The Holy book, Qur’an, tells us that “Good deed
brings light both to the heart and to the face. Doing good deeds result in
being blessed in one’s sustenance and the hearts of people are naturally
attracted to the doer of good”.
On Thursday, 19th July, 2012, Okey
Nwachukwu, the Executive Director, News, Voice of Nigeria, attained the age of
sixty years, the mandatory age of retirement in the Nigerian public service. Be
that as it may, he therefore stepped aside from service. Ordinarily, there is
nothing to celebrate about this, as thousands of other Nigerians daily
disengage from the public service without any fanfare.
Okey’s noble deeds while in service and his
outright dislike for evil is what marks him out for this honour.
In Nigeria today, employees in the Federal Public Service is put at over
1.1million and the country’s Public Sector Employees as at 2011, is said to
be in the region of over 2.6million. As small as this sector is, to the
country’s population, if properly directed and focused, it could be of
tremendous assistance to Nigeria in the drive for economy and social political
development. It is a known fact, that no nation develops beyond the
capacity of its public service, and there is broad consensus amongst Nigerians
today that our public service is broken and dysfunctional. The quality of
public servants and the services they provide to our nation are both below expectations.
From the glorious days at independence when the best and brightest graduates
competed to join the administrative service up until 1970s, our public service
is now seen as employer of the dull, the lazy and the venal. What has become
most disheartening is the level of mischief and intrigue in our public service,
this, no doubt, is forcing out the very few quality minds remaining in the
service. We, therefore, need to retrieve our old public service to make it
effective, well paid and largely meritocratic, attracting bright people imbibed
with a spirit of promoting public good.
My personal experience in the service, shows, that as people approach
the pinnacle of their career, vacant positions become very few and competition
for these positions become stiffer. At this point, most people who are known to
be lazy, dull and could hardly carry out their primary assignments but are well
grounded in mischief and intrigue, who also want to be bosses, no matter what
it takes, in-conjunction with some senior officers, who have already attained
position of authority without merit, will begin to plot how to frustrate out of
service anybody they perceive as enemy. Often times, these are people with
brighter credentials whom they could hardly compete with under normal
circumstances. At this point, all manner of manoeuvres become the order of the
day. Heartless, unkind behaviour, intrigues and high level venality will begin
to play up. Most often, the first card to be played are ethnicity not
competency. The second is “loyalty”, in how much the up and coming officer is
willing to co-operate with “management” in plundering the organisations
resources. Thirdly, is how much return a junior officer who is posted to hold a
lucrative position in spite of his or her deficiencies and incompetence is
ready to give to the big “Oga”? Once an officer is not ready to play these
games, it does not matter how competent such an officer may be, or how much has
been spent by the organisation in the training of such an officer, the officer
is forced out. The officer in question is marked for elimination, it does not
matter how crudely this is done. The task must be accomplished by all means and
whatsoever.
I saw this game being played first hand, to my utmost dismay sometimes
between September and December 2009, when I applied for a study leave with pay
to do an M.Sc degree programme in Media Enterprise, at the Pan-African
University in Lagos. Long before then, it has become obvious even to a blind
person, that “the power that be” were no longer in a position to tolerate me,
as I was known to be the only senior officer, who could publicly and privately
oppose their antics. My colleagues, who were going to benefit from my ouster,
were as expected willing and ready to co-operate. But my boss, Okey Nwachukwu,
refused to be part of the game plan and watched helplessly as events played
out.
I re-called my last telephone conversation with Okey, before tendering
my letter of voluntary retirement from the public service. In a clam voice, Mr.
Nwachukwu, expressed his disappointment at the turn of events, saying “as far
as he was concerned I remained one of his brightest officers”. He continued,
“Your case is like the case of a man who had a mental disorder and extreme
anxiety problem who sought an advice from a physician dealing with depressions
and anxieties. The doctor advised the patient, ‘Know that the world is created
as ordained by the Creator. Whatever happens here, even the slightest movement
of anything and anywhere, happens by the permission of God Almighty.’ So, why
the anxiety and the depression? I know for sure, that whatever, you set out to
do after this place; you will do very well and prove yourself”. About three
years after my retirement from the service, very many of my former colleagues
made up mostly of people from other directorates have called to tell me on
phone, “how much they regret my forceful exit from the service, saying
“management has at least achieved their aims as no staff has the guts now, to
oppose them anymore”. I was shocked beyond words, when a former colleague
called me on phone, confessing that he was one of those people who plotted my
exit, requesting that I forgive him and others he refused to name, saying that
peace has eluded him since he took part in the plot. He stressed that it was
God that sent him to me. A wise man says, “Fear the one who finds no helper
against you (in your wrongdoing) except God”.
As I reflect on the plea for forgiveness by my former colleague, the
words of Al-Mutanabbi readily come to mind: He said “Small things are greatly
magnified in the eyes of the small one, and great things are diminished in size
in the eyes of the great one.”
Ar-Rashid wrote in his book ‘Al-Masaar’ The Sweet Taste of Freedom, he
says “Whoever possesses three hundred and sixty loaves, a canister of oil, and
one thousand six hundred dates, then none can enslave him.” And one of our
pious predecessors once said: “The one who is satisfied with dry bread and
water will be free from slavery except the slavery to Allah, the All-High.”
Today, by His special grace, I am totally free from the tyranny of the past,
and I am living a peaceful life in retirement. Why should I therefore, not
forgive? To err is human and to forgive is divine.
Okey Nwachukwu contributed to the peace I now enjoy today. He indeed
gave a good account of himself while in service. Even though, I am sure, he
made no money because he served with integrity. He will one day be remembered
by other persons for his meritorious service to our country, Nigeria.
Mr. Omonhinmin is a Media Consultant based in Lagos.
