RUMPUS AT NCAC OVER THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 8-YEARS TENURE POLICY FOR DIRECTORS

By Sikiru Fatai

Further to the enactment and implementation of the new Public Service Rules(PSR) on the 27th July, 2023, over 500 directors in the Federal Civil Service who had spent 8 years and more on the rank had to comply by quitting service in line with section 020909 of the new public service rule that made specific provision of 8 years limit for directorate cadre staff on GL. 17. A few days later , a further circular emanating from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation(OHCSF) expressly stated that the affected officers should be given a three month notice starting from 1st August, 2023 to commence their process of disengagement from service in line with rule 021210 of the new Public Service Rule.

While compliance took various forms across the service due to the non-specificity of the circulars as regards the methods of disengagement, some vindictive CEO of some MDAs took extreme measures against perceived disfavoured retiring officers by embarking on actions that violated the hallowed and time tested disengagement rules and procedures from the public service.

Such happened at the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) where it was alleged that the Director –General /CEO ,Otunba Olusegun Runsewe expressly ordered that the August salary of the four retiring directors and the most senior directors in the organization be stopped. It was alleged that this decision was taken as soon as the initial first circular from the OHCSF was released on the 27th of July,2023, when he allegedly instructed a letter be written to the IPPIS office to immediately remove the said officers from the federal government payroll.

This decision was said to have been taken even after the said officers were yet to be served their letters of mandatory retirement from service , which they all later collected from the 8th to 15th of August, 2023 and promptly complied with by handing over to the most senior officers in their various departments within the organization.

Matters got to a head when these mandatorily retired officers , who had all not put in not less than 30 years of service to the country in various capacities did not get their August 2023 salary as provisioned for in the new PSR and in the circular from the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture which gave clear directive to that effect to the Chief Executives and Head of Agencies under the Ministry.

Preliminary investigations made revealed that it appeared that it was only in the NCAC service –wide that retiring or retired officers affected by the new tenure policy were not paid their August 2023 salary. Further investigations and interviews with serving staff of the organization who do not want their names in print for fear of victimization revealed that the NCAC has all along been a cauldron of clear violation of public service rules and official procedures since the coming of the present CEO in 2017, against perceived staff that stood their grounds over the administrative arbitrariness, megalomania, vindictiveness and unfocused style of leadership of the CEO. There were allegations against the CEO of gross neglect of workers’ welfare, peopling the management team of the organization with junior officers above their seniors, retaining retired officers who are his lapdogs in positions well after their retirement against clear provisions of the public service rules, effectively undermining career officers of the organization with a coterie of personal staff he brought along on assumption of office, lack of transparency and due diligence in public procurement, penchant for excessive cultivation of the media and high net-worth government officials to cover up for his underachievement in office, abject neglect of the organization’s zonal offices across the country in the affairs of the organization and extreme disdain for Public Service Rules and Procedures that guide operations in government offices.

The Director General /CEO of NCAC was alleged by many of the staff spoken to be someone who behaves like a pharaoh and an emperor that brooks no opposition and flaunt his high wire connections ; often boasting of his capacity to crush anyone who stands in his way.

He was alleged to have single-handedly crippled a governing board set up by the government to oversee the agency by ensuring they never sat for a day until they were dissolved years after; thereby leading to poor governance structure in the organization and making him the sole authority on the affairs of the organization and leaving the staff of the organization at the mercy of his tyrannical rule. The organization has allegedly been turned into a slave camp where everyone must bow and worship the emperor or be dealt with unfairly or officially victimized or excluded with nowhere to turn to for reprieve.

All the staff spoken to stated that the four newly retired directors whose August 2023 salaries were illegally withheld on the order of Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, through the Director of the Human Resources Department of the organization , were among the best staff ever produced in the history of the organization and were among those bold enough to stand up to him and some of them had had running battles with him ;necessitating his going after them even after they had exited the service. The concerned staff are calling on the federal government and the public to look into the activities of NCAC to save the staff that are suffering in silence and prevent their suffering from future injustices in the hands of their rampaging CEO.

Our background checks on the history and antecedents of Otuba Olusegun Runsewe in government showed that he was once a Director -General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation(NTDC) during the OBJ era where he had a running battle for lack of respect for constituted authority, violation of official procedures and insubordination with the then Minister for Culture and Tourism, Chief Adetokunbo Kayode, which led to his suspension from office and eventual sack. Our checks also revealed that at his current post in 2021, after the expiration of his first four year tenure , he blatantly disregarded a written directive by the then Hon. Minister of Information and Culture, through the then Permanent Secretary, to handover to the most senior director,pending his re-appointment or otherwise.

He continued illegally to occupy his position, telling the press that he was appointed by president Buhari who was then away for a medical check up abroad and that it was only the president that can tell him to hand-over to anyone. Eventually, he was curiously re-appointed for another four year tenure and thereafter went on administrative rampage and persecution against the most senior director of the organization until she was caught up with mandatory retirement from service with the recent re-introduction of the 8-year tenure policy in the new PSR.

Other revelations that our checks revealed was his conviction by an Abuja High Court for contempt of Court in 2018, after disobeying a court order issued in favour of craftsmen and women of the popular and flourishing Arts and Crafts CHOGM Village, adjacent Abuja Sheraton Hotels and Towers which was suspiciously razed down by fire in 2017 under the supervision of his agency. The crafts men alleged then that he was behind the disaster that led to the loss of millions of artefact and crafts of infinite value that made many to become jobless while he maintained that the village was harbouring robbers and kidnappers.

Since 2017 when the fire incident took place, the once-thriving village that was the cynosure of tourists visiting Abuja had been overgrown with weeds and under lock and key. The litany of complaints against the alleged high-handedness maladministration of Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, often relayed in muffled tones by the cowed staff of NCAC, underneath the gloss and shine of his adeptness at pulling ritualized publicity stunts , will need an investigative and administrative inquiry to fully unearth.