By Comrade Dominic Ogakwu
There are institutions whose relevance is most visible in moments of crisis, and there are others whose importance lies in the fact that they keep the machinery of the state running every day, largely away from public attention. Nigeria’s Federal Civil Service belongs firmly in the latter category. Governments come and go. Presidents complete their terms. Ministers are appointed and replaced. Political priorities change. But the Civil Service remains.
It is the institutional memory of government, the administrative backbone of the federation and the machinery through which policies conceived at the political level are translated—or sometimes fail to be translated—into tangible outcomes for citizens.
This is why the appointment of Mr. Olumuyiwa Enitan Abel as the new Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (HCSF) is more than another change at the top of the federal bureaucracy. It comes at a critical point in Nigeria’s continuing search for a public service that is professional, technologically driven, merit-based, accountable and capable of responding to the increasingly complex expectations of more than 200 million Nigerians.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Enitan as Head of the Civil Service of the Federation with effect from August 27, 2026, succeeding Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack, who is exiting the Service upon attaining the statutory retirement age of 60. According to State House reports, The Presidency describes Enitan as the most senior Permanent Secretary in the Federal Civil Service, having served at that level for seven years and seven months. For Enitan, therefore, the appointment is both an honour and an enormous responsibility.
He inherits an institution with a proud history and enormous potential, but also one carrying the burden of longstanding structural weaknesses. He will be expected to preserve the gains of recent reforms while confronting the institutional deficiencies that continue to frustrate Nigerians who interact with government.
The question before him is simple but profound: Can Nigeria finally build the world-class Civil Service it has discussed for decades?
The Civil Service: Nigeria’s Permanent Government
The history of Nigeria’s Civil Service is inseparable from the history of the Nigerian state itself. Its foundations were laid during the colonial period, when an administrative machinery was created primarily to implement the policies of the colonial government. Over time, particularly as Nigeria moved towards independence, Nigerians increasingly occupied senior administrative positions and the bureaucracy evolved into an important institution of the emerging nation-state.
At independence in 1960, the new country inherited a Civil Service that became indispensable to the enormous task of building a sovereign nation.
From education and healthcare to agriculture, infrastructure, security administration, finance, trade and diplomacy, the Civil Service became the machinery through which successive governments attempted to implement their development programmes.
The importance of that continuity cannot be overstated. A minister may spend only a few years supervising a ministry, but career civil servants may spend decades within government. They understand the history of policies, previous attempts at implementation, institutional procedures, legal frameworks and administrative precedents. This makes the Civil Service, at its best, the custodian of institutional memory.
Indeed, the Office of the Head of the Civil Service itself has described the Civil Service as a stabilizing force within Nigeria’s governance architecture. Under Walson-Jack, an editorial committee was inaugurated in 2025 to document the history and evolution of the Nigerian Civil Service as a national institutional asset.
Yet history also tells us that institutions must continuously reinvent themselves. A bureaucracy designed for the Nigeria of the 1960s cannot effectively serve the Nigeria of the 2020s without fundamental changes in technology, skills, performance measurement, transparency and organisational culture. That is the heart of Nigeria’s Civil Service reform challenge.
Why the Civil Service Matters
For the average Nigerian, government is ultimately judged not by the elegance of policy documents but by the quality of public services delivered. A government may announce an excellent education policy, but civil servants must translate it into programmes. Government may approve infrastructure projects, but public officers must process procurement, budgeting, monitoring and implementation.
Government may introduce economic reforms, but ministries, departments and agencies must provide the administrative machinery required to implement them.
In this sense, the quality of a nation’s bureaucracy directly affects the quality of its governance. Where the Civil Service is efficient, professional and accountable, government programmes have a greater chance of succeeding. Where bureaucracy is slow, compromised, excessively politicised or technologically outdated, even well-intentioned policies can become trapped between approval and implementation. This is why Civil Service reform should never be regarded as an internal government affair. It is a national development issue. Nigeria cannot realistically aspire to become a globally competitive economy while operating an inefficient public administration system.
Decades of Reform — Yet the Questions Remain
Nigeria has never lacked attempts to reform its Civil Service. Successive administrations have introduced commissions, reviews, restructuring exercises and reform programmes aimed at improving efficiency, professionalism and accountability.
Over the years, these interventions have dealt with questions ranging from structure and remuneration to professionalization, tenure, productivity, training, financial management and performance.
More recently, reform efforts have been anchored on the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan (FCSSIP). The 2017–2020 strategy was succeeded by the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Plan 2021–2025 (FCSSIP25), which sought to accelerate the transformation of the bureaucracy through targeted reforms.
One particularly significant change has been the transition away from excessive reliance on the old Annual Performance Evaluation Report, APER, towards a modern Performance Management System (PMS) based on work planning, target-setting and measurable results. The official PMS policy identifies shortcomings in the old appraisal regime as one reason a modern system became necessary. (OHCSF) This represents an important philosophical shift.
Civil servants should not simply be rewarded for occupying offices. Public officers must increasingly be assessed by what they deliver. That culture of measurable performance must become irreversible.
