When I joined the Civil Service some years ago as an employee of the Delta State Government, Ministry of Information to be precise, it was all joy. Although at that time many were not keen in joining the service because civil servants were placed at the lowest rung of the society but some of us were happy to have gotten a place for our daily bread. We met some information officers who came from Benin after the creation of Delta State in August 27TH 1991 and they encouraged us to be happy and that what was happening in Delta State was far better than what they had in Benin.
I joined the service after my National Youth Service Programme I Port Harcourt, Rivers State. I attended the Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi, where I obtained the National Diploma in Mass Communication. However, Auchi poly had no Higher National diploma program in mass communication as at the time I left the school, so I proceeded to the Federal Polytechnic Oko, where I did my HND in the same mass communication.
As God would have it, I got two jobs at the same time. I went for interview in Delta line as the Public Relations Officer and out of twenty of us that sat for the interview, I came out first. The person that came second was also a polytechnic graduate while the rest were university graduates. However, I was advised to take the employment offered by the State Civil Service Commission. When I got my letter of employment from the Civil Service Commission, what was written in it was Principal Information executive Officer and I jumped up, thinking that it was a very big position, not knowing that it was a position given to even school certificate holders and other graduates that did not pass through the university. What it means is that no matter the grade you got from other higher institutions, as long as it is not a university degree, you are subjected to the assistant cadre and the assistant cadre cannot take you beyond grade level 14. I continued to do my work with my colleagues who attended universities, and in most cases, I do the work better than some of them if not all. In fact, I continued to get my promotions without realizing what the assistant cadre actually means in the civil service. It was when I was posted to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry, Cooperatives and Tourism as it was then called that one Director called me and asked why I was in that cadre. He explained to me that the cadre would not help me in the civil service but added that I may not bother myself because the federal government has directed that holders of HND should be at par with the university graduates. This made me happy and I waited patiently for the HND graduates to be at parity with their University colleagues but nothing happened.
It was when I was eventually posted to the ministry of agriculture and Natural Resources that I saw the real discrimination against polytechnic graduates. You are not regarded as an officer but treated as a second class citizen. No matter your level, a fresh university graduate on grade level eight must be your boss in any event, be it a meeting or what have you. It was then it down on me that I needed to do something with speed, so I went for my Post Graduate Diploma in Advert and Public Relations. I thank my boss, the immediate past Governor of Delta State, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, who encouraged me to proceed for that program. At the end of the programme, I went to the State Civil Service commission to see if the offensive cadre would be changed but I was told that Post Graduate programme is still a diploma and that I should go for my Masters’ degree. So I went back to the same university and got my MSc in International Affairs and Diplomacy. As at the time I went for my conversion interview, I was already on grade level 14 which I got in 2009 and was there for almost six years because it was the bar for the assistant cadre. At the end of the interview, I was brought down from level 14 to 13 with a change from the ‘Assistant’ to the ‘Officer’ cadre. Today, I am on grade level 16 as a deputy director. The irony is that those with University degrees that joined the service two or three years after me are all full directors, but I thank God for raising people that made me understand the dichotomy between HND holders and degree holders, especially their positions in the civil service. Many HND holders are still in the civil service but do not understand some of these things. My advice is that those young officers in service with Polytechnic certificates should do something now before it is too late. They should forget about the noise being made in some corners that the HND and University degrees are the same. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime tried to do something about it but he did not succeed. To me, I think the polytechnic education in Nigeria is not encouraging and my advice to parents is to stop sending their children to the polytechnics, especially those who would want to have a career in the civil service. My own experience should serve as a lesson to others. I rest my case.