Olaopa urges public servants to adopt professionalism

Chairman of the Federal public Service Commission, Tunji Olaopa has advised public servants to embrace professionalism, saying it will regulate and restore sanity to the Nigerian civil service.

According to a statement issued on Wednesday, Olaopa delivered the advice during a meeting with Dada Olugbenga, Deputy President of the African Association for Public Administration and Management, in Abuja.

Olaopa claimed that the federal civil service had been completely destroyed, and that people apply for posts for selfish reasons rather than a desire for professionalism.

He stated that in a move to restore the service’s integrity and professionalism, professionals must take joint responsibility.

“The federal civil service has been degraded to such an extent that if people now apply to join it, they do so for other reasons than the desire for professionalism. It is professionalism that will reverse the increasingly diminishing status of this vocation that we have signed up for as our career,” Olaopa said.

He called on interested parties to revitalise the field, highlighting the contribution that institutions such as NAPAM provide to promoting dialogue and investigation.

“A profession without professional gatekeepers that ensure that the ideals and objectives of the profession are always kept under constant vigilance has only created free entry routes for charlatans, impostors, and opportunists and can hardly gain the respect, prestige, and prominence it deserves,” he said.