The President and Chairman of the Governing Council of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), Mallam Ahmed Ladan Gobir, has said technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) alone cannot transform Nigeria’s public service without adequately empowering workers to use them effectively.
Gobir stated this on Thursday in Calabar during the fifth annual branch conference and 44th anniversary celebration of the institute’s Cross River State chapter.
Speaking at the event, he stressed the need for government institutions to combine digital innovation with human capacity development to improve productivity, reduce corruption, and enhance efficiency in the public sector.
The conference, themed, “Empowering People to Lead Change in the Public Sector: The Future of Government Human Resource in an Artificial Intelligence-Driven Era”, brought together human resource professionals, public servants, and stakeholders to discuss the future of work in a rapidly evolving digital environment.
Represented by the institute’s South-South Coordinator, Ms. Susan Agorom, Gobir said AI had come to stay and should be embraced across sectors to improve service delivery.
According to him, effective digitisation of government operations would help reduce corruption and inefficiency in public service administration if properly managed.
He, however, noted that AI would not replace human workers, but should instead complement human efforts to achieve improved productivity.
“Empathy and emotional intelligence will remain essential despite increasing digital interactions in the workplace,” he said.
Also speaking, the Chairman of CIPM in Cross River State, Mrs. Adeola Ogunyankin, said the conference was organised to prepare public servants for ongoing technological changes in the workplace.
Ogunyankin explained that the theme was also intended to draw the government’s attention to the need to embrace digital systems in workplace operations.
“We need to sensitise public servants to move from paper to digital operations; this is the new trend,” she said.
She identified resistance to change among workers as one of the major challenges hindering technology adoption in the public sector.
According to her, the institute is creating awareness and building the capacity of young professionals to prepare them for the evolving human resource industry.
“We are collaborating with universities and human resource experts to expose students to practical human resource management systems,” she added.
On his part, the Head of Service in Cross River State, Mr. Orok Okon, said governments at all levels must deliberately invest in workers, reform human resource systems, and promote continuous training to prepare employees for digital transformation.
Represented by the Permanent Secretary, Career Management Office, Mrs. Lucy Enakirerhi, Okon said human resource management had changed significantly with the emergence of digitisation.
“However, the future of public sector transformation will not be determined by technology alone, but by how well we empower people to use it,” he said.
