Meet newly appointed Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Dame Didi Walson-Jack

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Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Dame Didi Esther Walson-Jack

By Chika Nwachukwu, Abuja

The newly appointed Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Education, Didi Walson-Jack assumed duty at the ministry on Tuesday, January 16, 2024.

The ministry’s Director of Public Relations, Bem Goong who disclosed this in an invitation sent to the media, said that the Permanent Secretary was received by the Director Overseeing the Office of the Permanent Secretary, (DOOPS), Alhaji Zubairu Abdullahi and all other directors at the headquarters of the ministry.

Dame Didi Esther Walson-Jack, began her civil service career in 1992 as a State Counsel in Rivers State Ministry of Justice. In October 1996, following the creation of Bayelsa State, she transferred her service and became one of seven pioneer staff of the Ministry of Justice, and the nascent Bayelsa State Civil Service. She served as Head, Legal Drafting Department of the Ministry of Justice, and Legal Department of Bayelsa State House of Assembly.

She was later appointed by the Alamieyeseigha Administration to the dual position of Solicitor-General of Bayelsa State and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Justice; a position she held from July 2002 until January 2009.

Walson-Jack, a 2008 alumna of the Senior Executive Course (SEC) 30 of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Plateau State, transferred her service, in 2009, to the Federal Civil Service in the Administrative Cadre.
She began her career in the Federal Civil Service as an Assistant Director, Appointments, Promotion and Discipline, in the Human Resource Management Department, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs.

She served as pioneer State Coordinator of the Rivers State Office of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. She progressed with her passing relevant promotion examinations and was appointed a Deputy Director, Administration (Appointments, Promotion and Discipline) at the same Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, Abuja.

In February 2012, Walson-Jack returned to Bayelsa State on secondment in the public interest at the request of the Bayelsa State Government. During this period, she served as the pioneer Deputy Chief of Staff to the Bayelsa State Governor; the pioneer Commissioner of the Ministry of Science & Technology and Manpower Development; and Chief of Staff, Government House, Yenagoa, until December 2014 when she voluntarily returned to the Federal Civil Service.

Prior to her appointment as a Federal Permanent Secretary in August 2017, Didi Walson-Jack served as Director in the Office of the Permanent Secretary, Special Duties in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.

In April 2016, she was deployed as the Director of Human Resource Management at the Federal Ministry of Health. She also served as the Director, Planning, Research and Statistics at the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, and Director, Special Duties in the Office of the Permanent Secretary, Special Duties, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

Walson-Jack who was First appointed as a Permanent Secretary in 2017 by then President Muhammadu Buhari, has also serve as a Permanent Secretary in the Service Welfare Office of the Office of the Head Of Service of the Civil Service of the Federation, Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs, Federal Ministries of Power, and Water Resources, and Sanitation.

Walson-Jack who is an ex-student of the Federal Government Girls’ College in Benin City and the Federal Government College in Ilorin, holds a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Lagos and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1987.

She is married to Hon. Nimi Walson-Jack, a former General Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and Nigeria’s leading Civic Educator. They have two children, both of whom are also lawyers.