By SundiataPOST, Abuja
Gov. Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has says his administration’s commitment to the restoration of the lost glory of the state’s Civil Service remains sacrosanct.
The governor said the commitment was aimed at ensuring professionalism, and a well-motivate and highly skilled workforce.
The governor stated this at the public presentation of a book entitled “We Served our Generation: Perspectives and Reflections on Western Nigerian Civil Service’’, on Thursday at the University of Ibadan.
The book was put together by the Association of Retired Heads of Service and Permanent Secretaries, Oyo and Osun states.
He said that in the last two and half years, the state government created a robust workforce with renewed focus on performance and quality service delivery.
“The strategy employed to achieve this renewed commitment was based on a pivot of restoring civil servants’ pride in themselves as the engine room of government and governance.
“This, we carried out through massive governmental interest in the career development of all civil and public servants,’’ the governor said.
Ajimobi stated that till date, no government in the history of the state had trained civil servants within and outside the country as his administration had done.
He said his administration also ensured good working environment, purposeful leadership for the civil service, as well as ensured civil servants’ promotion as at when due.
The governor said that obsolete rules and regulations in the service had been reviewed through encouragement of ICT-driven service.
“The performance of this administration, for which we get kudos all over the world, could only have been achieved with a robust civil service serving as the engine room of our policies and programmes.’’
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Acknowledging the past contributions of retired heads of service and permanent secretaries to the civil service, Ajimobi, however, noted that what was being witnessed in the public service fell short of the tenets they laid down.
He attributed this to what he called a generational and communicational gap between the past and the present.
He expressed the belief that the book would not only act as a compass to the future of public service, but would also go a long way in bridging the gap and ultimately have positive impact on people’s lives.
The governor commended the association for putting writing about their experiences while in office, adding, “What they have done was simply to book a place of pride for themselves in the chapters of history.’’
The chairman of the association, Chief Theophilus Akinyele, said that the event was not just another book launch, but rather, a response to the loud yearnings of the present generation of a people.
Akinyele said they were reputed for their boisterous questioning mind that had sustained them as pace-setters.
“We are convinced that the past must confront and challenge the present so that the present may condition the future in a sustainable manner, lest we all end in shallows and miseries.
“Therefore, our association has attempted using this medium as the forum to take up the gauntlet by documenting, to the best of our knowledge, the imperishable achievements of the founding pioneers of the civil service of Western Nigeria,’’ he said.
Akinyele said the book was written to highlight their contributions to nation-building, and the sterling leadership qualities that ensure proper relationship between the political and administrative classes of the public service.
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