President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has accused
the outgoing Goodluck Jonathan government of
not giving him “tips” on how to kick-start his
administration on May 29.
He spoke on Thursday when a committee from
the Centre for Human Security of the Olusegun
Obasanjo Presidential Library, presented a five-
point policy document to him at the Buhari
Support Organisation office in Abuja.
Hours before the event which held behind closed
doors, the All Progressives Congress, insisted that
the Federal Government was not cooperating with
the transition committee set up by the President-
elect.
“Buhari regretted that the outgoing government
that is supposed to give him tips on how to take
off has done nothing so far,” Garba Shehu, the
Director of Media and Publicity of
the All Progressives Congress Presidential
Campaign Organisation, told journalists after the
presentation by the committee.
According to PUNCH, Shehu added that the
President-elect “thanked the Obasanjo initiative
for the gesture, assuring the committee that his
incoming administration will be needing advice as
time goes on.”
Areas covered by committee in the document
include the economy, security, power, education
and infrastructure.
He said that Obasanjo had set up a think tank to
carry out a study on the challenges facing the
country in the five key areas. The study, he
added, was started four months ago “so that the
outcome will be made available to the incoming
administration after the election.”
He also revealed that Nigeria’s former High
Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dr.
Christopher Kolade, who headed the power
committee, gave various stages of the proposed
power sector development plan to include short-
term, medium-term, long-term solutions.
Under the short-term solution, the plan seeks to
raise the country’s power generation to 10,000
MW within a very short period of time.
He added that the president-elect described the
intervention of Obasanjo and his team as a great
impetus for the incoming government.
The vice-chairman of the committee, who is a
former Minister of Finance, Kalu Idika Kalu, said,
“We have looked at education, security, economy,
power and Infrastructure. Those are the areas we
have made recommendations and which we hope
the new administration would be able to work
on.”
He further explained that the president-elect was
very happy that they had been thinking about
how to help him hit the ground running.
The Chairman of the centre’s governing board,
Akin Mabogunje. who also spoke to journalists
after the event, said the committee had been
working on a number of critical issues for the
development of the country.
According to him, a delegation of the committee
members involved in the preparation of the policy
document was sent to present the report to the
President-elect.
Earlier on Thursday , the APC described as untrue,
a statement credited to the spokesman for the
Peoples Democratic Party, Oliseh Metuh, that the
Jonathan administration was cooperating with the
transition committee constituted by the President-
elect.
It also described Metuh in a statement signed by
its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed,
as a man with “an incurable disdain for truth.”
The PDP spokesman had in the said statement
accused the APC of raising a false alarm over
happenings within the Jonathan and the Buhari
transition committees.
However, Mohammed insisted that the
uncooperative attitude of the Jonathan team had
continued despite its public posturing.
The APC statement Read,
“We say with all sense of responsibility that as of
today, May 14, 2015, just about two weeks to the
May 29 handover date, no shred of information
as to the status of governance from any ministry,
department or agency of government has been
given to our transition committee.
If that qualifies, in Metuh’s lexicon, as
cooperation, then there is a problem somewhere.
We dare Metuh or anyone for that matter, to
controvert the fact that not a line of handover
note has been handed over to our transition
committee.”
The APC also restated its earlier call to Metuh to
urgently undertake a course on how to be an
opposition party spokesman so that he would not
talk or write himself into avoidable troubles in the
days ahead.
It equally admonished him to always verify
information available to him in order to separate
rumours from facts.
The statement further read,:
“Metuh decided to put his foot in his mouth when
he latched on to the statement made by our
Transition Committee Chairman, forgetting that in
making his statement, the chairman was only
advising him against anything that would put the
Federal Government in a bad light.
A discerning party spokesman, rather than a
rabble-rousing one, would have understood the
elder statesman’s stand for what it is instead of
using it as a peg to issue a needless, hollow
statement that puts his party and government in
a bad light.”
The APC said it had decided to allow bygones be
bygones, but now that Metuh had stirred the
hornet’s nest, it was time to put out the facts for
Nigerians to judge. It added;
“What happened was that, following the request
by our transition committee to meet with them,
they invited us to what was the first formal
meeting between both transition committees. But
the meeting was a mere photo-op, as it yielded
nothing concrete as far as handover notes are
concerned.
In fact, what we met at the so-called meeting
was far worse than what we had thought.
Whereas we had hoped to get their handover
notes on May 14th (the date they had indicated
to us informally), they told us point blank that
the notes won’t be ready until May 24th.
Because this date falls on a Sunday that means
we won’t be getting the handover notes until May
25th, just four days before the May 29th
handover date.
How do they honestly expect us to peruse
thousands of pages of handover notes, ask
pertinent questions and seek necessary
clarifications within four days? Because we want
a smooth transition, we asked if we could meet
with some of the ministers pending the release of
the handover notes, but they said no.
When one of their members even suggested that
the whole process be fast-tracked, they did not
budge.
Despite this setback, we decided not to put the
whole issue in the public domain, until the
babbling Metuh decided to look for trouble,
describing the deliberate stonewalling by the
Jonathan Administration as cooperation.”
the outgoing Goodluck Jonathan government of
not giving him “tips” on how to kick-start his
administration on May 29.