The Walson-Jack Chapter
Any assessment of the environment Abel Enitan is inheriting must acknowledge the reform efforts undertaken under his immediate predecessor, Mrs. Didi Esther Walson-Jack.
Walson-Jack assumed office in 2024 with considerable experience across government, having served in ministries including Power, Water Resources and Education as well as the Office of the Head of the Civil Service. She was also associated with initiatives including the Federal Integrated Staff Housing Programme and government labour-relations processes.
Her tenure placed significant emphasis on digitalisation, performance management, human-capital development, innovation and institutional reform. Under the FCSSIP25 framework, the Service pursued improvements in human-resource data, process automation, capability development and staff welfare.
The ONCE-Knowledge initiative, for example, sought to create a more structured approach to the career development of public servants from entry into the Service through retirement. Programmes including Structured Mandatory Assessment-Based Training and Leadership Enhancement and Development Programme were incorporated into the capacity-building architecture, alongside AI-related training and executive master classes.
Digital transformation also gathered momentum. The Office of the Head of Service migrated onto the 1-Government Cloud Enterprise Content Management System, while tens of thousands of official government email accounts were created as part of efforts to improve communication, accountability and digital integration. The OHCSF reported in November 2025 that 59,344 official email addresses had already been created for civil servants. Standard Operating Procedures were also developed for common-service departments and units.
The reform agenda equally placed greater emphasis on staff welfare. In her 2026 Workers’ Day message, Walson-Jack highlighted measures including the Exit Benefit Scheme for retiring officers under the Contributory Pension Scheme, operationalisation of the Employee Compensation Scheme for work-related injuries and losses, reviews of allowances and a ₦10 billion housing loan scheme for civil servants. (OHCSF)
These are important gains. But no serious assessment of Nigeria’s Civil Service should mistake progress for completion.
The Unfinished Business
For all the reforms, the Nigerian Civil Service continues to confront structural and cultural problems that cannot be solved by policy documents alone.
The first is bureaucratic delay. For many citizens and businesses, interaction with government can still mean navigating layers of approvals, files, signatures and administrative procedures. Digitalisation must therefore go beyond converting paper documents into electronic documents. It must involve redesigning processes themselves.
The second is accountability. Public service must operate on the understanding that government resources belong to Nigerians. Procurement manipulation, abuse of office, absenteeism, favouritism and other unethical practices weaken public confidence and impose real economic costs on the country.
Third is the challenge of merit versus influence. Recruitment, promotion and deployment must increasingly be determined by competence, performance, qualifications and institutional need. A Civil Service that allows political connections, ethnicity, personal relationships or patronage to supersede competence will struggle to become world-class.
Fourth is capacity. Government today operates in a world transformed by artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, big data, digital identity, climate change, global supply chains and rapidly evolving financial systems. The public servant of tomorrow cannot function effectively with yesterday’s skills.
Fifth is citizen orientation. The ultimate customer of government is the Nigerian citizen. Civil servants must therefore see Nigerians seeking government services not as inconveniences but as citizens whose taxes and collective resources sustain the institutions of state. That change in attitude may prove as important as any technological reform.
Enter Olumuyiwa Enitan Abel
It is against this background that Olumuyiwa Enitan Abel takes responsibility for Nigeria’s federal bureaucracy. His emergence is significant because he is not coming into the institution as an outsider. He is a product of the system he is now expected to lead.
According to the Presidency, Enitan is from Osun State and was, at the time of his appointment, the most senior Permanent Secretary in the Federal Civil Service. He has accumulated seven years and seven months’ experience as a Permanent Secretary and has served in strategic government institutions including the Ministry of Police Affairs, Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Office of the Vice President and Federal Ministry of Education, where he currently serves as Permanent Secretary. That breadth of experience matters.
He has seen the bureaucracy from within. He understands its procedures, strengths, limitations and institutional politics. There will therefore be little room for the excuse of unfamiliarity.
President Tinubu has given the incoming Head of Service a clear mandate: consolidate ongoing reforms and innovations, deepen professionalism and efficiency and build a Civil Service capable of delivering effectively on government programmes. The President has specifically called for a Service that is professional, merit-driven, accountable, innovative and responsive to the needs and aspirations of Nigerians. Those words should become measurable benchmarks against which Enitan’s tenure is eventually assessed.
From Reform Rhetoric to Reform Results
Enitan’s greatest responsibility may be ensuring that Civil Service reforms survive changes in leadership. Nigeria has repeatedly suffered from institutional discontinuity. New officeholders sometimes abandon programmes simply because they were initiated by their predecessors. That culture must end. Good reforms belong to institutions, not individuals.
Where Walson-Jack’s initiatives are producing results, Enitan should strengthen them. Where weaknesses are identified, he should correct them. Where reforms have become ceremonial or bureaucratic exercises, he should demand measurable outcomes.
