Of Service, Rewards and Swindlers

Of Service, Rewards and Swindlers
By Sam Onimisi
Serving others in whatever capacity, in the society, government and its institutions or corporate bodies is a service which is accompanied by some incentives and motives. Metabolism alone propels human to engage in one form of service or the other to keep self alive, physically, mentally and physiologically. Physical fitness, honour, knowledge gained by training and experience, status and roles, material gains and financial income are some of the incentives of service. Service is so called because others are benefitted by it, not only the incentive or motive of the servant. Any service that fails to be beneficial to others is not qualified to be called so. Therefore, both service and the servant exist to add value to the served which is the public.
Public Service connotes the services rendered by employees of government, its institutions and agencies. It includes the Civil Service, the armed Forces and Political Functionaries of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. Employees of companies, Voluntary Organizations and Entrepreneurs are also engaged in services but classified as servants in the Private Sector. Both Public and private Sector Servants have one thing in common: they are motivated by the same needs and are rewarded by their employers. That some people are in public service and some others are in the private sector is a matter of choice, opportunity and necessity. Whatever happens and unless you choose self-employment, you are bound to choose a career either in the Public Service or in the Private sector, none of which is without rewards.
Rewards come in various forms, the basic ones being a fixed annual salary which is paid on monthly basis. It includes allowances for transportation, accommodation or housing and other facilities that make the job easier to perform. Promotion, courses, training and experience are parts of the rewards of employment. So long as you are not a slave, whatever service you render in the course of employment are paid for by your employer. And if you serve long enough to retire, you are also rewarded with gratuity, pensions and in some cases, severance benefits. Having earned all these, every employee ought to be satisfied and go home in contentment. Aside from patriotic and voluntary service rendered in times of national emergency, I know of no service without rewards. Even the National Youth Service Corps which is somehow compulsory for graduates of tertiary institutions earn rewards in form of stipends and the hope for possible employment by their place of primary assignments.
Beyond these, any public servant who goes about shouting of the services he/she had rendered to Nigeria repels me because it smacks of hypocrisy and conceit. No man goes home without his pay. Nigeria owes no one except in pensions, the administration of which is marred by corruption and ineptitude. Labour movements serves as checks on employers who fail to honour the terms and conditions of engagement. Even retired members of the armed forces have no reason to be conceited. They joined the army, navy, air force of the police by choice, voluntarily and for reward; they were very much aware of the risk-contents and except during the civil war, and no one was conscripted. And so, it is nauseating to hear remarks such as “I have served this country with the strength of my youth now see how they have treated me”. I submit that only very few ex-public servants may be justified or qualified to make such claims.
My reason for this submission is simple. And it is that if most public servants served conscientiously with patriotic zeal, the high level of corruption and inefficiency in the service today would not have happened. Instead of public service, they offered selfish service. Rather than being servants, they acted as masters. They turned civil service into ‘see evil service’ through unethical conducts and personal greed. Rather than serving the country or the state, they served themselves, their ethnic, regional, religious and group interests while purporting to serve the public. Their subversive services include awarding contracts to themselves, their agents and inflating contracts for selfish and private gains. They engaged in misappropriation, unearned income, evasion of tax, prepared bloated budgets in order to make gains etc. These are sabotage of public policy, public schemes and projects any of which is not remotely related to, but complete opposite of patriotic service.
You can imagine my pains even as I imagine your revulsion when such elements are not remorseful as to keep quiet and enjoy their loots in seclusion but stepped out bare-chested, crowing about their ‘services’ to the nation and why they ought to be celebrated or honoured. Many of them who are so conceited were also granted undeserved national honours, traditional titles and professional recognition. I am not unaware of some sweet souls with excellent minds whose patriotism, zeal for selfless service and sacrifice added value to public service in Nigeria. But this clan of public servants were largely frustrated out of service, are never adequately rewarded or honoured and have had their legacies rubbished by the greed and gluttony of their nefarious colleagues or successors. What else is responsible for the irredeemable rot in public service delivery?
Neither you nor I is averse to the expression of a genuine praise of selfless and patriotic service; a service with quality input and output, a service rendered in absolute good faith for the benefit of all. What is exasperating is the tribe of conceited thieves, who derived their comfort from the proceeds of loots, but who goes about with a false and unashamed air of self-importance and, an exaggerated claim of service never rendered. People, who in other advanced climes would have been cooling their heels in jail for their multifarious crimes against the nation; in China, many of our celebrities would have been tied to the stake and shot dead. In Japan, these swindlers would have committed hara kiri to avoid being tried in public. In India, these rogues would have been hanged and cremated. But here in Lucifer’s own Vineyard, they are honoured, revered and celebrated as inventors and heroes. Titles such as Chief, Dr, Alhaji, Engr. are not uncommon by and for an individual. The less we celebrate the mediocre and swindlers, the better for this country of ours.