Quite recently, public discourse was again forced to consider an old discourse that borders on the whether or not civil servants have the right to engage in partisan politics. This discourse, of course, became heated up given that the political order in Nigeria is already getting into a feverish pitch as a result of ongoing political strategizing in readiness for the 2027 general elections. The next election cycle seems a bit far, but politicians are not usually known to be that patient, especially when it comes to the struggle to gain or retain political power. The usual bickering concerning alignment and mudslinging has already picked up a heightened pace, and it is inevitable that we will once again come to the point of figuring out the political status of civil servants in the whole dynamics.
Quite recently, on August 15, 2025, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF), Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack, fired a salvo at the quarterly Stakeholders and Citizens Engagement interactive session. The basis of her argument is the crucial need to safeguard the political neutrality of the civil servants in accordance with their responsibility to any government of the day. And in response to the old Supreme Court judgement which reiterates the constitutional provision allowing any citizen of Nigeria to participate in politics, the HCSF argues that the constitutional provision (when conflated with the subordinate provision of the public service rules) permits civil servants the fundamental right to privately support any party of their choice without being drawn into the murky space of high-stake political activities. It did not take too long for the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), through its president, Mr Joe Ajaero, to respond. And it was typical. The NLC countered that both the Nigerian 1999 Constitution and the 2003 Supreme Court judgement—in the INEC v Musa and Others—foreground the right of civil servants, like all other Nigerians, not just to be card-carrying party members, but to also be involved in all other political activities.
The interesting issue is that both the HCSF and the NLC president pointed at the constitutional and the Supreme Court support for that legal stipulation of the constitutional provision of Section 40 of the Nigerian Constitutions states simply: Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any other association for the protection of his interests. However, the HCSF insists that civil servants, while adhering to this constitutional provision, must keep in mind the fundamental significance Public Service Rules which define and constrain the administrative behaviour of civil servants. Section 4 of the PSR defines serious misconduct as “a specific act of very serious wrongdoing and improper behavior which is inimical to the image of the service and which can be investigated and if proven, may lead to dismissal.” The PSR then went on to situate engaging in partisan politics as an act of serious misconduct. Does the Public Service Rule then undermine the Nigerian constitutional stipulation?
There is no easy way to mediating this discourse. The two sides of the debate are cogent in the understanding of how the political status of a civil servant must be construed. The entire political order of the Nigerian state is anchored on the constitutional provisions which is the final arbiter on any legal issues concerning the government and the citizens of Nigeria. And the Supreme Court, in its 2003 ruling on INEC v Musa and Others, did well to uphold the Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution. But then, the administrative stability, professional status and performance capability of the civil servant to deliver her utmost in terms of articulating and implementing policies is anchored on the ability of the civil servant to remain neutral in political activities and engagements.
At the base of this disagreement between the HCSF and the NLC is the most fundamental dichotomy that inaugurated the public administration. This is the politics-administration distinction which insists that politicians and civil servants have different remits in their connection with the running of a state. While politicians are saddled with the design and formulation of policies that service the social contract, the civil servants are concerned only with the implementation of these policies. And each party’s task is so specified that each need not collaborate or interfere with each other’s responsibilities. However, this dichotomy is not so easily explained and outlined. This is because it is simply a theoretical construct that different administrative traditions, approaches and contexts could interpret differently. This is because there is a complex framework of relationship between administration and politics, or between civil servants and politicians. Max Weber notes that a civil servant can either live for politics or live from politics. And both are not mutually exclusive. According to him, “Whoever lives “for” politics “makes it his life,” in the inward sense. He either enjoys the naked possession of the power he exercises, or he nourishes his inward equilibrium and self-esteem with the consciousness of giving meaning to his life by serving a “cause”. Probably every serious person who lives for a cause, also lives from this cause.”
And Weber had the example of Otto von Bismarck who exemplifies living ‘for” politics in both senses of the allure of the naked possession of power and that of serving a cause. As Chancellor, Bismarck inevitably fell into a serious conflict with Emperor Wilhelm II in terms of the content of Germany’s domestic and foreign policies and how they affect the lives of Germans. Of course, Wilhelm fired his chief public servant for his strong political views and participation. However, Wilhelm himself got inextricably lost in bureaucratic officialdom that eventually undermined his government. The Wilhelm-Bismarck power struggle constitutes one perspective about the politics-administration dichotomy. On the flip side of that dichotomy is the Awolowo-Adebo collaborative efforts that was the basis of the significant infrastructural leadership of the old western region in the immediate post-independence period. That model held strongly to the separation of politics and administration in ways that allowed both to face their remit and ultimately achieve policy formulation and implementation.
