Seeing things in north and south

Many years ago as an undergraduate, I got the first of many tastes of the depth of the Nigerian north south divide. The plans to move the Nigerian Law School to Abuja were in motion and my set, the 1997 graduates of law would be the first to be called in Abuja. My letter to the editor of the Guardian questioned the rational. I spoke for tradition, consistency and the prudent use of resources in defense of maintaining Lagos as the site of the venerable Nigerian Law School; some who read it saw that I spoke for the south as opposed to the north. The rest is history – the site was moved to Abuja, people say quality has fallen and billions have been spent on five sub-standard law schools (one geo political zone is being ‘cheated’) when we could have one glorious well funded Nigerian Law School.

Since then I have used my writing to try to understand, like other Nigerians, the utility of federal character in our constitution and I continue to attract comments relating to our suffocating mind set on maintaining the north south dichotomy. Now there is a word we throw around when we talk of maintaining a balance but ‘dichotomy’ also means ‘to divide into two mutually exclusive or contradictory groups or entities’. Seeing things in north and south is the direct root for the zoning formula being championed by the Peoples’ Democratic Party and to be fair – maybe any other party in power would use this ruse too.

Yes, this is yet another article on zoning because as we do what we do best (dinner table analysis and sitting down and looking) our politicians and wise men drum up the specter of war with fighting words.

Last week as Nigerians dealt with the pain of sacrificed innocents and the humiliation of very publicly staking our claim to selfishness and instability on the same day we capped a frenzy of meaningless celebration of 50 years of independence, the Northern Political Leaders Forum (NPLF) lead by Adamu Ciroma called for the resignation of President Goodluck. In a statement peppered with prayers, NPLF said they were not satisfied with how the President was handling the bomb blasts which they believed to be politically motivated. According to NPLF “he is desperate enough to want to hang mass murder around the neck of unnamed Northerners to achieve his second term”. They plan to ask the National Assembly to impeach him because “as Northerners and as citizens of this country, we no longer feel safe and secure under his leadership”.

Some of the arguments and sentiments expressed in the NPLF statement are understandable, but on so many levels they are misleading. There is no doubt that sentiments are frayed and we are worried about the stability of the country especially after the bombs and the missiles of counter accusations flying around.

However, it is hard to see how starting impeachment proceedings six months to the elections is the right thing to do for the country. Rightly so, it is not an easy task to impeach a president and Section 143 of the Constitution provides several steps and layers of obligations for the National Assembly and the Supreme Court to comply with. First, the allegation calling for impeachment must be signed by at least 156 Senators and Representatives. Then at least 312 out of our 469 legislators must agree to the allegation being investigated; then the Chief Justice will recommend a panel of 7 people of ‘unquestionable character’ (did I hear ‘good luck with that’) to investigate and write a report which must then be adopted by 312 legislators. And, the President has the right to defend himself at some stage. Is it likely that we can go through this process and still hold credible elections in April?

I think NPLF is making a mistake when it lays the blame of instability, grim political rivalry and quest for power solely on the President’s feet; all the PDP candidates, all of whom have been in power before are equally guilty. NPLF is culpable of taking advantage of the situation to whip up sentiments and make a bad situation worse by calling for the impeachment of the President. We do not need experienced political analysts to tell us that a handover could delay the electoral process and increase tensions across the country.

NPLF is right when it says the bombs were calculated to humiliate and to show the world that the Niger Delta militants have the ability “to influence political outcomes beyond their traditional area of influence”. But the question is, humiliate and influence whom? NPLF remind us of their warning to Nigerians to be vigilant about President Goodluck’s ‘desperate agenda to run’ and say they have been vindicated by the bombs. This means we can ask a few more questions: who benefits most from the chaos, fear and uncertainty being created and who loses more in the short and long term from the events of October 1? Maybe when we attempt to answer these questions, we can begin to analyze without the fog of sentiments.

True patriotism and leadership does not use the type of divisive rhetoric contained in NPLF’s statement nor the careless utterances coming from the Presidency, no matter how provoked both sides feel by the situation. We should be tired of being used by the political elite in strengthening the potency of this over 50 year old boogeyman of ethnic and religious marginalization and domination. It is a smokescreen to protect their real interests: themselves. There are probably members of the NPLF who have, in one capacity or another, served in every single government Nigeria has had since 1960 regardless of any ideological preferences for north, south, Muslim, Christian, dictatorship or democracy – so what exactly do they stand for and why do they want the rest of us to stand for north vs. south and Muslim vs. Christian?

