Nigeria’s Civil servants merit dwelling in their own homes – Osinbajo

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has announced that civil servants deserve to live in their own houses.

Prof. Osinbajo also called for the federal government to take courageous actions in reforming the civil service to obtain favourable results.

Prof.Osinbajo made the call at the State House, Abuja, at the time he was being brief on the Federal Civil Service blueprint & Implementation map 2021up to 2025, provided by the federation’s, Head of the Civil Service, Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan.

This briefing came at the Presidential meeting on the overhauling procedure of the Federal Civil Service, which has survived since 2017.

In a statement by the vice-president, ‘It’s my opinion that we should do something audacious, tremendous and that will make the distinction to handle some of the problems, especially that of a common for the civil servants.

‘There is much more we can do with mass housing. We have a mark now of 300,000 houses under our ESP social housing scheme. The CBN has allotted N200B, but we have seen that we can deliver mass housing, and we can make civil servants heirs of the scheme.

‘However the housing scheme is very simple, it’s the kind of thing that we can do at least, to start to take into cognizance, the fact that everyone who worked for the civil service merits to live in their own house. There must be a policy in place for giving everyone shelter over their head.’

Referring to the fact that having an accessible home is one of the simplest ways to bring people out of poverty, in his speech, the Vice-President said, ‘This is an essential aspect of what we are aiming to do. This must be addressed by us. Every civil servant deserves to own a home to explain to his family why he went for the job.’

Recalling his experience as minister of justice in Lagos State, Osinbajo explained that like what was done with the rebranding of the Lagos State Judiciary, overhauling the welfare of federal civil servants would be a clue to dealing with the challenges related to productivity and criminality.

This overhauling is being guided by navigating and Implementation Committees with members pulled from the public and private sectors with the commitment of development allies.

In vice the vice-president statement, Nigeria needs to do something huge that will create a distinction in the Civil Service.

Talking after paying attention to Dr Yemi-Esan’s analysis and successive contributions by ministers and other parties at the meeting, the Vice-President stated that it is blazing that for the first time within a long period, some very crucial attention is being given to all the various problems in civil service of the nation. 

Federation’s Civil Service Head had initially submitted a report on the enactment status of the Federal Civil Service Strategy Plan 2017 to 2021.

 in her presentation,  singled out staff upkeep especially, remuneration and housing as sectors that require better attention and immediate intervention by the government at the federal level.

She pleaded for improved assistance, especially in financing the enactment of subsequent strategy and implementation plans to fix the civil service for bigger productivity.

Dr Yemi-Esan in her words said, ‘the recent reform in the Civil Service has allowed the government to save tremendous sums through the verification of staff payroll and digitisation of some operations, to mention but few.

The leadership of the Service would continue to supervise the overhauling process as the 2021 to 2025 agenda scale through the Federal Executive Council for authorization.

The meeting on Friday underlined contribution and observations on the project plan brought on behalf of the Steering Committee chaired by the Head of Service.

In attendance at the meeting was Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami; Dr Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour & Employment; Finance Minister, Mrs Zainab Ahmed; Prince Clem Agba, Minister of State, Budget & National Planning; as well as Works and Housing Minister, Mr Abubakar Aliyu.

Dr Adeyemi Dipeolu, the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Matters and many development partners of Nigeria including representatives of the World Bank, Mr Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, the President of the Africa Initiative for Governance were also present at the meeting.