Lawrence Olaoye 
The Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HoCSF), Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan, has bagged the prestigious Fellowship Award of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).
The award was conferred on her by Dr. Ike Neliaku, President of the NIPR in Abuja, at an event marking the International Public Relations Day.
Yemi-Esan, while responding to Jake Epelle, Founder of Albinos Foundation, who alleged that the highest position attained by persons living with disability (PLWD) in the civil service was Grade Level 14, said:
“I want to address what my brother, Dr Jake Epelle, said to counter what he said that the most senior person living with disability is a Level 14 officer.
“You are not in tune with reality. Today, we have more than one person as director and they are persons living with disabilities.
“In fact, one of them is the Director HRM in the Commission currently. I also recalled about a year or two ago, where we had a candidate sitting for the Permanent Secretary exam as a director and he was also a person living with disability and he came from the ministry of labour.”
The HoCSF equally seized the opportunity to respond to opinions in certain quarters that the civil service remained a cesspool of corruption as she said “Last week, a notable Nigerian also came out to talk about the civil service being the most corrupt institution.
“I was embarrassed because all the things that the notable Nigerian was citing, especially his experience, were things that occurred years ago and I thought that for us to talk about the civil service to – day, we need to do some investigations.
Ask questions instead of living in the past and thinking that the civil service of today is still where it was two years ago. So I had to seize the opportunity since I have been inducted as PR manager on behalf of the Civil service to say that the civil service has moved from where it was years ago.
” Yemi-Esan lamented that in the course of her public service, she was able to appreciate very laudable and important intervention of government at all levels of implementation, noting however that one reoccurring factor that watered down the visibility and public appreciation of what was being done was the failure to effectively tell the story.