There is no doubt that balancing the interests of perceived marginalization and ethnic and religious dominance is a delicate issue requiring extra creativity to manage especially since inexplicably, Nigerians seem to be more comfortable when ‘their own’ is representing them in government and PDP’s zoning formula was probably made, with the best of intentions, to manage this desire. But it is not working.

So no – impeachment is not the answer and we should all start writing to our legislators and telling them not to threaten the elections and waste our time and resources. I wish there was a provision of the Electoral Act to disqualify PDP from the presidential elections on the basis of overheating the polity and causing unrest. But there isn’t. There might be an out in Section 227 of the Constitution which might indirectly help us get rid of PDP – it says ‘No association shall retain, organise, train or equip any person or group of persons for the purpose of enabling them to be employed for the use or display of physical force or coercion in promoting any political objective or interest...” Isn’t PDP and the zoning formula guilty of this? That way the rest of the country can carry on and PDP can take the next four years to revise its constitution and come back to us when they have something better than ‘zoning’. Until then, we continue on our polarized march towards a firm north south dichotomy.

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US Supreme Court Says Money = Speech

Could things get any worse for the Obama administration? With all the atrocities which have taken place and continue to take place in the US Congress regarding the amount of money spent by lobbyists to influence policy - how can the Supreme Court make this decision? This is icing on the cake after Scott Brown in Massachusetts and the rickety Health Care Reform bill.

As expected, Harvard Law School Professor, Larry Lessig, founder of Change Congress is livid. He says:

"The Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FECallows corporations and unions to pour unprecedented amounts of money into elections. From this moment on, when Congress acts, we won't be able to know whether it was because of reason or judgment... or only because of the need for campaign money. The system is broken, and we need to act."

For more on the implication of the decision click on the link attached.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=30&article_id=111149

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What will it take to get proportional representation in Nigeria?

As I listened in on the discussions of a committee of Harvard Law School students planning for an African Law conference in April 2010, I was surprised to hear that apparently there are some who are of the view that law plays little or no role in development. I volunteered that it would be interesting to have a debate about that. But I kept thinking about the role of law to ‘develop’ a society, community or country or even the role of law in influencing and changing culture – such as the way Mary Slessor’s work in Nigeria made it illegal to murder twins. The way we now practically worship twins and multiple births, and pray ‘ibeji’ and ‘ibeta’ for brides, no one would guess that less than one hundred years ago we rejected this as a blessing.

Nigeria does badly in many indices: our democracy and press under the Freedom House list; our corruption under Transparency International, the ease of doing business by the World Bank, our ability to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, our literacy rates, our infant mortality, our maternal mortality, on and on ad infinitum.

When asked what holds us back many people say corruption, however, and not in any way to trivialize corruption, politics in the United States is highly corrupt (it is just effectively isolated from the provision of basic services and development policies) and there are other parts of the world such as South Africa and Italy, where there is corruption, but things still work and they are not lagging behind on almost every development index.

There are other things that hold us back, including our laws. What the laws say, what they are about (National Assembly do we really need: HB. 182 A Bill for an Act to Establish the National Institute of Nigerian Philosophers and to Make Provisions for Determining the Standard of Knowledge and Skill to Be Attained by Persons Seeking to Become Professional Philosophers and for Other Connected Purposes?) and whether the laws are practical and enforceable and if there is the will to ever enforce them.

As we prepare for the 2011 elections and discuss the changes to our Constitution and the Electoral Act one thing that keeps coming up is having a system of proportional representation – for women, the physically challenged and other unrepresented minorities. Think of a better more realistic version of ‘federal character’ where we would make sure that our legislature actually reflects the ‘Nigerian character’ – which is almost 50% women. Today, women make up only 7.0% of the House of Representatives (hardly representative) and 8.3% in the Senate, making us 116^th out of 136 on yet another index. (http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm).

To put this in perspective we are only a few points above Somalia in terms of women representation in parliament and below, the Congo and Sao Tome & Principe. Two out of the first three countries in the world with the highest female representation are African: Rwanda has overtaken Sweden as number one with 56.3% and 34.6% in its lower and upper house respectively and South Africa is third highest in the world with 44.5% and 29.6% respectively.

