Reforming Nigeria’s Public Service Through Succession Planning By Aliyu Umar
In the heart of Nigeria’s vast and intricate bureaucracy lies a persistent vulnerability, one that has quietly undercut the effectiveness of public institutions for decades: the absence of deliberate and strategic succession planning.
As Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) have expanded in size and complexity, succession has rarely been viewed as a critical management function. Until recently, the prevailing system rewarded longevity over competence, creating a situation where senior positions were filled almost automatically by virtue of seniority, regardless of readiness or suitability. While the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) has begun redefining staff competencies and developing frameworks to attract and retain talent, the need for comprehensive succession management remains largely unaddressed in practice.
Why Succession Planning Matters
The absence of effective succession planning carries immense risks. MDAs without a succession pipeline often suffer from:
A vacuum in mission-critical knowledge and capabilities.
Unmotivated employees who see no future within the system.
Inappropriate appointments that disrupt workflows and impede service delivery.
A decline in public trust due to underperformance and inefficiency.
Talented officers, frustrated by these institutional blind spots, leave the public service in search of more dynamic environments. They seek workplaces that value their contributions and provide opportunities for self-development. This brain drain leaves organisations weaker and less adaptive to change.
Moreover, the cost of poor succession management extends beyond individual MDAs. When key public institutions falter, the ripple effect undermines national development efforts and service delivery to citizens.
What Can Be Done: Models Worth Emulating
Global best practices offer multiple models for effective succession management, each of which addresses specific organisational realities.
Sustaining Innovations and Programmes:
This model ensures continuity across changes in leadership, particularly after elections. It prepares lower-level staff to assume higher responsibilities and documents institutional achievements to preserve momentum. By retaining key personnel involved in successful programmes, agencies maintain institutional memory and capacity through leadership transitions.
Systematic Talent Development:
Read Also:
Here, succession is treated as a deliberate, long-term process. Candidates are identified through competitive recruitment and undergo tailored training and mentoring. Importantly, feedback is part of the process, allowing those who are not selected to improve and try again. This model promotes meritocracy and ensures readiness for leadership.
Leadership Pools:
This approach involves creating a talent pool of high-potential individuals who voluntarily participate in leadership development programmes. While participation doesn’t guarantee promotion, it builds institutional capacity and prepares a bench of leaders with the right technical and managerial skills.
Despite these viable models, Nigeria’s public service is yet to embrace succession planning as a routine management function. In many cases, succession planning is viewed as a yearly administrative ritual rather than a strategic imperative. Worse still, the habit of “anointing” successors behind closed doors has led to a sense of entitlement and succession gaps when expected transitions fail.
Furthermore, existing human resource frameworks, rigid, promotion-driven, and rank-based, do not support innovative succession practices. Without reforms to HRM policies and practices, succession planning will remain a theoretical aspiration rather than an actionable strategy.
For succession planning to take root in Nigeria’s public service, a mindset shift is required. First, succession must be seen as part of a broader talent management strategy, not just a mechanism for filling vacancies. Second, organisations must align their succession plans with long-term strategic goals, identifying the skills needed to achieve those goals regardless of political or administrative changes.
Chief Executives and senior managers must take ownership of this agenda. They should adopt the succession guideline prepared by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR), which complements ongoing reforms by the OHCSF. This guideline provides actionable steps for identifying high-potential staff, developing them for leadership roles, and ensuring a smooth transition of institutional knowledge.
Succession planning is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Without it, public sector institutions will continue to lurch from one leadership crisis to another, undermining their ability to deliver on their mandates. But with a structured and strategic approach, Nigeria’s public service can build a future-ready workforce, one that is competent, motivated, and equipped to drive national development.
Aliyu Umar, FNIPR
Head,
Strategic Communications(BPSR)
