Public Service Must Prioritise Citizens, Not Paperwork – CIPM President

The President and Chairman of the Governing Council of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), Mallam Ahmed Ladan Gobir, FCIPM, fnli, has called for a fundamental transformation of Nigeria’s public service, urging institutions to prioritise citizens and the quality of services they receive rather than paperwork and bureaucratic processes.

Gobir made the call while delivering the keynote address at the Ogun State 2026 Public Service Day Celebration Lecture, held at the Cultural Centre, Kuto, Abeokuta, on Thursday.

The lecture was themed, “Transforming the Public Service: Advancing Innovation, Accountability, Participation and Inclusion.”

Speaking to public and civil service leaders, scholars, organised labour, private-sector representatives and other stakeholders, the CIPM President said the ultimate purpose of public service was not merely to process paperwork, but to improve citizens’ lives.

He noted that citizens experience government primarily through the quality of public services they receive, stressing that, “Government is an idea. Public service is its experience.”

Gobir therefore urged public institutions to move beyond measuring activities and processes to measuring the actual value and impact delivered to citizens.

According to him, innovation in the public service must go beyond simply digitising existing processes, warning that technology cannot compensate for institutions that have failed to rethink inefficient procedures.

He cautioned against what he described as “digitising dysfunction,” challenging public-sector leaders to ask whether existing procedures still create public value.

He encouraged institutions to redesign their processes around citizens’ needs rather than institutional convenience.

On accountability, the CIPM President described it as “the mathematics of trust,” saying public institutions must earn citizens’ confidence through competence, fairness, transparency, consistency and responsiveness.

He also stressed the need for meaningful citizen participation, noting that participation should go beyond inviting citizens to events after decisions had already been taken.

Rather, he said citizens should have opportunities to influence decisions that affect their lives.

On inclusion, Gobir called for public services to be designed to accommodate citizens across different socioeconomic, geographic, technological and demographic circumstances.

He warned that a service could not be considered truly inclusive if it was technically available but practically inaccessible to significant segments of the population.

The CIPM President further highlighted the critical role of human resource management in public-sector transformation, noting that no institution could transform beyond the capacity of its people.

He called for a strategic approach to talent management, leadership development, performance management and capability building within the public service.

“The greatest infrastructure of a nation is not concrete. It is capability. Only capable people move institutions,” he said.

Gobir urged public-sector organisations to build workplaces where competence, integrity, innovation and excellence are recognised and rewarded.

He also challenged leaders to develop the right people and capabilities required to meet emerging public-sector needs.

Speaking specifically on Ogun State, he acknowledged the state’s development ambitions and encouraged it to pursue a model of transformation that goes beyond infrastructure and technology to focus on building institutions that are responsive, effective and centred on citizens.

He distilled the lecture’s theme into four key imperatives, saying innovation must change the method; accountability must change the culture; participation must change the relationship between government and citizens; while inclusion must change the architecture of public service.

He added that leadership remained central to achieving the four imperatives, stressing that institutions did not transform themselves, but people transformed institutions.

According to him, leaders determine whether people are empowered, constrained, inspired or ignored.

The CIPM President called for a public service where innovation becomes an institutional habit, accountability becomes a professional ethic, participation becomes consequential and inclusion becomes a design principle.

He said the ultimate measure of public-sector reform should not be the number of policies or projects launched, but the number of lives improved and the extent to which citizens could access government services without unnecessary friction.

“The ultimate measure of institutional reform will not be the number of policies launched. It will be the number of lives improved,” he said.

The engagement reinforced CIPM’s commitment to advancing professional human resource management and supporting stronger, more capable and people-centred institutions across Nigeria.