Apparently, part of the Uwais Report on electoral reform, which to my knowledge has never been made public in its entirety, recommends that we adopt the proportional representation system which is designed to ensure that the legislative body reflects the voting strength of the electorate. However, the recommendation is not to amend the constitution but to amend the Electoral Act to force parties to reserve 30% of their seats for women (and 2% for those with physical disabilities), without prejudice to the right to also compete for representation outside this reserved seats- so that arguably, women could have more than 30% representation. This is the election law quota option.

There are two other avenues to using law to improve female representation. One is with constitutional quotas – where the constitution expressly reserves seats for women in the national law making body, as is the case in Burkina Faso, Uganda and Rwanda. After the genocide in Rwanda, women’s participation in the drafting of the new constitution resulted in a provision which reserves 24 out of 80 in the lower house and 6 out of 20 in the Senate. This means 30% of the seats is firmly held for women and they can vie for more.

The other is through political parties which is the system used in South Africa, where after years of apartheid, the ANC reserves 50% of its candidate lists for women and now they are ahead of us on this and many development curves, even though we arguably have more experience as a democracy give or take a few coups. In the political parties quota system, the political parties adopt internal laws which reserve a certain percentage of positions for female candidates – and with the ANC being the most popular party, this has resulted in increased women representation across the country.

It is widely acknowledged amongst development specialists that the inclusion of women, who usually make up half or more of the population, in decision making and their involvement in public and private enterprise improves the development indices of a country. This is the major thesis behind the push to educate females, provide financial independence through micro financing and provide platforms for greater participation.

The practice of proportional representation is not without its drawbacks. In Pakistan, where local government reform mandates 33% representation of women, most of the women elected, when interviewed, confessed to being mere proxies for husbands, male relatives, heads of clans or even landlords and forced to vote based on instructions from these people. And there are rich countries like the United States with only 10% female representation or some, like Nepal, with high female participation who continue to struggle with development.

Proponents of proportional representation are not saying that increased women representation will lead to immediate improvement in our physical, mental and cultural development. It took Sweden thirty years of practicing proportional representation to get where they are – but today Sweden has one of the best standards of living in the world according to the Human Development Report and some of the reasons are their high levels of education, democracy, income and public health.

Nigeria has nothing to lose if we legally adopt proportional representation in any one of the three available options. The same way we now see value in multiple births is the same way we will see the value in increased participation of women in governance.

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Can we decentralize Power generation?

I read with glee that last week between 5000 -10,000 people in Lagos marched to the Lagos State Secretariat to peacefully protest the crippling lack of power in Nigeria. Just a few months ago, angry youth in Zaria had protested about electricity as well. Hopefully the manufacturing sector and private businesses will join in the clamour for something to be done about the disgraceful lack of power in the blind giant of Africa.

I read with gloom that another $4.6 billion as been allegedly spent on power generation this year – this in addition to the controversial $16B which we are told is really $3.6 billion, spent by the Obasanjo administration on the same power sector.

And yet, by all indications it is doubtful if we will get as much as 4000 megawatts by the end of 2009.

As I pointed out in a previous article – ‘PHCN get rid of your freeloaders’; apart from the all pervading selfish interests of a few Nigerians, the problem lies with the Electric Power Sector Reform Act 2005 (the ‘EPSR Act’), the 1999 Constitution and the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).

States have a right under the Section 14 of the Concurrent List of the 1999 Constitution to generate electricity for areas not covered by the national grid but Section 63(1) of the EPSR Act deliberately restricts this right by requiring State power projects to be licensed by NERC.

Why? Why is it so important for the Federal Government to maintain control over State production of electricity? Why did the Obasanjo administration scuttle the efforts of Lagos State to independently power the State? Could it be because if States take control of power generation it will become glaring to Nigerians that the lack of power that we suffer from is not for lack of solutions but for lack of will?

We know that the Federal Government does not have a monopoly over the process of power generation, so why do the executives act like it does? The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the Bonny Utility Company funded with only $5million dollars in 2001 by Shell, Total, Eni and NNPC has managed to provide its customers with power 95% of the time. According to the article: “clients get power free of charge, up to a certain limit…and now has over 8000 paying customers. The revenue from paying customers covers half of the company’s costs and has created previously impossible public service and commercial opportunities, including a doubling of operations at a hospital”. Since 2005, a similar arrangement is supposedly benefiting the forty thousand people who live in Onelga, in Delta State and more and more of these independent power projects are being executed – badly when government is involved and successfully when managed privately.

