Ibraheem Musa
20 November 2008
interview
Kaduna — In his last media interview, Alhaji Shehu Musa Makaman Nupe, here below, recalled how the civil service was in his days and how the different organs of government related with each other. The interview was first published in the Sunday Trust of September 28, 2008.
You were the Secretary to the Federal Government in the Second Republic under President Shehu Shagari. Can you recall how you were appointed?
I was a permanent secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance. I believe that the new government wanted a bridge between the out-going Obasanjo military government and their own, so as to ensure continuity in some of the programmes and policies that it wanted. The incoming government promised to honour the obligations of the outgoing one.
In fact I was away in Malta attending the commonwealth ministers' meeting when I was informed to unfailingly report to Lagos by 1st of October. Before then, I had wanted to quit the service with the military because I did not participate in the political campaign that brought about the then new government. But somehow, President Shagari had already known me when he was a minister; I was already at the policy making level at the federal civil service. I believe that between him and the out-going Head of State Obasanjo, they decided that I was to be made the Secretary to the Government. I had served also as permanent secretary ministry of health (social service), as well as deputy permanent secretary ministry of defence, thus covering the three main arms of governance; finance and economy, social services and security.
Were you the highest ranking permanent secretary at that time?
Well, so to speak. Traditionally, once you move to the Ministry of Finance, you are regarded as a very senior perm sec because it is that ministry that does a lot of coordination through budgeting. All the ministries submit their proposals and programmes to the ministry of finance and ministry of planning. So any officer who headed the ministry of finance is regarded as eminently qualified to be appointed to that position.
Were you appointed SFG on the same day that Mr Gray Longe was appointed Head of Service?
Gray Longe was my senior in the service. The constitution requires that the Head of Service must be drawn from the civil service but the SGF from within or without.
As SFG, how were schedules different from that of the Head of Service? The office used to be one under the military.
The Head of Service was in charge of civil service management. He dealt with postings of civil servants, especially permanent secretaries. He also dealt with promotions. He also chaired the committee that recommended the upgrading of senior civil servants to become permanent secretaries and the management of their performance. The committee usually recommended to the president. He also attended FEC meetings.
As secretary to the government were you attending cabinet meetings?
Of course I was secretary to the cabinet. In other words, I took down notes and I presented minutes to the president and members of the cabinet at the end of such meetings. I advised him on the need to follow up on certain matters and which ministry should do so.
But did you have voting rights?
No issue come to voting at that time; there was nothing like that.
You were basically in charge of the cabinet secretariat, but was any parastatal under your office?
We did have ad hoc committees which Mr. President set up for the SGF to supervise. The Secretary to the Government also supervised the secretariat of the Council of States. Nigeria transformed from the parliamentary to the presidential system. Under the 1979 constitution and I believe even under this constitution, the president is expected to set up a cabinet, draw up ministers from all parts of the country and they must be consulted in a cabinet system which the American presidential system does not practice. The president of America doesn't need to hold cabinet meetings and appoint ministers to meet federal character requirement. With us, although regular meetings was not specified in the constitution, but it had become the culture. Each minister presented his memo on issues of policy; how to utilise the money allocated to him in a budget. How various projects are going on, who and who will be offered contracts and things like that, progress reports and whether there is the need for foreign bodies to partner with government and so on so forth. All these are supposed to be presented in memoranda, which is processed through the cabinet secretariat and presented. Now, with information technology, the work will be done faster.
Was your appointment political or a civil service appointment?
Well, I had to retire from the civil service on appointment. Although my appointment was not a civil service appointment, I made sure that I stayed within the civil service culture of neutrality and loyalty to the government and I made sure that I was there not for the government of the day but for Nigeria. And that was why I was called the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
How did you cope, coming straight from the civil service and serving under a government under a political dispensation?
Well, I was able to cope because what was needed was the discipline of the civil service. The good thing about it was that I was not responsible to the political parties; I was responsible to the president and he invited me to any meeting that he wanted me to attend so that I will be grounded into the issues in case he requires further briefing.
Was there a Principal Private Secretary (PPS) during your time and what were his functions?
Yes. He is the personal staff of the president, who handles both his domestic affairs and personal correspondences of the president as Head of State as distinct from Head of Government. He also accompanies the president on foreign trips because the SGF doesn't need to travel with the president, especially for state as opposed to official trips. He is a personal staff just like the chief of Staff, one of the carry overs from the military.
There were some civil servants of your generation, particularly Malam Adamu Fika who resisted the splitting of the Head of Service from the office of the Secretary to the Government. You were SGF when the office was carved out from the Head of Service, how faulty was the system?
The system was ok; Alhaji Adamu Fika was my very good peer in the civil service. In fact, I respect him very much but we differed on this issue. The constitution had already split the office; you shouldn't oppose what you couldn't resist, what the whole country decided to put in the constitution. And I felt that there was the need to preserve the neutrality of the civil service and also ensure it was not derailed or put in a bad light. For instance with the separation of the two offices, if there is any political blunder, the SGF takes the blame just like what has happened in the case of Babagana Kingibe when the president decided that his political inclination or antecedents are not in conformity with his own, he asked him to go.
One of the sins of Kingibe was that he was allegedly playing politics with his former office. But is that not to be expected when you appoint a politician to fill an office that is largely political?
No. As at the time that he was appointed, I guess that the president thought that their political philosophy was the same, he thought that their thinking will harmonise. When he realised that there were differences and Kingibe was likely to jeopardise his presidency, he relieved him of the position.
Some people also see Alhaji Yayale Ahmed's appointment as SGF as a demotion of sorts because as Defence minister, he was a member of the Federal Executive Council who has a voting right. What is your view on this?
It depends on the way you look at it. Yayale has been Head of Service and he has a very rich knowledge of the system. H e is used to putting things together, co-ordinating things. The position of SGF is very strategic because there is hardly an occasion that any ministry takes matters to the president without his input. So, there is no question of demotion. In matters of protocol, although the ministers come before him, he is the one that the president consults almost all the time. In other words, he can summon a minister in the name of the president and ask him to explain certain things. He is in my opinion, the Prime Minister in the presidential system.
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