President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to immediately suspend tenureship in the federal civil service was conveyed in a statement by Winifred Oyo-Ita, Head of the Civil Service of the federation on Monday.

The statement signed on Oyo-Ita’s behalf by Haruna Imrana, director of communications at the office of the head of service of the federation read: “the federal government has suspended the tenure policy in the federal civil service with immediate effect. The directive was contained in a circular to all ministries, departments and agencies. The circular, which conveyed the president’s directives, said the suspension is with immediate effect and all concerned are to comply accordingly.”

The revocation of the policy implies that Permanent Secretaries and Directors in the civil service can carry on their terms indefinitely without a constitutional limit, only constrained by the age of retirement law, currently 65 years in Nigeria. The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua introduced the policy, which prescribed a term of four years (renewable once) for permanent secretaries and eight years for directors. The policy, introduced in 2009, was most unpopular at the time among northerners given that all the directors and 9 permanent secretaries retired as a result of the policy were from the north of the country.

“The president has the powers to extend but I believe that distorts growth, specially in government agencies that are professional in nature,” said late president Musa Yar’Adua in a 2009 interview with the Guardian. “The policy of this administration regarding whichever service is that there should be no extension for any officer in the civil service or any government agency that has reached either the retirement age or has served 35 years in the service. The law provides that they should go and they should go. Those that are by appointment by the president that do not come under this provision and the law says their tenure can be renewed either by a single term or two more terms. That one, the president can either renew the tenure or appoint a new person,” he added.

The rationale of the late president was to tackle complacency in the civil service and the problem of inefficiency that is common of the public sector but the motivation behind President Buhari’s policy is yet to be fully disclosed.

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