The crux: decentralize power generation in Nigeria. As the National Assembly gears up to finally tackle the issue of constitutional reform, at the top of their list should be to give States more constitutional powers. The Federal Government has had close to fifty years to get power (and many other things) right and has failed.

Instead of the ridiculous collaborative arrangement where the Federal Government, States and Local Governments are to contribute billions of dollars from their Excess Crude allocations revenue accounts to the rehabilitation of existing power plants and new power projects under the National Integrated Power Programme (NIPP), why don’t the States get a chance to manage power generation instead of the constant excuses we get from the FG, its Ministry of Power, PHCN and most recently, NERC? Are the States and Local Governments also going to be involved in awarding the contracts and appointing the people who are going to be responsible for executing the projects?

One of the reasons for federalism is to aid development, yet our Constitution has helped to cripple the States so that they are ineffective. From all indications, one of the main issues for consideration for the constitutional review is the creation of more states. Arguably at least one reason why the clamour for more States is so loud is because people are frustrated with the lack of development and think that if every hamlet was a capital and every chief a governor, development will magically appear. What we need is States with more powers – ironically since we model ourselves on the American presidential system, why are we not considering the United States Constitution, which gives the States a lot more power and independence than our States have?

Competition within the States and most critically, at least for now, within the power sector is absolutely vital for the development of Nigeria and Pastor Sam Adeyemi, the organizer of the protests in Lagos sums it up nicely: "We call on the Federal Government to break the monopoly of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria and allow private investors and state governments to generate and distribute electricity. The strategy that worked for telecommunications should be made to work for power supply."

If we amend the Constitution to allow States to generate electricity, we can also simultaneously privatize PHCN and reduce the bureaucracies of having NERC and a Federal Ministry of Power. The difference under this scenario is that Nigerians will not be held to ransom if the usual privatisation process results in the NITEL or petroleum refinery scenarios.

Like anything there are disadvantages to providing the States with more power but the benefits outweigh the risks and at this point in our history, shouldn’t we be ready to try something different? I can predict the naysayers who will talk about uneven development but this is just an excuse for mediocrity – our development is uneven, both within and outside the country. If competition between the States and within the power sector will result in more electricity for consumers, most Nigerians will support this – after all, the majority of us are not benefiting from the inefficiencies of our power sector.

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Creativity in Communication - Dora borrow a page

'Tings Dey Happen' is a story about the Niger Delta oil politics - and is set to be performed in Lagos, Calabar, Abuja, Jos and Bauchi. Ironically, it is not being sponsored by our re-branding and miscommunication guru in the Ministry of Information but by the US State Department. So much for being in control of our content.

Please go and see it and let me know what you think - I am hoping it will come and show in Boston.

To find out more Google 'Dan Hoyle + Tings dey happen'

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Are our child custody laws up-to-date?

When Asabe left her husband for her father’s house with her eighteen-month-old son, she did not realize that leaving her marriage meant she would have to give up her baby. One late afternoon, a few days after she left, her mother –in –law came to visit. After the usual pleasantries, and as she held her grandson in her arms, Asabe’s mother in law informed her that it was okay for her to leave her husband, but she could not take their son away. She walked out the door with the baby and it was many years before Asabe would see her son again.

In March, hidden away on the pages of a little known newspaper was a story of a Nigerian woman who died while struggling to retain physical possession of her four-year-old son. According to eyewitnesses, the child cried as both parents tugged at him, until the father won with one final push and walked away with the child and the woman’s life. This couple had four children, two had died and the husband had possession of the third.

How many women in Nigeria have illegally lost possession of their children just because their marriages have ended either by them or for them? How many of these cases are ever reported? And in how many of these cases, even when civil and customary laws dictate that these children are better of with their mothers, does the social structure support this?

The Matrimonial Causes Act 1970 is applicable to all child custody cases including children borne out of civil, customary and Islamic marriages and provides that in all custody matters, ‘the interests of the child shall be paramount’. This predominance of the child’s right is also echoed in the Children’s Right Act 2003, but how do we decide in a patriarchal society what the ‘interest of the child’ is, especially when that child is a minor? This becomes even harder when the Matrimonial Act is silent on what the interests of a child are, does not define the word ‘minor’ nor take into consideration the special treatment that minors need.