He spoke on Thursday when a committee from
the Centre for Human Security of the Olusegun
Obasanjo Presidential Library, presented a five-
point policy document to him at the Buhari
Support Organisation office in Abuja.
Hours before the event which held behind closed
doors, the All Progressives Congress, insisted that
the Federal Government was not cooperating with
the transition committee set up by the President-
elect.
“Buhari regretted that the outgoing government
that is supposed to give him tips on how to take
off has done nothing so far,” Garba Shehu, the
Director of Media and Publicity of
the All Progressives Congress Presidential
Campaign Organisation, told journalists after the
presentation by the committee.
According to PUNCH, Shehu added that the
President-elect “thanked the Obasanjo initiative
for the gesture, assuring the committee that his
incoming administration will be needing advice as
time goes on.”
Areas covered by committee in the document
include the economy, security, power, education
and infrastructure.
He said that Obasanjo had set up a think tank to
carry out a study on the challenges facing the
country in the five key areas. The study, he
added, was started four months ago “so that the
outcome will be made available to the incoming
administration after the election.”
He also revealed that Nigeria’s former High
Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Dr.
Christopher Kolade, who headed the power
committee, gave various stages of the proposed
power sector development plan to include short-
term, medium-term, long-term solutions.
Under the short-term solution, the plan seeks to
raise the country’s power generation to 10,000
MW within a very short period of time.
He added that the president-elect described the
intervention of Obasanjo and his team as a great
impetus for the incoming government.
The vice-chairman of the committee, who is a
former Minister of Finance, Kalu Idika Kalu, said,
“We have looked at education, security, economy,
power and Infrastructure. Those are the areas we
have made recommendations and which we hope
the new administration would be able to work
on.”
He further explained that the president-elect was
very happy that they had been thinking about
how to help him hit the ground running.
The Chairman of the centre’s governing board,
Akin Mabogunje. who also spoke to journalists
after the event, said the committee had been
working on a number of critical issues for the
development of the country.
According to him, a delegation of the committee
members involved in the preparation of the policy
document was sent to present the report to the
President-elect.
Earlier on Thursday , the APC described as untrue,
a statement credited to the spokesman for the
Peoples Democratic Party, Oliseh Metuh, that the
Jonathan administration was cooperating with the
transition committee constituted by the President-
elect.
It also described Metuh in a statement signed by
its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed,
as a man with “an incurable disdain for truth.”
The PDP spokesman had in the said statement
accused the APC of raising a false alarm over
happenings within the Jonathan and the Buhari
transition committees.
However, Mohammed insisted that the
uncooperative attitude of the Jonathan team had
continued despite its public posturing.
The APC statement Read,
“We say with all sense of responsibility that as of
today, May 14, 2015, just about two weeks to the
May 29 handover date, no shred of information
as to the status of governance from any ministry,
department or agency of government has been
given to our transition committee.
If that qualifies, in Metuh’s lexicon, as
cooperation, then there is a problem somewhere.
We dare Metuh or anyone for that matter, to
controvert the fact that not a line of handover
note has been handed over to our transition
committee.”
The APC also restated its earlier call to Metuh to
urgently undertake a course on how to be an
opposition party spokesman so that he would not
talk or write himself into avoidable troubles in the
days ahead.
It equally admonished him to always verify
information available to him in order to separate
rumours from facts.
The statement further read,:
“Metuh decided to put his foot in his mouth when
he latched on to the statement made by our
Transition Committee Chairman, forgetting that in
making his statement, the chairman was only
advising him against anything that would put the
Federal Government in a bad light.
A discerning party spokesman, rather than a
rabble-rousing one, would have understood the
elder statesman’s stand for what it is instead of
using it as a peg to issue a needless, hollow
statement that puts his party and government in
a bad light.”
The APC said it had decided to allow bygones be
bygones, but now that Metuh had stirred the
hornet’s nest, it was time to put out the facts for
Nigerians to judge. It added;
“What happened was that, following the request
by our transition committee to meet with them,
they invited us to what was the first formal
meeting between both transition committees. But
the meeting was a mere photo-op, as it yielded
nothing concrete as far as handover notes are
concerned.
In fact, what we met at the so-called meeting
was far worse than what we had thought.
Whereas we had hoped to get their handover
notes on May 14th (the date they had indicated
to us informally), they told us point blank that
the notes won’t be ready until May 24th.
Because this date falls on a Sunday that means
we won’t be getting the handover notes until May
25th, just four days before the May 29th
handover date.
How do they honestly expect us to peruse
thousands of pages of handover notes, ask
pertinent questions and seek necessary
clarifications within four days? Because we want
a smooth transition, we asked if we could meet
with some of the ministers pending the release of
the handover notes, but they said no.
When one of their members even suggested that
the whole process be fast-tracked, they did not
budge.
Despite this setback, we decided not to put the
whole issue in the public domain, until the
babbling Metuh decided to look for trouble,
describing the deliberate stonewalling by the
Jonathan Administration as cooperation.”
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