.The Late Dr. Fika
Dr. Adamu Fika CFR is dead, his death was announced Tuesday night by the Secretary Fika Emirate Council Potiskum, Ali Gimba Fika in a statement.
Funeral prayers will hold Wednesday 25th October 2023 by 4:00 at Sultan Bello Mosque Kaduna.
Mallam Adamu Fika the Waziri of Fika is a well renowned and seasoned Educationist and Administrator a native of Fika, Yobe State born in 1933 in Fika, Yobe State. Fika is the first and only Nigeria’s Head of Service to resign because he was not comfortable being at the helm of affairs when by his training, he perceived the civil service was being destroyed.
He attended Fika Elementary School, 1941-45 ; Borno Middle School, Maiduguri, 1947 for his primary education , Kaduna Government College (now Barewa College, Zaria), 1948 – 1951; Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, Zaria, 1952-53; Institute of Statisticians, London, UK, 1958; Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, England, August-December, 1969; Royal Institute of Public Administration, University of Manchester, UK, 1978
He was appointed a Mathematics and Physics Teacher, in his alma mater Barewa College, Zaria in 1956.
He thereafter took up a new appointment as a teacher in Government Secondary School, Katsina-Ala, Benue State, 1958.
Provincial Inspector of Education, Provincial Education Officer, Zaria, 1960;
He was appointed an Inspector of Education, Adamawa Province, Yola, 1962.
And Principal, Federal Training Centre (FTC), Kaduna, 1962;
He was the Deputy Secretary, Interim Common Services Agency, 1968 – 1970;
Secretary, Interim Common Services Agency, 1970;
Commissioner of Finance, North- Eastern State, 1972.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Internal Affairs, Lagos, 1975.
Permanent Secretary, Federal Minis try of Commerce, 1979;
.Permanent Secretary, Public Service Department, Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, 1981 – 1982.
Permanent Secretary, Police Affairs Department, Executive Office of the President.
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communications, 1982 – 1984.
.Permanent Secretary, Federal Capital Territory and Chief Executive, Federal Capital Development Authority, Abuja, 1984.
.Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, 1986; retired from the Federal Public Service, 1988;
Chairman, National Commission for Colleges of Education, March 1989 – 1990.
Administrative Secretary by the Federal Government for Social Democratic Party, 1990.
Chairman, United Bank for Africa (Government Appointee), January 1990 – March 1993.
Clerk and Director General of the National Assembly, 1992 – 1993.
.First Chairman, Salaries and Wages Commission, September 1992 – March 1993.
First Chairman, Federal Character Commission, December 1995 – March 2001.
Pro – Chancellor, Chairman Governing Council, ABU Zaria – 2018
Until his death, he was the Chairman BOT Arewa Consultative Forum(ACF)
A deliberate civil servant, he was totally exemplary and trustworthy. In all his years of active and distinguished service, there was never any evidence of negligence or misconduct against him. Fika, Nigeria’s standard of a moral civil servant, is, to say the least, Nigeria’s master civil servant in his own right.
As an elder statesman, his creed is a simple one. He once said: “It is certainly not morally defensible by any criteria of social justice that such a huge amount of public funds is consumed by 0.013 percentage of the total populace,” when his committee discovered a fraud in the civil service.
His work ethics, attention to details and commitment to justice and fairness, have made some consider him ‘rigid’. His regard for integrity is legendary. It is no surprise that while he was the nation’s head of service and even now, he set about trying to turn the civil service into one where corner-cutters are not allowed. He brought to the civil service an honest grin, a disarming candor and lots of experience.
Fika has never hidden his wish to make Nigeria’s civil service corruption-proof and free of illegal practices. He is against any idea or decision that will spoil or corrupt the civil service. If everyone can understand the need for a straight civil service, he thinks, and then it’s glory can be restored, made stronger and sustained.
In one instance, Fika said that: “We have painfully found out that the absence of merit and independence in the public service is the most effective key to unlocking the floodgates of corruption and accelerating the rate of the breakdown of national institutions. And once the gates are open, there is no stopping the torrent: it will most assuredly sweep everything that gets in its way.”
Fika, an elder statesman by every word of it, an epitome of what the nation’s civil service should look like; is a man whose public service sojourn is exemplary.
He was awarded the national honour of Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR) in1992
Awarded LLD by the Bayero University Kano.
