.Buhari must be decisive on fuel subsidy
.The state nearly collapsed under Jonathan
.The last regime left behind a deficit of N7 trillion
.New president must be careful in choosing his ministers
Malam Ahmed Joda chaired President Muhammadu Buhari’s Transition Committee, which interfaced with former President Goodluck Jonathan’s team. In an exclusive interview, the ‘super permsec’ of the 1970s and 1980s, would not reveal any of the recommendations his committee made to President Buhari. But he was forthcoming on the state of the nation and the challenges the new government will face in the next four years. Malam Joda was frank and witty in this explosive interaction.

Specifically, what were the major terms of reference given to your committee?
Broadly speaking, we were to receive the handover notes from the outgoing government, study the notes, analyze them and make recommendations to the government on the economy specifically, on governance, security, corruption, on ministries and departments of government and agencies, defence; nearly everything you can think about. Specifically, we had to look into revenue streams from NNPC, from Federal Inland Revenue Service, Customs and other big corporations of government.


What would you consider to be the greatest challenges you face in carrying out this assignment?Nigeria should be ready to face a lot of challenges.The biggest in my view is corruption; it is everywhere. There is no department, no ministry that can be said to be free of corruption. There is nowhere that fraud does not take place on a daily basis. It has become embedded in the minds of the people because the rule books have been thrown away and everybody is doing what they like. [/Nobody follows the rules anymore. You employ people anyhow and pay them anyhow and I think you in the media have a fairly idea of what is going on and are surprised how bad things are. I often wondered, since the beginning of this exercise, if the PDP and president Jonathan had won the election what would have been the fate of Nigeria. It would have been more difficult for them to face the challenge because they had been telling people that everything was good; the roads are good. They were not talking about the absence of light in the house, but they were talking about the capacity to produce electricity is 12,000 megawatts out of which only 5,000 could be released. But even out of this 5,000 at the time they were doing the handing over notes only 1,300 megawatts were being generated, but they were talking about 35,000 kilometers of distribution lines and so on, but nobody told us the real problem - that there is no gas, or there is no capacity to transmit the electricity that could be generated; that even when it is delivered at the point of distribution the distribution system is so weak that it can’t take it. I personally didn’t know that until I got into this exercise. Now, if they came back, they couldn’t wake up in the morning and say we can’t pay salaries, we couldn’t do this or even pay contractors and might even not be able to pay pensions and gratuities or finance any of our operations. We were told at the beginning of the exercise that the government was in deficit of at least N1.3 trillion and by the end people were talking about N7 trillion; everything is in a state of collapse. The civil service is bloated and the military and police, if you are a Nigerian, you know what they have been facing for a long time; everywhere is in a mess and these things have to be fixed. Now back to your question about the delay of appointment of ministers and other key officials. These are large numbers of people; in my experience as a civil servant one of the most difficult tasks is to get a list of names to appoint to existing appointments. Buhari, as a politician, knows a large number of people but not intimately. They have come and joined the political party in which there is Buhari and his knowledge of them can only be superficial. The only people he will know intimately are his friends, his relations and colleagues at work. But when you are forming a cabinet the Constitution says the entire country must be represented. Now in Benue, for example, there may be at least 20 to 30 people who can claim to be ministers and who by their paper qualifications and working experience are suitable materials for appointment but is that all you want from a minister? If you want to know the integrity of a person, his performance at his workplace, his relations with his workplace or even with his community and other weaknesses he has, you have to have all these and analyze them. If Buhari came to be president in Nigeria on his claim that he is a man of very high principles, a man of integrity and courage, then you can’t go to him as a leader of your community and say ‘Joda is a good man, appoint him minister because he has his paper qualifications.’ You have to investigate these things so that they meet, not only the criteria you laid down, but your own expectation of the man; it needs some time. We have made mistakes before; I have known of ministerial appointments during the military days when they had announced the name of somebody is a similar name to somebody else and the young man arrived to be sworn in or you appoint a minister and suddenly something surfaces. I don’t know where you were when Murtala was the head of state, but if you can go and read back the newspapers of that time (August 1975) you will see that there were at least two people in the military government; serving officers who had to be replaced immediately because no checks were carried out on them. In the past, when you were prepared to ignore security reports as had happened in the recent past in Nigeria you can appoint anybody, but Buhari says he is going to work with perfect people and the he appoints someone only to discover a week later or a month later that there is really no way you can keep him there; what happened? How did the man get there? But I am not making excuses; I am talking to you as a former civil servant who has had some experience of how things are done. For example, to appoint a chairman of let’s say the cement company in Yandev or Ashaka; I was permanent secretary industry and we had about 30 of such companies in which government had majority shares at that time and we had to work on assembling names for every one of these thirty companies. We had to produce about 5 or 6 people times 30 and it was extremely difficult. Because if I tell you I want somebody you will go and bring your friend or schoolmates. It is unavoidable because you can only bring names of people you know and politically there are people vying for these things.