The next phase must particularly deepen the Performance Management System. Every ministry and department should understand its objectives. Every senior officer should know what he or she is expected to deliver. Performance indicators should be measurable. Excellence should have consequences, and persistent underperformance should equally have consequences. A system in which outstanding and non-performing officers are treated almost identically cannot sustain excellence.
Digital Government Must Become the Norm
Nigerias’s ambition for a world-class Civil Service will ultimately depend heavily on technology. Government files should not routinely disappear. Citizens should not have to travel hundreds of kilometres simply to submit documents that could securely be transmitted electronically. Inter-agency correspondence should not take weeks where technology can make it instantaneous. Public records should be properly digitised, secured and retrievable. Enitan must therefore accelerate the transition towards a genuinely digital Federal Civil Service.
But digitalization also introduces responsibilities. Government holds enormous volumes of sensitive citizen and institutional data. Cybersecurity, data protection, access controls and digital accountability must therefore develop alongside technological adoption.
Artificial intelligence will also increasingly change how governments work. Rather than resisting this reality, the Nigerian Civil Service should develop clear policies for responsible AI adoption while aggressively reskilling its workforce. The world will not wait for Nigeria’s bureaucracy to catch up.
Protecting the Neutrality of the Civil Service
There is another responsibility that deserves particular attention: protecting the professional neutrality of the bureaucracy. Civil servants serve the government of the day, but they serve the Nigerian state first. Their loyalty must ultimately be to the Constitution, lawful authority and the public interest–not partisan politics.
A professional Civil Service must be capable of giving government competent and sometimes uncomfortable advice. It must maintain institutional memory and professional standards regardless of who occupies political office. The moment the Civil Service becomes an extension of partisan politics, it loses one of its greatest assets: continuity. Olumuyiwa must therefore defend professionalism while maintaining the legitimate relationship between elected political leadership and the administrative machinery responsible for executing government policy.
Civil Society Must Have a Seat at the Reform Table
As civil society actors, we must also insist that public service reform cannot remain an exclusive conversation among senior government officials. Citizens must participate. Civil society organizations, professional associations, organized labour, academia, development institutions, the private sector and the media all interact with government and can provide valuable independent perspectives on where the bureaucracy is succeeding or failing.
Encouragingly, the OHCSF has acknowledged the importance of stakeholder participation in shaping the next generation of Civil Service reforms, including engagement with government partners, development agencies, the private sector and citizens. That approach should be expanded under Olumuyiwa.
There should be periodic citizen satisfaction assessments. There should be measurable service-delivery benchmarks. There should be mechanisms through which Nigerians can report administrative bottlenecks and track whether those complaints are resolved. A world-class Civil Service must be willing to listen to the people it exists to serve.
The Search for a World-Class Public Service
The phrase “world-class Civil Service” has appeared repeatedly in Nigeria’s reform discourse. It is an admirable aspiration. But it must mean something concrete.
A world-class Nigerian Civil Service should be one where recruitment is competitive and transparent; promotion rewards competence; technology eliminates unnecessary bureaucracy; public officers receive continuous training; corruption attracts consequences; institutional knowledge is preserved; citizens receive services within clearly defined timelines; and government programmes are implemented based on measurable outcomes.
It should be a Service where talented young Nigerians aspire to work not because government offers opportunities for patronage, but because public service represents excellence, prestige and an opportunity to contribute meaningfully to national development.
That transformation cannot be achieved by the Head of Service alone. Permanent Secretaries, Directors, Deputy Directors and officers across ministries and agencies must take ownership of it. Political officeholders must also resist the temptation to undermine professional procedures for short-term convenience. And citizens must continue demanding accountability.
A New Chapter Begins
Abel Enitan is assuming office at a consequential moment. The foundation for another phase of reform has been laid. Digitalisation is progressing. Performance management is gaining institutional traction. Capacity-development programmes are being redesigned. The language of innovation and citizen-centred service is increasingly entering the vocabulary of the Federal Civil Service.
But Nigerians will judge the next chapter not by conferences, speeches, slogans or beautifully designed strategy documents. They will judge it by experience. How quickly can a citizen obtain a government service? How transparently are public resources administered? Are the most competent officers being promoted? Can government institutions respond faster to national emergencies? Can businesses interact with government without unnecessary administrative frustration? Are civil servants equipped for the digital economy? And ultimately, is government working better because the Civil Service is working better? These are the questions that should define Abel Enitan’s tenure.
His appointment presents an opportunity to consolidate what works, dismantle what no longer works and move Nigeria’s bureaucracy decisively from an establishment-driven administrative culture towards a performance-driven public service. History has placed him at the head of one of the most important institutions in Nigeria. The task ahead is not merely to administer that institution. It is to help transform it.
For a country seeking economic growth, stronger institutions, greater accountability and renewed public confidence in government, a world-class Civil Service is not a luxury. It is a national necessity. And as Olumuyiwa Enitan Abel prepares to take the helm, the challenge is clear: make the next chapter of Nigeria’s Civil Service one in which reform finally becomes an everyday reality for the Nigerian people.
Leave feedback about this