Buhari And Merit System

All of you…were chosen on merit. Your records gave you the job…Your records recommended you.” The above were the words of President Muhammadu Buhari to the newly appointed service chiefs as he attempts to slowly build a democratic merit governing system in Nigeria. Just as the President is being accused of slowness in governing the nation by those driven more by sentiments, Buhari could be cementing a democratic system in a new Nigeria where moral ideas, open talents, and shared outset of merit could significantly reform ways of governance, and for the first time help establish a governing system that is not based on “who you know plus sharing.” Buhari from the point of behavioural psychology is slowly laying down unwritten procedures and manners about appointments with regard to a new Nigeria where familiarisation does not trump merit. It was two years ago that a former United States President, Bill Clinton, evaluated Nigeria as a place where “economic opportunity”, “governance” and “prosperity” rest on a national behaviour of “divide the pie” approach as seen in most things in the country. In a very subtle way, Clinton notes that endemic corruption covers leadership behaviours in most occurrences in Nigeria. Well, through what has now become known as the “Buhari Doctrine”, and for the first time in the country’s over 50 years of existence, a dramatic start of appointing persons into public positions is now marked with integrity, selflessness, trustworthy and commitment. As long as Nigeria remains a multi-ethnic society, the role of ethnicity will continue to show itself as evidenced in most of the newly appointed service chiefs being from the North. But what are deeply-rooted in these appointments are the meritocratic elements that Buhari fully introduced and showed distinctively. If our coming ministers and heads of agencies and parastatals follow this open approach to institution-building, then Nigeria could be heading for an institutional revolution with the possibility of permanent entrenchment of a meritocratic governance system in the country.

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