Buhari spoke just as the Chairman of the All Progressive Congress Transition Committee, Ahmed Joda complained that the federal government committee headed by Vice President Namadi Sambo refused to provide them information to work with and therefore had to rely on its own initiative.
Receiving the interim report of the committee at the Defence House, Abuja, the President-elect 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.”
He continued: “We have seen the debt profile now and the performance of the economy. The question is what can we so about it, especially the 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 sub-committees 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.”
Presenting the interim report to the President- elect, Joda said they had to prepare the first interim report without the input from the government, adding that they are expecting the government to make a presentation to the committee on Friday.
-Punch