CIVIL SERVANTS SUPPORT THE GOVT OF THE DAY – CONFRONTING MYTHS
How do you define “supporting the government of the day”? This is simply executing cabinet decisions. And cabinet is the President and his Ministers. Put differently, this is what is called government.
The rest – from Secretary to Cabinet on down constitute the administrative infrastructure through which government/cabinet executes its electoral promises.
Some of these are administrators, accountants, human resource officers, doctors, teachers, nurses, office messengers, police officers, soldiers, immigration officers, etc. Each day that they report for work, they are executing cabinet decisions.
And each one of these officers voted for or against the ruling party at the polls. Each of them is either an active or passive member or supporter of one political party or the other.
The political affiliation of some of them is known while for others, it’s unknown. Now, irrespective of their political inclination, there’s nothing about what they do that is political.
Here is what I mean. A human resource officer who may be PF does not ask for political affiliation when they are processing leave forms. An accountant belonging to Citizens First does not ask whether the recipient of the money he or she is about to pay out belongs to his party or not.
When a doctor is seeing a patient, he or she doesn’t ask about political affiliation. When a police officer is called to a scene of accident, he doesn’t ask the political affiliation of the victims. When bursaries are being offered, no question of political affiliation arises.
So, if any one of the above applied for leave to run for political office but they don’t succeed, and they come back for work, they will simply continue as before. If he or she was a nurse, they will simply continue to work as nurses.
It’s therefore a myth to think civil servants who expressed interest to run for political office cannot function as civil servants. How “supporting the government of the day” is defined currently simply stokes the fires of discrimination on the basis of political affiliation. It legitimizes the victimization of civil servants. It’s not fair and it must stop.
The idea that a civil servant loses the trust of the government of the day should they seek political office and come back for work especially if they sought to stand on the opposition ticket is tantamount to shoring up immature emotions and immature political postures of some individuals that must be expected to grow up.
If, in our homes, we have spouses with different political affiliations but still sleep soundly at night without worrying that the ‘opposition’ might wake up and throttle you to death or simply eat what they have prepared without worrying about being poisoned, what about at work where almost everyone is a stranger?
Everyone who works in the public/civil service has a job description that has no reference whatsoever to political affiliation.
In any case, all these go to work for two primary reasons – earn an income and secondly, advance one’s career. In fact, it’s in the best interest of any employee to accomplish their tasks so that their CV looks great for the next employer.
This is why the suggestion that a civil servant will, for political reasons, frustrate their employer is a math that doesn’t add up.