Peter Uzoho
Senior civil servants in Federal Civil Service have called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to, as a matter of urgency, cancel the recently conducted promotion examinations for directors in the country.
The civil servants also urged Tinubu to use his discretion to appoint permanent secretaries through a transparent and judicious process that places emphasises on seniority, experience, and qualification, among other credible criteria used in the past.
The senior civil servants also rejected the purported results of the examinations, which claimed that only 20 directors out of 85 initially invited to sit for promotion examinations to the rank of Permanent Secretary scaled through the exercise.
One of the top senior civil servants, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, alleged that the invaluable experience garnered over the decades by the directors were not taken into consideration.
The official noted that despite the fact that the position of a permanent secretary is a political appointment that should reflect Federal Character Principle, some states, including Bauchi and Ebonyi do not have a representation as they claimed that their directors failed the exams.
“Apart from gender imbalance in the so-called examination that denied adequate female representation who sat for the exam, there are other controversies that are now coming to light,” he explained.
Another senior civil servant, who also spoke on the issue, quoted some sections of the 199 Constitution as amended, which gave the President powers to directly appoint Permanent Secretaries
“Section 171(1)(2)(d) gives Mr. President the constitutional powers to directly appoint Permanent Secretaries without the questionable exam conducted by the Federal Civil Service,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Centre for Public Accountability has also called for the cancellation and review of the recently concluded promotion examinations.
A statement by the Director of Public Governance Monitoring, CPA, Nuhu Adams, alleged that the process was marred with huge controversies.
“We followed the recently concluded Promotion Exams from Directorship cadre to Permanent Secretary rank and discovered it was marred with huge controversies that call for total cancellation and review of the entire process.
“It will be recalled that 85 Directors from five states of the federation and two geo-political zones, namely North Central and North- east zones sat for promotion exams on the 6th of November, 2023, with results released on the 7th of November, 2023.
“It was reliably gathered that long before this exercise, there had been complaints about the composition of the Examination Committee.
“As a result of this controversy and lack of trust in the exercise, four of the qualified directors refused to show up to write the said exam despite initially registering for it. This is aside from the Directors that declined to register for the exams due to lack of confidence in the selection process that would end up producing permanent secretaries already predetermined by the Head of Service.”
However, when contacted over the allegations, the Director of Communication at the Office of the Head of Federal Civil Service, Mr. Mohammed Ahmed denied the allegations of nepotism and irregularities in the process.
Ahmed told PRNigeria that the recruitment followed rigorous and transparent processes involving relevant institutions and agencies.
“You should be aware that various levels of assessment to test the candidates’ competence were undertaken, including verification and screening of credentials which involved security and Anti-Corruption agencies.
“Similarly, other stages are written examinations on public service and policy issues, information and communications technology proficiency and oral interviews which were conducted in the most transparent manner.
“As the Head of Service had said, the emphasis is on meritocracy and integrity of the selection process and the quality of the candidates.”
