Olu Falae's Triumph of Grace: Key Insights for Advancing Administrative Reform in Nigeria

By Tunji Olaopa

As part of my reform framework for transforming Nigeria’s civil service, I have emphasized that we must continually examine the historical evolution of the public service to gain reform insights. One essential source of such insight comes from the memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of public administrators, public servants, and scholars of public administration. These biographical works provide deeper understanding of specific administrative actions, policy directions, and institutional dynamics that may not be evident while those key actors were in office.

Among the most significant biographical contributions are Simeon Adebo’s The Unforgettable Years, Jerome Udoji’s Under Three Masters, Theophilus Akinyele’s Beyond Pushing Files, Ladipo Adamolekun’s I Remember, Tunji Olaopa’s The Unending Quest for Reform, and many others. These narratives are vital for grasping institutional reform because they preserve the institutional memories of these figures, allowing us to trace where we have been and where we aim to go. They offer insider perspectives on the workings of the civil service, detailing how these administrators navigated internal dynamics, their failures, successes, ideas, and visions. This context makes Olu Falae’s autobiography, The Triumph of Grace, a welcome addition, not only for collective enlightenment but also for identifying missed and ongoing opportunities that require critical attention to advance the civil service beyond what these pioneers left for us.

The Triumph of Grace is divided into twenty‑two chapters that narrate the complex historical, professional, and social experiences of a husband, father, economist, public servant, banker, politician, public figure, and patriotic Nigerian. No one will doubt the significance of such a narration, and the name of Olu Falae rings loudly in the annals of Nigeria’s unfolding story. In his own words, the autobiography promises “a true and adequate presentation of the essential occurrences in my career in public service, in the banking industry and in partisan politics.” This explains why a large portion of the chapters focus on Falae’s active role as a civil servant, the persona that brought him into national reckoning. These larger‑than‑life experiences as a public servant are of particular interest to me, for reasons that transcend his own explanation. My objective in this piece is not to review the autobiography in the usual sense, but rather to use his experiences as a lens to highlight crucial insights that may have been overlooked in the transformation of the public service.

Olu Falae’s public‑service journey was illustrious, which is why his autobiography speaks significantly and fundamentally to us. From the moment he entered the civil service as an assistant secretary in the National Manpower Board in 1963 (chapter two), we encounter a civil servant who stamped his presence wherever he was posted. In chapter four, he begins narrating the commencement of his public‑service experiences, starting with the daunting task of single‑handedly producing the Mid‑West Regional Development Programme (1964‑1968). This experience was critical for him when he moved from the National Manpower Board to the Central Planning Office, especially after the civil war ended and the second national development plan was underway. Chapters six and eight detail his involvement with the second and third development plans, as well as his heavy involvement in policy articulation and institution building. The highlights of the years 1963‑1977 derive from the series of civil‑service institutional reforms he oversaw and instigated.

The core of that difficult task came when General Obasanjo alleged that the public service was not performing and hence supporting his administration as it had the late Murtala Muhammed. A panel was set up, and Olu Falae was asked to head it. It was a frightening responsibility that he feared would spell the end of his tenure as a civil servant. However, it turned out to be a real opportunity to interrogate the Murtala‑Obasanjo brutal purge of the civil service in 1975 and the consequent demoralization of the system. It also allowed the panel to raise fundamental reform recommendations about how the system can regain its internal drive for effectiveness. The panel recommended, for instance, the dissolution of the administrative pool of public‑service officers who had no technical expertise and could be posted to any ministry. In a rapidly professionalizing service, the administrative pool became momentarily redundant.

By the time the transition programme brought in the Shagari administration, Olu Falae found himself relegated to an insignificant “department” that was meant for the training of typists and stenographers! The lesson from this is a story for another piece. He took this redundant assignment with alacrity even though he was thoroughly disappointed. That was the beginning of his retirement plans and transition to the private sector as first the managing director of the Nigeria Merchant Bank (chapter seven), and then the owner of Midland Farms (chapter seventeen) and finally the Ondo Plastic Industries Limited (chapter nineteen). At the bank, he became a sterling performer until Nigeria called him again: the Babangida administration needed a Secretary to the Federal Government (SFG). He responded! That he eventually stepped out of public service to take on the challenge of murky politics in Nigeria—the concern of chapters nine to sixteen—is a further demonstration of patriotic zeal to keep giving his best to the Nigeria that deserves his best.

One good way to represent Falae’s public