Joda Transition Committee Submits 800-Page Report to Buhari

The Ahmed Joda-led transition committee has submitted its report to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Defence House, Abuja, urging Nigerians to be patient with the president to act on it.

The report, an 800-page document, was submitted Friday.

In preparation for a smooth hand over, the Federal Government had set up a committee headed by the former secretary to the government of the federation, Pius Anyim, to collate the handover notes from all agencies of government, which will form part of the outgone President Goodluck Jonathan handover note.

The All Progressive Congress had also set up a transition committee which will collate and work on the report before transmitting it to President Buhari.

The Anyim-led committee had handed over the report to the Joda committee on the 25th of May.

Mr. Joda told journalists after submitting the result that Mr. Buhari will in due course begin to act on the report.

"Today, we submitted about 800 pages of the report to Mr President," he said. "It is now his property and I believe in due course he will begin to act on it."

Reacting to reports that the submission caused the delay of political appointments, Mr. Joda said, "One of the terms of references for our committee is to receive the handover note of President Jonathan and this we did not receive until about weeks after our inauguration.

"We received the handover note on the 25th of May and that report was about 18,000 pages and it took time to even sort them out and to make sense from them. Read them, analyse them and come up with recommendations.

Political appointments are entirely at the prerogative of the President. He will go through our report and understand our recommendation. I think he deserves a little bit more time."

He further stated that this was not an ordinary transfer of government from one president to the other, as "in this country we have never witnessed this kind of transition from one political party to another, the political party in opposition won the election."

"Previous transition from one president to the other did not require long process like this; I think this is part of the evolution of democracy," Mr. Joda said. "The country has to be a little bit more patient, it cannot be with immediate effect."