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The Centre for Public Accountability has called on the Federal Government to cancel and review the recently concluded promotion examinations for the federal civil servants from directorship cadres to the permanent secretary positions
A statement by the Centre’s Director of Public Governance Monitoring, Nuhu Adams, alleged that the process was marred with huge controversies, hence the call for total cancellation and a review of the entire process.
According to the statement, the exercise was characterised by corruption, nepotism, bribery and exchange of huge sums of money, which has brought lack of independence on the part of the Head of Service and her examination committee that conducted the exam.
The group explained that there had been complaints about the composition of the exam committee, as most of them were close allies of the Head of Service under which authority the exam was conducted with hidden agenda to influence the outcome from inception.
Part of the statement read: “In her quest to ensure that all strata of the states are performing optimally, and rid of corrupt practices usually witnessed, especially with the Civil Service that is being maintained with the taxpayers’ fund, the Centre for Public Accountability followed the recently concluded promotion exams from the directorship cadre to permanent secretary and discovered it was marred with huge controversies that call for total cancellation and review of the entire process.
“It will be recalled that, 85 directors from five states of the federation and two geo-political zones, namely North Central and North East zones, sat for promotion exams on November 6, 2023, with results released on November 7, 2023.
“It was reliably gathered that long before the exercise, there has been complaint about the composition of the Examination Committee, as most of them are close allies of the Head of Service under which authority the exam was conducted with hidden agenda to influence the outcome from inception.
“Most of the qualified directors have expressed lack of confidence, bias, non-transparency, and no trust in the said Examination Committee because the Head of Service was alleged to have interest in who would be made to pass the said exam, but despite this, the exam was still conducted under serious controversies.
“The exercise is characterized by corruption, nepotism, bribery and exchange of huge sums of money which has brought lack of independence on the part of the Head of Service and her Examination Committee that conducted the exam.
“As a result of this long time controversy and lack of trust in the exercise, four of the qualified directors refused to show up, or write the said exam despite initially registering to write the exam. This is aside from the directors that declined to register for the exams due to lack of confidence in the selection process wired to end up producing permanent secretaries already predetermined by the Head of Service.
“As just observed, out of the total number of 85 that eventually sat for the exam, only 20 were listed to have passed the so called exam with 50 percent and above, while the rest were said to have failed. The allocation of scores in the exam shows a cluster and very curious. This simply means some were favored at the expense of others. It further buttressed the concern earlier raised by the absentee directors and others that sat for the exam.”
