Efficiency Dilution Theory, in serious scholarly research domain, refers to various ways that morale, motivation and the zeal to serve can be undermined, discouraged and destroyed by power holders and employers of labour. The Tide Editorial Comment of Monday, February 22, 2021, was forthright and courageous in pointing out this anomaly in Nigeria. Titled: “Ex-Service Chiefs As Envoys?”, the editorial comment pointed out that “The appointment of immediate past Nigeria’s service chiefs as non-career ambassadors is generating long-standing controversy in the country”.
The practice of recycling of “old wood” in the public service is not only a morale-killer but also a recipe for destruction of efficiency and productivity. The duplicity and double standards applied in “contract appointments” for retired public officers have become so glaring and provocative that the climax of that practice is portrayed in the appointment of the ex-service chiefs as non-career ambassadors. To say that the issue is generating a long-standing controversy in the country is an understatement.
Those who can feel the pulse of the Nigerian masses would say that there is bitterness and anger across the country over the appointment of the ex-service chiefs as non-career ambassadors. From service chiefs to ambassadors would mean that the authority making such appointment did not want them out of office in the first place, but applied the well-known recycling, sit-tight strategy.
Even as the Nigerian Senate has approved the ambassadors, the intents and purposes of the recycling strategy have been demonstrated enough for Nigerians to know better. The common adage that nobody is indispensable conveys an eternal truth which puts the empty boasts and claims of power merchants to order. Those who throw their weight here and there, believing that society cannot do without them, should know that great performers are usually not obtrusive noise makers.
Nigerians have watched with keenness how merit has been side-tracked and undermined in public appointments because of the practice of patronage and sponsorship of social mobility. Rather, nepotism and other political considerations have not allowed transparent selective and impartial competitive processes to allow the best to emerge to serve the nation. Rather than a free, transparent competitive process, godfathers and patrons sponsor mediocres to emerge as standard bearers. The best rarely comes to light in a corrupt social system, neither would the nation grow under such system.
What we are experiencing currently have their roots in colonial legacies, where invading marauders usually use weak and embittered members of a community as foot-soldiers, to over-run the town. Therefore, the culture of empowerment and glorification of mediocrity is not only a strategy to over-come, but also a means to mock, retain power and aid underdevelopment. That a chain is as strong as its weakest link, tells you that a vital vulnerable point is the point of greatest weakness. Go for it, you win!
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, popularly called Mahatma, a great Indian politician and philosopher, introduced the policy of non-co-operation or passive resistance as a means of dealing with human oppressors. He also introduced urine therapy: When you are detained by tyrannical authority, hungry and sick, drink your urine to stay alive and fit. It works! Therefore, the lesson is that power merchants must not be allowed to have their way always, but must be resisted and told the plain truth politely. It takes personal sacrifices and true patriotism, which are in short supply in Nigerian leadership.
For service chiefs who “just left office as a result of the bitter outcry by Nigerians” to be given further supplementary glory as ambassadors, renders such appointments as “incredibly awkward”. Besides, there are “allegations of rights abuses and crimes against humanity leveled against them while they held sway as commanders of the country’s military”. The Tide comment went on to say that the “President’s decision was aimed at shielding the former military officials from possible prosecution, especially by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in line with Article 29 of the Vienna Convention which protests diplomats from arrest and grants them immunity against civil and criminal prosecution”.
Therefore, there is more to the recycling of old wood in the system than meets the eye. Not every retiree, not even the best performers, are given supplementary glory or contract appointment, whether as envoys, personal assistants or advisers. Rather, some are given two weeks’ notice to vacate official quarters.
That there is a practice of witch-hunt in the public services is to put the matter mildly, because, having installed an awkward system of political administration, the average public official works to help himself rather than to serve. Apart from a reward system that is far from just and fair, there is a boot-licking system in the public service sector, whereby gossips and tale-bearing are instruments of reward and penalties. Experts in these malfeasance are rewarded and serve as a means of preserving and protecting this sad practice.
Efficiency in the management process is measured in terms of the zeal, energy and commitment put in by an employee, especially working in synergy and collaboration with others, to accomplish tasks, with speed and economy. Once this foundation is broken down in any establishment, the staff are on their own, with no team spirit, but each for himself. What brings about this anomaly called efficiency dilution is what one researcher called Voodoo management process, while another called it “Okamike” factor in management. Injustice, deceit, high-handedness!
Many of those who manage public establishments and institutions in Nigeria attain such positions by political means, which include sinecure and patronage. After ruining the establishment under their watch, they are often reposted or recycled into another sector, thus spreading the ruin and social decay. Fortunately Nigeria is blessed with excellent and astute managers of human and material resources. But, do we look for them?

Dr. Amirize is a retired lecturer from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.