So who gets custody of the child where both parents are fit, willing and capable?

In Nigerian case law, we see judgments where the courts try to make the interest of the child paramount, however, what is in the best interest is sometimes subjective and personalised. In Odogwu v. Odogwu, Justice Belgore, JSC (as he then was) said, ‘the welfare of the child is not in material provisions of the home such as…food and air conditioners…it is psychologically detrimental to his (the child) welfare and ultimate happiness and psychological development if maternal care, is denied him’. In this case each time the father, who had illegally abducted the children, was asked by the lower courts to return the children, he would use the legal process to stall by filing for a stay of execution. The problems with going the legal route in child custody cases are; the time it takes, the inability of most women to afford the cost and the unenforceability of judgement. So most women just walk away with no recourse to justice or equity.

Islamic jurisprudence is more detailed in custody issues because the injunctions are relatively clear with several categories for determining minors. However, and this is a big however, the clarity ends when the different schools of interpretation are taken into consideration. Under Maliki Islamic jurisprudence, which is what majority of Nigerian Muslims adhere to, children under the age of puberty stay with their mother. In fact, female children stay with their mother until the time of the child’s marriage while male children stay with their mothers until puberty. Going further in attesting to the importance of the mother in a child’s life, even when a Muslim woman cannot be granted custody, seven variations of custody lie with her family before the father’s family comes into the equation – again something that rarely happens. Again the subjectivity of man comes into play in the male led Sharia courts, so that the reputation of these courts is that the Alkalis are often unwilling to apply the law of the Quran ‘against’ our patriarchal culture.

Apart from the culture of patriarchy, the other reasons why women lose possession of their children is because they are economically disempowered and lack access to information about their rights under either customary (Islamic) or civil law.

Unfortunately there is little under Igbo and Yoruba customary law that supports a mother’s right to her children. Amongst the Yoruba the children belong with the father and custody will usually be granted to him. According to research, within a certain group of the Yoruba, the paternal grandmother names the children, setting the stage for ‘ownership’ of the children. Ironically, in a society where all the failings of a child are ‘blamed’ on the mother, a tacit admission of the importance of the role, our society insists on separating young children from their mothers.

With thirty seven ‘ministries of women’s affairs’ and countless non governmental organisations all focused on promoting the welfare of women and children, information on child custody issues and where to go for help and advice is sadly lacking. Baobab, a women’s human rights organization, has some relevant information but this is hidden inside annual reports and there is no information on the website on the legal position on child custody. Collating custody cases and judgments is the ideal place for law, data and public policy to merge; with the judiciary and NGOs’ feeding the information into the ministries and the ministries using this data to ensure the right policy is implemented.

As usual, the Nigerian legal and political system is not set up to protect the rights of women and children. We missed the opportunity to use the Children Rights Act to close the gaps in the Matrimonial Causes Act. Now women, not only in the judiciary and legal profession, must begin taking collective and individual responsibility for protecting one of the most fundamental rights of a child – the right to a mother’s love.

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Using 'law' to prevent change

Recent debate in the media, following Dr. Chudi Nwike’s report on corruption in the civil service masks a deeper malaise. There are several things wrong with our civil service and corruption is only one of them.

Imagine you have just been appointed a minister. Nigeria is lucky to have you, a technocrat from the private sector with the relevant experience for that particular ministry. You start full of lofty but realistic plans; maybe you have even written a couple of papers on reforming this sector or worked as a consultant providing expertise to governments at home and abroad. Six months later nothing has happened. One year later still nothing has happened. Why?

Many things happen to people when they assume leadership positions but one particular and consistent thing which ensues to most well meaning Ministers in Nigeria is the ‘civil service’. Apparently a common tactic of civil servants to destabilise a new minister is to bombard them with useless information and all sorts of imaginary or exaggerated emergencies. Of course when you start running around trying to douse phantom fires and get a grip on the convoluted rules and procedures, you begin to loose focus of your goal. All this while, the most relevant information is kept from you by these career civil servants who are supposed to be there to provide administrative support in the implementation of the Ministry’s strategy.

