Lack of Vision, Capacity Killing Civil Service - Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari has blamed the decline of Nigerian civil service over the years on the inability of past administrations to articulate a clear vision and develop the requisite capacity for its implementation.

The president spoke through a paper read on his behalf by Vice president Yemi Osinbajo at the launching of capacity building programmes for public servants, Structured Mandatory Assessment-based Training Programme (SMAT-P) and Leadership Enhancement And Development Programme (LEAD-P) at the Old Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

“Here, we’re launching capacity building initiatives designed to strengthen the leadership at all levels in the service and build a new performance management system. But the fundamental questions are: what is the ethos, the ethical and ideological world view that the service is to deliver? To what purpose do we deploy leadership skills and for what ends? How can we measure performance when the objective itself is unclear?

“Without clear answers to these questions, the service will grope in the dark and take the government and people along with it on a blind-leading-the-blind voyage. So, what sort of country do we envision?

“We want to build a nation with the citizen as its reason for being and thus its sole focus and responsibility. The citizen regardless of station in life must be respected by the governing authorities and treated with dignity. Flowing from these is the imperative that our society must be governed by the rule of law administered by a trustworthy, fearless, impartial and efficient judiciary, " he said.