Ekiti State Head of Service, Dr. Olugbenga Faseluka has cautioned
public servants against participating in partisan politics; saying
workers must leave “politics to
politicians”.
Speaking in Ado Ekiti during the monthly Peer Review meeting of the
Head of Service and Permanent Secretaries, Dr. Faseluka said the
Public Service Rules and Regulations are against partisan politics in
the service system.
He stated that engaging in partisan politics is a serious act of
misconduct which may lead to the dismissal of any officer found
culpable.
“Loyalty to the government of the day is different from involvement in
partisan politics. Officers should be able to strike a balance between
politics and administration. They should recognize this line of divide
so as to enforce the classical ethic of steering away from partisan
politics in the Civil Service”, Faseluka said.
Earlier, the Permanent Secretary in the State Civil Service
Commission, Mr Tayo Aluko had in a paper presentation titled
“Discipline as a Vehicle of progress and development in the Civil
Service” asserted that “those civil servants engaging in partisan
politics and their clandestine backers are trying to draw back the
civil service into the gloomy age of job insecurity, incompetence and
massive corruption”.
Aluko who traced the politicization of the Civil Service to the Dotun
Phillips Reform of 1988 said the reform sounded “the death-knell of
the Civil Service and virtually destroyed what was left of the
service”.
The retiring Permanent Secretary decried that some recalcitrant civil
servants still perpetrate serious misconduct despite the severity of
its penalty and eventually hide under the influence of powers-that-be
in utter disregard for rules guiding the Civil Service.
He recommended that punitive measures should be enforced without
nepotism, god-fatherism or favouritism.