For too long we have presumed that leadership was the major problem in Nigeria. Fortunately, a Presidency characterised by an absence of leadership is allowing us to focus on where our problems lie. We, the ‘followership’ are a clog in the wheel of development. Everyone knows a civil servant – our fathers, mothers, siblings and friends are all in the civil service…and these are the same people who are holding us back.
This problem, of course, is something we should be well acquainted with from the Udoji Commission’s recommendations in 1974, to the Onosode Report of 1981, to the Dotun Phillips-led work in 1988 and, more recently with the public service reform work of el-Rufai, we have been repeatedly told that the federal and state civil service is fundamentally politicized, corrupt, demoralized, inefficient and pays scant regard to notions of service delivery.
The common factor over the years, as soldiers come and soldiers go; PDP comes and NPN goes, is a woeful civil service remarkably resistant to change.


The Civil Service

Civil servants are traditionally considered as neutral bastions of administrative efficiency meant to provide support to governments. The idea is to maintain a level of permanence and expertise in any political system so that despite the changes in government or government ideology, stability in implementation remains. All over the world however, the civil service has become the butt of jokes about mediocrity and the use of bureaucracy in the worst sense of the word to obstinately resist change.

As bad as the civil service is generally considered to be, Nigeria must have one of the worst in the world. There are several things wrong with our civil service and corruption is only one of them. In 2005, as el-Rufai attempted to kick start the reform of the public service using the FCT Ministry as a pilot case he listed the problems of the civil service as: poor service delivery, bloated service with duplication of functions, manual processes, poor compensation, inadequate skills and absence of training. I think we can add another one: attitudinal and functional bankruptcy.

Because only attitudinal and functional bankruptcy would explain the years of civil servants systematically scuttling all attempts to make things work in Nigeria. Every time a discussion about civil service reform starts, the civil service preservation army begins its tactical manoeuvres to ensure things stay the same. They constantly raise concerns over Murtala Mohammed’s attempts in the 70s to whittle the civil service: it resulted in the corruption we see today because those who were compulsorily retired were not prepared. In other words, civil servants now help themselves to public funds because they can be retired at any time. While this may to some extent be true, a more systemic problem exists: the rules that guide civil service operation often serve to entrench the dysfunction that prevails. One case in point: the civil service rules make it almost impossible to fire a civil servant even when a minister finds the person incompetent or deliberately obstructive.

According to a member of the service ‘civil servants cannot be sacked’. ‘First the person needs to have at least four queries (which obviously cannot all happen within a week). After four queries, the issue goes to the Head of Service for an investigative and hearing process which can take months and even then the civil servant does not leave the service but is redeployed to another ministry and…even worse, you have no say on who replaces the civil servant you have just managed to get rid off.’ Section 171 of the 1999 Constitution specifically provides that only the President can appoint or remove civil servants ranking from permanent secretaries and above. An anecdote which might be more indicative to emphasise what is wrong with the civil service as opposed to being the truth is that a head chef in the staff canteen of one of the ministries which moved to Abuja was left behind in Lagos. Despite years of doing nothing in Lagos, he gradually rose to the grade of a director and was then posted to the Ministry of Justice…hopefully to the canteen.

Conclusion

The reason why a strong and efficient civil service is so important is because when we have a bad government or ‘no government’ as it seems like in the case of our current Servant Sleeper, then the business of managing the day to day governance of the country will continue. Ironically, these masters of self preservation have set up another civil service agency: the Bureau of Public Service Reform with an impressive website and a long list of achievements including the establishment of EFCC, ICPC, and budget and financial management reform. However the review of the Service in 2002 posted on the BPSR website, indicates that some of the issues were: (i) an aging population with 60% at 40 years old and above; (ii) 70% of the staff are unskilled (iii) a prevalence of “ghost” workers and (iv) 60% of Federal Government spending deployed to servicing this bureaucracy.

None of the listed achievements of reform so far have tackled these issues and Section 171(3) of the Constitution compounds the problem by insisting that the Head of the Civil Service must be appointed from the civil service pool. If over 70% of the civil servants are unskilled then what are the probabilities that the Head of Service will be fit for purpose?

While we struggle to get good leaders elected we also need to work harder to ensure these leaders have the support they need to succeed. We need to totally overhaul our civil service and rewrite the rules that underpin it.

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