ABUJA, Federal Republic of Nigeria. The interim report of the Transition Committee set up by the All Progressives Congress (APC) was submitted to the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday by the Chairman of the committee, Ahmed Joda.
At the presentation ceremony held at the Defence House, Joda complained about the uncooperative attitude of the members of the Transition Committee set up by the outgoing Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government, even as Buhari took time to explain the reasons why the terms of reference given to the APC team was so stringent.
According to Buhari, the intent of the APC Transition Committee was misunderstood by the outgoing presidency leading to suspicion and the reported uncooperative attitude shown by the PDP team led by Vice President Namadi Sambo to the APC team.
According to the president-elect, the APC as a party was not looking for means of indicting the outgoing PDP government by its proper look into the books but was only looking to having a pedestal to begin its work with as a government when it comes into power in a week time.
Buhari said he was disappointed that “the incoming government was misunderstood”, adding that “It is not that we are preparing for indictment. What we are trying to get is a starting point, where exactly we are going to start from.”
“We have seen the debt profile now and the performance of the economy. The question is what can we do about it, especially urgent ones like social security and lack of fuel in the country and fraud.
“The list is endless. I thank you for what you have done and I hope that the subsequent submission by the government will make your job easier and more efficient and tell us where to begin from.
“What we expected was for the outgoing government to make a presentation to this committee and for this committee to study the document and make submission to the incoming government.
“For your simple mindedness, you went to work. But unfortunately, this committee is accused of being a federal government. From then on, this committee was constraint to take this initiative and breaking into various subcommittees and assigned various task to study the most important issues nationwide and see what they can put on record.
“I thank you very much for this efforts which you have made and I want to assure you that we will find time to read your initial report and when the government decides to finally present to you their own records, you will study them and merge with the report of the various committees and present to the incoming government.
Credit: Daily Independent (Nigeria)