Read full interview on other matters here:
http://dailytrust.com.ng/sunday/index.php/top-stories/21101-buhari-s-transition-committee-chairman-explodes-we-found-corruption-everywhere-joda

Old man, shut up and work

Am not corrupt oo

really complicated!

"Stealing is not corruption"

okosodo:
Old man, shut up and work

That's all you could deduce from the alarming interview?

I really pity you and your generation!


Here is something to ponder on though, the true state of economy according to the transmission committee suggests we are now in debt to the tune of 7T naira.

How then are you going to pay it back since it's pretty obvious we have to continue running budgets in deficits and the long term economic outlook of our major source of income appears extremely dire (persistent low prices, inability to find buyers for our crude and the world gradually reducing its dependency on fossil fuels)

If you found corruption everywhere, get to work and start cleansing. It's no news, the whole of Nigerians know there's corruption. No need to tell us what we know. Sounding as if he himself is not corrupt. Give us result

PDP (OBJ and GEJ) almost killed Nigeria in the sixteen years they ruled the country.

The difference be say, GEJ own worse pass OBJ. GEJ was no better than an armed robber.

We were told at the beginning of the exercise that the government was in deficit of at least N1.3 trillion and by the end people were talking about N7 trillion;

okosodo:
Old man, shut up and work

Do you have a parent?

Jonathan almost destroyed this country due to lack of experience

Keneking:
Jonathan almost destroyed this country due to lack of experience

Bros, why nah When you've always made sense in your posts? Lack of experience qua?

Does a mum have experience with child nurturing before having her first child? Its LOVE & instinct for doing the best & right thing for her child that guides her actions at every point..

Jonathan had prior administrative experience as a lecturer, in OMPADEC, as a DGov, Gov, VP before finally getting the presidency... His problem is/ was not lack of experience, he was a clannish, bias & simple minded insensitive soul!!!

Jonathan never loved this country & people can miss us with the concession thing, HE LOST & ACCEPTED HIS LOSS. in order to avoid any further embarassment.

Who comes up with GOAT & YAM theory when he is supposed to wield the big stick

Jst as expected..............na d solution we wan hear not d same old story

It's Gej n cronies

e no konsine me , u say u go fit do am...do am!!

Okay

okosodo:
Old man, shut up and work

That man can father u. If u had read that report,u would know that he need not shut up. He needs to give u the report of how your Fedora hat wearing 'prispal' has bastardized the offices kept under his care.

I pity dis new GENERATION and Internet user.

Time to work! However, there is nothing like having an excellent team you can absolutely trust to carry out instructions to the letter.

Many companies that fail are those whose entry points are very loose. The Nigeria police is failing today because of the manner of entry.

Personally, I ll be patient with baba. But the team must perform when eventually selected

okosodo:
Old man, shut up and work

My generation, my generation!!! ...

okosodo:
Old man, shut up and work

Tell your father to shut up.

.

With the way things are in Nigeria today, if Nigerians will not kill corruption, definitely corruption will kill Nigeria.

okosodo:
Old man, shut up and work

Your father is a old fool...

okosodo:
Old man, shut up and work

I will like to call on the good people on nairaland to kindly ignore this ignoramus. He's a product of a defunct society that celebrates mediocrity, low quality education and a curse running in his family which has hindered him from the ability to comprehend articles and make use of his brain.

Baba is booting

I pity some people oh...

phlemzy:
That man can father u. If u had read that report,u would know that he need not shut up. He needs to give u the report of how your Fedora hat wearing 'prispal' has bastardized the offices kept under his care.

Did you read the report? If so, where and how did you get ur hands on it and how can I get it too?

Before nko

rusher14:


Does he know his father?

shet! see finishing!

Useless Navigator of APC responsible for 50% of it.