Georgina Ehuriah-Arisa who rose from lowly position in the Civil Service in 1984 to become a Permanent Secretary, has put her life experiences into a book, titled: On Merit and scheduled to be officially launched on September 17.
The autobiography offers an insight into the Federal Civil Service – its very heart and soul, reforms, what it takes to climb, and survive the tortuous corporate ladder and how to expand one’s capabilities along the way to the top.
In On Merit, Ehuriah-Arisa writes about her early life, being a child living through the Civil War, its aftermath and the relationship and financial challenges she had to deal with.
“Writing a book that puts my life out there has required a special kind of courage, but it is my act of giving back to a system that gave me the privilege to serve and rewarded me for that service. I have always prided myself on the fact that the single most important factor that drives my actions is courage,” she said.
It was this courage that made her run into a burning building to retrieve important work documents that would otherwise have been destroyed during the fire that engulfed the Independence Building which housed the Ministry of Defence and Armed Services Headquarters in 1993.
“Georgina Ehuriah-Arisa, embodies all the qualities I have been urging both the male and female staff of the Federal Civil Service to embrace,” former Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Engr. Ebele Ofunneamaka Okeke (CFR) says of the author. “She made a lot of sacrifices to build herself up to meet the challenges that would crop up in modern Civil Service. She read for long hours, kept late nights, attacked all the tasks that appeared on her desks wherever tour of duty took her with all her might, and the result is the content of this book,” she added.
Ehuriah-Arisa is one of Nigeria’s most highly decorated Civil Servants, having received the National Honour of Member of the Order of the Niger (MON), the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM) Award and the Presidential Civil Service Merit Award in addition to other institutional and ministerial awards.
The book launch which will be held in Abuja will be attended by past and current Civil Service stalwarts, journalists, and a cross-section of Nigerians from the academia and professional communities.
On Merit will be available in bookstores in Nigeria from 15th October, 2020.
