The Role of the IPPIS in the quest for a representative public service in Nigeria.

ABSTRACTA representative public service that is made up of the diverse group in society is an essential element of power sharing in federations globally. The Federal Character Commission (FCC) was established in 1996 to provide an enforcement mechanism for the Federal Character Principle by serving as a watchdog for federal government ministries, department and agencies (MDAS) in ensuring that the public service represent the ethnic diversity and the geopolitical divide of the country. Previous studies have identified enforcement challenges of the FCC such as funding and lack of compliance and cooperation from MDAS and parastatals. Few studies have however captured the collaboration of the FCC with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), through the instrumentality of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information system (IPPIS), and the role it played in the enforcement of a representation public service in Nigeria. This is what this paper sets out to achieve.The paper adopted the Descriptive Research design which involved the use of primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected through key informant interview sessions conducted with officials of the FCC secretariat, Abuja, who were purposively selected. Secondary data were sourced from official documents such as the yearly review of operations and the Consolidated Statistical Analysis Data (CSAD) of federal ministries, extra- ministerial department and agencies (MDAs), newspaper editorials, articles and reports. Data were content-analyzed.The FCC kept data and personnel nominal rolls from MDAs and produced the Character Balancing Index [CBI] used by the recruitment monitoring committee [RMC] to determine representation and make recommendations on recruitment. The Certificate of Compliance issued to a recruiting MDA after completion of a recruitment exercise conducted in line with the prescribed recruitment pattern issued by the FCC RMC, is required by the OAGF for the enlistment of successful candidates on the IPPIS federal payroll. Massive corruption and job-slots racketeering within the FCC proved antithetical to the commission's aims and goals of enforcing compliance with prescribed recruitment patterns for recruitment exercises monitored by the RMC. Incidences of connivance between the FCC leadership and CEOs of MDAs precipitated a failure of the FCC’s enforcement efforts. From 2016 to 2022, the number of States that were grossly over-represented and dominated the federal public service remained the same, while the same numbers of the States that were grossly under-represented continue to lag behind in manpower distribution.As the OAGF through the IPPIS is practically incapable of helping the FCC that has been compromised, the federal government needs to pay more attention to the FCC’s recruitment monitoring exercises to ensure its credibility and make it more effective.Word Count: 428Keywords: - Federal Character Commission, Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, Representation, Public Service, Nigeria