break and we'll be right back. If you're just tuned in we're discussing the topic governance and work ethics of Nigerian civil servants with Culelawa. Remember you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp message to 0818 038 4663. Three to tell us that we share Africa one with the hashtag ways show. So Diolch. Take it away. Okay, so you mentioned earlier that there actually is like a bylaw or like a book of conduct. You know that guide, they're supposed to guide the public service, the civil servants. So are they aware? You know when you work in a private sector, I mean when you come in they onboard you, they do your inductor, they do all that. So when people go into ministries or parastartals are they aware that there is such you know guidelines like this, if you do this, this is what happens, this is what you're supposed to do. Are they aware because I mean in the scheme of things they can claim ignorance and say well nobody said this to me, nobody told me this is what was expected of me, nobody gave me my JD, nobody told me I have KPIs, nothing, you understand. So are they aware? Yes, I know federally you receive the civil service handbook when you are employed. That's at the federal level. I'm not concerned what happens in states but seeing the quality of people in states there's no need to imagine what happens in states but I'll speak at federal level and I'll try to calm down. So at federal level, yes they are being inducted properly, they're being when they're employed, they're trained but it's like our politics and like every other system in Nigeria, there is what is supposed to be and there's what we've created as a culture, which you know definition of culture, way of life. So there's what we've created which is totally away from what is. So at federal level in some places there's some agencies you can and we have too many agencies for a country. Nigeria has over 1500 ministries, departments and agencies which is crazy and somewhere like the US has for 37, India has about 48 or 49, Britain far less. So it's crazy that for every cousin we have or second cousin we have ministry or departments to give him head or DG or executive secretary. Coming down to state level, it's worse. States have more ministries, departments, agencies than the federal. Well he got not taught it wise to have you know happiness. We circle back to welfare system so if you have of course a commissioner of happiness it means you automatically have a ministry of happiness and there's nothing like that in the federal. When we go down to local government, this way it goes berserk. A local government chairman has a secretary on almost anything. If he came to the way show, let's say four times, you have a secretary of grace. But just to build on your last question, shouldn't there be a structure that every state, that should replicate? I mean if you were in a in a corporate world there'd be an organogram that's signed off and designed. So when I hear you, I mean I mean it sounds crazy to say there's you know commissioner of happiness, but what governs that process? Isn't there something that's laid down that says every state civil service should look like this? These are the number of rules and they're fixed and finite. Just go and staff them. Now this this this would come and gets interesting at this point. So as long as as much as Nigeria's clamor for restructuring and one of those that will find we are not exactly ready for it. So that restructuring by the federal is what gives the governor's power to do commissioner of happiness and et cetera when it suits them and that is the governor stepping outside his boundaries, stepping outside the normal clauses of governance and deciding to invent something because he wants to give a sister a cousin or brother or someone politically affiliated position. So if we the citizens take this normally and sit down at home and say this is fine, his governor's governors do it all the time, the system will continue in that trajectory. So till we have stopped more gauging and saying okay no governor you can't do this and you know we all stand out. He has the state house of assembly to check him, but we have state house of assemblies that would even vote against their own autonomy. So what does that tell you? We have a serious problem in this country. So yes there is a clause of this is how it should be. There is written laws, downloads on how it should go but like Nigeria has done with almost everything. We go outside the whole system and invent our own culture which is what happens. Look at what we've done with. I'm sure when when the British came and said no you guys should have white weddings when they see what we're doing in Nigeria, we're like oh we didn't do that. That's how we are with everything else. So just to you know paint it. Do you think that I mean having all these ministries agencies and all that it's almost like well some supposedly solution to tackling unemployment because I mean really in the in the scheme of things a lot of people are unemployed so a minister or a governor or whoever some some influential person you know in that's who has that capacity would say oh rather than my child or my relative or whoever to to be without a job I mean we can as well create this and then other people can benefit from it you know. Okay the way governance is supposed to work the more efficient state is the more people would not need to work for it. So if you think you're going to borrow a Stalin model or a Kim Jae-yong the first one of North Korea model to say the state we're not in a communist system. So if you decided okay let's take a few things um I CPC, AFCC, NFI, counter functions, three agencies, police, FRSC, VIO, this is endless doing the same thing. Standards organization NAVDAC checking standards. The one is shifted to drugs but standards is supposed to go by all that means NAVDAC is supposed to be a department. And it goes all around replication and multiplication of functions. So there in okay yes your conquering employment but now your efficiency is poorer which means people are not getting dividend of what is exactly supposed to happen so there in lies you need to employ more people. When if the state was functioning properly with fewer people in governance and doing exactly what they were supposed to do you would not need to go into government employment. In a country that is working you have less people employed by government. People don't even want to work for government in the UK. Most people don't want to work for government in the US, minimal China, nobody wants to work for government. So I have a question on metrics and performance management but let me come to Noma first. Okay so I wanted to find out with all you've said the future really looks bleak. So I want to ask what is the way forward for the Nigerian civil service? We