President Goodluck Jonathan has again, decried unguarded utterances by politicians that are heating up the polity, charging his newly appointed Political Adviser, Prof Rufa’i Alkali, to be above board.
The President gave the charge on Wednesday during the swearing in of Alkali, noting that as his Chief Spokesperson on political issues, he should avoid issues that could heat up the polity.
He expressed confidence that as a matured politician, Alkali would live up to expectation.
His words, “Your appointment is key because you are the chief spokesperson of the President on political issues, and when one listens to some of the comments that we politicians make, sometimes could be terrible and do not portray the character of good politics.
“We are supposed to be nation builders. Even though it is extremely difficult to agree that a politician could be a statesman because we tend to be partisan, but at least in our utterances, we should give Nigerians hope that this country will be together and that we must unite and we must collectively forge ahead to develop our country.
“You are a very matured person and I believe that in your conduct, your utterances, your actions and inactions, you will portray a good character, a character that politicians and young people will use as role models.”
Also sworn in were a Commissioner with the Federal Civil Service Commission, Mr. Simon Etim; and three permanent secretaries -Mr. Nanpon Danjuma, Mr. Binta Bello and Dr. Babatope Ajakaiye.
He charged this set of appointees to imbibe the culture that people who are qualified for employment should get it irrespective of who they know.
“No matter how highly placed you are as the President, the Vice President, members of the National Assembly, we were voted by all Nigerians. So we all owe all Nigerians our service and of course, we must make sure that whatever is available in this country goes to everybody irrespective who he knows.
“That is the key and that is the message and the key component of our transformation agenda,” he said.
Jonathan expressed regret that discipline was taking the back seat in civil service because issuance of queries had been jettisoned.
He said there could be no quality control in a system where people are not queried for wrongdoings.
He continued: “What people complain about these days is lowering of academic standards that lowers the quality of the service.
“I believe if you have the courage to discipline people under you whose conduct does not reflect what is expected of a good public officer, it will not be so.
“One of the key problems we have in the service is that unlike in those days when people were given queries, these days the impunity is so high that nobody queries anybody.
“A system that you don’t have queries that means that there is no quality control. If any factory is producing any good and if there is no quality control, definitely the product will lack the desired quality.
“So as permanent secretaries, you must have the courage to query your directors, deputy and assistant directors if you think they have done things that deserve to be queried. If you need to refer to the Federal Civil Service Commission guidelines, you should do so because without discipline as a nation we cannot go anywhere,” the President said.
