Transition report as vindication of FG

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great […]

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”-Theodore Roosevelt (1859-1919)
When the opposition All Progress Congress (APC) raised the alarm that the Jonathan’s Transition Committee was not cooperating with them, the media had a field day.  Just like the vulture would descend on a carcass, sensational headlines filled the tabloids with the news mostly concocted to give a dog a bad name in order to hang it.
At one of the joint meetings of the two committees, Ahmed Joda, while responding to questions fielded by members of the state house media crew debunked the position of the All Progressive Congress by restating that they were receiving all the needed cooperation contrary to the earlier held belief from their counterparts
Again, While submitting the interim report of his committee to the President-Elect, the chairman of the All Progressives Congress Transition Committee, Ahmed Joda had accused the Federal Government Transition team of starving them of information they needed to work with even though he admitted to the enormity of the task and time constraints.
Both committees had been sitting jointly before the final reports were made ready. The Federal Government is a giant institution with Ministries, Departments and Agencies carrying out several functions. One can best imagine the enormity of this great assignment that requires a comprehensive report on the activities of all these institutions within a limited period of time.
Barely a week to the allegation, a copy of the Federal Government’s Transition Committee handover notes was handed over to Ahmed Joda which he described as comprehensive.
In his words “`It is my honour and my privilege to receive this comprehensive set of the report from the government transition committee which was chaired by the vice-president (Arc Mohammed Namadi Sambo).
“It appears that nothing has been left out. It is now our challenge to carefully study and examine what it contained therein in these volumes.’’
The statement made by Ahmed Joda has put paid to the speculations that the federal government was not cooperating, and have proven the doubting Thomases wrong once again.
While presenting the report of the Federal Government, Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo assured the incoming administration that he and other members of the committee as well as the Federal Executive Council Members would always be available to provide clarification or answer any query arising from the handover notes.
The report which contained the activities of the Jonathan administration was properly articulated and printed signed page-by-page by permanent secretaries of each ministry.
The Federal Government Transition Committee was chaired by the Vice President Arc Mohammed Namadi who presided over a 16-man team of competent hands including the managing director of the Assets Management Company of Nigeria, the head of service of the federation, the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND), as well as the directors general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority(NEPZA) and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) while the secretary to the State Government Pius Anyim served as the Secretary to ensure a smooth transition of power.
It should be appreciated that though both committees were scheduled to work together for the good of the country, they have never represented alternatives to independent audit of the nation’s scarce resources.
While Jonathan Transition committee was to collate all the necessary information in all sectors of the extra-ministerial, departments and agencies of government to provide guidance on the current situation in such agencies of government, the Ahmed Joda committee should have busied itself with the tasks of preparation of short, medium and long term plans for the new administration.
While it will suffice if we wish the new government the best in tackling the enormous challenges of nation building, we hasten to call on them to wisely peruse the contents of the report and act in line with their electoral promises to the nation.
Like Roosevelt rightly captures it, the criticism does not count as much as the doer of the deeds. Doing better would have justified the setting-up of such transition committees, which are not a product of the instrumentality of the law.

Bello wrote from Abuja<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>