The Awolowo-Adebo administrative model emerged from Nigeria’s inheritance of the apolitical British civil service system. This tradition of public administration is common all across the Commonwealth countries. The British civil service system was designed to be thoroughly impartial; civil servants are trained to serve the government of the day with utmost impartiality regardless of whatever political opinions or views they hold. The system however gives room for special advisers who are specially appointed, hold temporary position and are exempted from the rule of impartiality in their duty to provide political advice and direction to ministers.
This was the framework of the politics-administration distinction that gave Nigeria the golden age of the civil service in the immediate post-independence period. Unfortunately, one of the traumatic fallouts of the military incursion into Nigerian politics is the terrible distortions of Nigerian governance, political and administrative coherence. The massive purge of the public service in 1975/76 for instance, was in part a playout of the politics to contain the audacity that General Gowon enabled the super-permanent secretaries to have in the policy space; the audacity to step into the arena of politics at the time; one which must have put them in opposing camp with the war generals who then assaulted their rank in revenge, when the Murtala-Obasanjo assume the reign of power. When the Babangida administration began its Public Service Reform agenda, there was already on board the reform to transit Nigeria’s governmental structure to presidentialism. The Dotun Philips study group that preceded this reform framework was tasked with the objective of a professionalized civil service circumscribed by a managerial philosophy and grafted into the institutional context of presidentialism. Unfortunately, with the promulgation of Decree 43 by the Babangida administration, the objective of professionalizing the civil service system was jeopardized with the politicizing of the position of the permanent secretary which was then re-designated as the Director-General.
How do we then tie this historical and conceptual reflections together? I suspect that the Supreme Court judgment which grounds the provision of the 1999 Constitution on partisan political engagement of Nigerians cannot be the final answer on the matter. And this position is far from being counterintuitive, coming from the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission. This is my argument. The Constitutional order of the Nigerian state cannot answer to all realities, economic, political, sociocultural, administrative, and even governance. The Nigerian state has weathered all sorts of circumstances that had to be handled through legal pragmatism. Thus, while the Constitution is fundamentally right, at the most general level of the fundamental, to state that every Nigerian has the right to be political and to hold political views and participate in politics, the said constitution cannot legislate at the level of the concrete on what is best for the civil service system as both an administrative system and a profession in its own right. That has to be handled with an administrative wisdom and legality that would not undermine the constitutional order must be top in the next level administrative reform agenda for the Nigerian civil service, going forward. It is at this level that stakeholders in the administrative framework can decide what is best for the Nigerian public administrative system now and in the near future.
This whole discourse on the political status of civil servants in Nigeria’s political and constitutional order therefore speaks to the urgency of what it takes to institutionally reform the Nigerian civil service system. The discourse, in other words, brings to the fore cogent and fundamental questions: How should the classic politics-administration dichotomy be reconceived within the framework of a new theory of change for institutional reform given Nigeria’s peculiar socio-political reality? What system of public administration is best for Nigeria at this stage in its evolution and for its transformation journey? What should be the role of the state and its constitutional order in that journey? These are key questions to reflect on in the light of two important objectives. The first is that Nigeria needs to become a developmental state that pushes the boundaries of democratic governance that elevate the well-being of Nigerians. A developmental state has to plug into the fourth and fifth industrial revolutions in ways that provide the technological and infrastructural wherewithal to make development happen. The second objective is that the public service must in time, even if aspirational, become a world class institution that can effectively and efficiently backstop the developmental aspirations of the Nigerian state.
At the very heart of the institutional reform of the civil service system is indeed the nature and status of the civil servant as a public spirited and professional administrative persona with the twenty-first century public ethical conduct and competences to mediate the evolving knowledge society of the fourth industrial revolution. At the moment, the dysfunction of the system is due to its inability to jettison its old Weberian, “I-am-directed” structural modalities that engender bureau-pathology which prevents administrative efficiencies and promotes a culture that politicizes everything governance and development. This pathological condition calls for a re-professionalization strategy that capacitate the civil service system and its civil servants to function optimally in their vocational calling to serve Nigerians in manner that insulates it from distortionary politics. This is where all critical stakeholders, from the OHCSF and the Federal Civil Service Commission to the NLC owe the public administration a sacred responsibility. This is a far better focus than the intermittent public filibustering over how political the civil servant can be. This is a democratic system that requires a competent, efficient and impartial civil servant to help the government achieve its policy objectives for Nigerians. The best way to go is not to embroil these civil servants in Nigeria’s political complexities. This, I believe, is the cogent insight the HCSF is trying to pass across.
Prof. Tunji Olaopa
Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission & Professor of Public Administration