cannot but emphasise the fact that this is a critical aspect of governance in Nigeria and like Uti had said mentioned earlier that it's the the biggest employer of labour. So what is the way forward? How can we restructure the Nigerian civil service so actually begin to function in the capacity that it is supposed to function or get go and maintain that standard because it used to be something before now until everything went wrong? Okay but try to fix this. The first usual suspects in this case will be the Secretary of Federal Government and the National Assembly. National Assembly compressing number of ministries, departments and agencies, the SFG actually managing and stopped being a ceremonial guy just chilling in the precedence. Till we compress our civil service we will not be able to make it efficient. Secondly the work of civil service is to project the idea of a nation. We don't yet have an idea of a nation so that's something that the Ministry of Interior and few relevant agencies and new presidents have to think about what exactly is the Nigerian I go? What is it being Nigerian? It's funny that because we don't get our foot in and we forget that we're the most popular black nation in the world and if Nigeria doesn't get it right the entire black race has failed. The moment Nigeria starts to realise that we might change we have no etiquette, we have no plan, we have no direction and because of that we're not able to move forward so the first thing I'll say is compress the civil service that's the first thing that needs to be done. We have so many ghost workers and such a bad situation with our civil service. There are recurrent expenditures virtually destroying our budget. Let's not go into economics now but it means that how would I put it? We are earning in layman's terms, we are earning one million naira and we are spending nine hundred and fifty thousand on a chef, a driver and a nannies. I think Noma's question is the question with which to go. I don't even know how to follow that. I mean what I was going to ask really comes to performance management. All of these people are being hired, all of these people are being paid every month. Well you know they're being paid at some point. How is their performance currently being measured? Because when we talk about the inefficiencies, when we talk about the bloatedness, when we talk about all of these things, if these organisations were being properly run to say I have 10 people doing this job and at the end of the month I assess their performance perhaps I don't need 10, perhaps I need five and I can look at my processes and make myself more efficient, is there any kind of performance management happening in that space or is it just a free-for-all? The two ways I can answer this question, truthfully or I can paint it. Let me paint it. It's less scary. So the only way to assess performance in the civil service, though they say they have all that parameter as we know they are not in use, is writing promotion exams. That's the only assessment and it makes the future really scary because if you look at the average civil service, let's say in Ministry of Labour, or NIMASA, or NYTCOMSAT, there are people in NYTCOMSAT that don't even know whether Nigeria has a satellite or not. And you know there are people in the NNPC that aren't supposed to be in the NNPC, there are people in the city, it goes round. But they write their promotional exams and they pass. And as long as they pass, they are fine to do country. The standards, come on. This is a country that has no standard of even governance. We've broken all the standards of governance we're supposed to have. We've broken all the standards of performance we're supposed to have in the civil service. Let's be honest, the National Assembly is barely complete in the National Assembly except it's time to read budget. That's the only time that the President has come to present the budget. That's the only time they know the President is coming and everybody tries to be around. And they're never even complete. And they're just 469 in these two different houses. If that is the message coming from the elite top notch of the elected officials, what do you think is going down to the civil service? GG is never around. GG is normal in Nigeria for a public official. His son is graduating in the US and he used federal government funds to fly there and go and celebrate and come back. It doesn't make literal sense. So how do you then ask them for performance parameters? I mean, GG can just put you all in a bus and say his grandmother died and everybody in the office must go for that barrier. And if you don't go for that barrier, you will not be able to measure it. That becomes a performance issue. Yes. So those are the performance parameters. GG's, GG's mother's barrier, GG's daughter's wedding, those are performance parameters. I mean, I think that we've talked so much about the challenges and no muscles have talked about the restructuring. My question is just simple. Is there hope? Can we hope to see an efficient, well-run civil service in the near future? Take near as you would define it. So the truth is, the biggest joy about it is that Nigeria does not have a structural problem. Meaning we have the set-down laws. What we have is an institutional problem. Meaning these things are not followed and not paid. If you have a president and a few, you don't need too many ministers. Let's look at 1999. Nobody knew Naftak existed in 1999. It looked like it was created for Dora Keun. No, it was not. It existed and right now I don't want no offense to who's there. We don't even know they exist. The minister of Abuja, the best-performing minister, of course, was terrified at the time. You had Franke Wickey Jr and information. If you walked on that Franke Wickey Jr, there would be that thirst to push forward. That was when the ministry of information was minister of information. I don't want to talk about now. We say it's like a Nazi propaganda machine of the Third Reich, but we'll just say something else. Excellent. Well, as always, we always learn so much when we have you on the show and I can guarantee that he will be back. So thank you for being with us today. Before we go, do ensure that you follow us on Instagram, at Weishio Africa. You can interact with us, drop with us further, drop a comment and most importantly, follow all our social media engagements. Remember to like, share, comment and invite your friends and family to watch us and follow us. If you missed today's quote again, here it is. Ethics is not definable, is not implementable because it is not conscious. It involves not only our thinking, but also our feeling. Thank you very much, Diola. Thank you very much, Noma. We will see you again tomorrow at 8 p.m. as we bring another great conversation to your screen. Have a good evening.