Harlen Anireju Ejueyitchie
Harlen Anireju Ejueyitchie, CFR (died 1978) was a Nigerian civil servant who served as Secretary to the Federal Military Government and Head of the Federal Civil Service under the military regime of Yakubu Gowon between 1966 and 1970.
Civil service career
Ejueyitchie was an Itsekiri from the Mid-Western Region (present-day Delta State). Government records indicate that he was employed as an administrative assistant by the Nigerian government by 1954.
In the Mid-West Regional Government, he served as Administrator’s Executive Officer. The new regional government appointed him Permanent Secretary of the Mid-Western Regional Ministry of Finance and Economic Development with effect from 21 August 1963. He was further appointed Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Transport, where he appeared in notices in the Federal Government Gazette as the federal minister’s legal representative under the Merchant Shipping Act.
He was appointed Chairman of the Nigerian Railway Corporation by the Federal Government on 4 May 1965 following the demise of Okechukwu Ikejiani, who was the first Administrator of the Nigerian Railway Corporation.
Ejueyitchie continued in the senior civil service till about 1966 when he was appointed Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Aviation with effect from 1 February 1966, and later, concurrently, Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Mines and Power with effect from 20 April 1966.
Secretary to the Federal Military Government
He was appointed Secretary to the Federal Military Government after Gowon's July 1966 counter-coup. General Gowon would later recall that he had initially considered Musa Daggash for the position, but Daggash recommended Ejueyitchie, who “was a more senior civil servant”.
During the early period of Gowon’s government, when federal ministries operated for several months without ministers, senior permanent secretaries had an unusually prominent role in formulating and implementing government policy. Former permanent secretary, Philip Asiodu, noted that “it was Ejueyitchie, as head of the civil service and secretary to the government, who facilitated the presentation by the permanent secretaries of their various proposals to Gowon for his consideration and approval”.
Ejueyitchie left the post of the Secretary to the Federal Military Government in December 1970.
Personal life and death
He married educator Matilda Ejueyitchie in 1966. They had five children. According to Matilda Ejueyitchie, he died of a short illness in 1978 while the children were still young.
Honours
Ejueyitchie held the rank of Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CON).