When Drercy Ilori received an email informing her she had been nominated for the Civil Service Recognition Award, her first instinct was disbelief. Like many civil servants, she had grown used to her hard work going unnoticed. Recognition, after all, is rare in a system where doing your job well is too often met with silence. But someone had been watching—and in 2024, Dr Ilori stood before her peers in Abuja during Civil Service Week, receiving the honour she never thought would come.
This moment is more than symbolic. It reflects a deeper truth: civil servants matter. Their work underpins national development, yet it is frequently overlooked, underappreciated, and under-celebrated. That’s why the Civil Service Recognition Award, supported by the Emily Aig-Imoukhuede Memorial Endowment Fund, is so significant. In a public sector that often struggles to motivate and retain top talent, a credible, transparent recognition system is not just a nice gesture; it’s a strategic necessity.
The awards, launched in 2022 through a partnership between the Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation and the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, fill a glaring gap in Nigeria’s reform agenda. Too often, public servants are painted with a single brush of inefficiency or corruption. But this initiative breaks that narrative, rewarding those who embody what Nigeria’s civil service should and can be.
The numbers may impress you – ₦56 million in awards over three years, new categories in 2025 like the ₦500,000 Presidential Civil Service Merit Award – but it’s the impact that matters more. These aren’t just cash prizes. They’re signals of value. They affirm that public service, when done with integrity and excellence, is a noble path.
And they’re working. Take Arch. Joy O. Baderin. Since receiving her award, she’s been promoted and has taken charge of implementing a new performance management system across her ministry. Or Mr Yusuf Abubakar, whose technical expertise helped his department win an innovation competition and now serves as a trusted adviser to a permanent secretary. These are not one-off stories. They are becoming patterns.
Recognition has a ripple effect. Awardees become mentors, reformers, and informal ambassadors of excellence. Their work inspires colleagues, shifts office cultures and proves that reform doesn’t always need to come from the top down—it can be sparked by individuals who feel seen and valued.
More importantly, these stories help rebuild the image of the Nigerian civil service. They offer a counter-narrative to cynicism. They show that there are dedicated public servants working tirelessly, quietly and competently to move the country forward. And they signal to a new generation that public service is not a dead-end job but a platform for impact.
As Civil Service Week 2025 approaches, the question isn’t just who will win next. It’s whether we will continue to invest in recognising and empowering those who carry the machinery of government on their backs. The Aig-Imoukhuede Foundation, through this award and its broader leadership and reform initiatives, is setting the standard for how we should treat our civil servants: with dignity, support, and above all, belief in their potential.
The truth is simple. Recognition works. And in a country like Nigeria, where reform is a constant uphill climb, that kind of motivation might just be one of the most powerful tools we have.
