MADUABUCHI NMERIBEH/Kano
Elder statesman and former political adviser to ex-president Shehu Shagari, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai on Wednesday in Kano called on President Muhammadu Buhari not to toy with the recommendations contained in the 800-page Ahmed Joda Transition Committee report, saying full implementation of the report will go a long way in bettering the lots of Nigeria and Nigerians.
Yakasai who feared that the report may be thrown under the carpet as it has become the tradition of past leaders to discard such witty and weighty reports also advised President Buhari to retain the Committee as, “a semi-permanent Advisory Body,” arguing the caliber of people in the Committee are the kind of brains Nigeria needs at this point of her chequered history.
In the views of Yakasai, the 18-man Ahmed Joda Committee can be trimmed to a manageable size and retained by the the presidency so that it will serve as a guiding light for President Buhari’s cabinet, particularly, in the area of implementation of programmes and policies of the government.
Yakasai who expressed optimism that the report, if implemented, will be very useful to President Buhari towards his urge to repair Nigeria, also called on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to ensure that political parties come up with reasonable and implementable manifestos during general elections.
His words: “I congratulate Ahmed Joda and his colleagues—that is, the members of the Transition Committee for a job well-done, not only on issues related to the transition programme, but by going far ahead to prepare a well-articulated, all round, programme that will, if implemented, guide the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to the end of its tenure. What they did is to prepare an election manifesto and action plan for the administration though this was done after Buhari had won election and become the President of Nigeria.
“I observed that from 1999 when this country returned to democracy rule, after General Abdulsalami Abubakar’s tenure, political parties are not contesting elections on a well-articulated programme. They only hire prolific writers and some academicians to write beautiful English in the name of election manifesto, merely, for public consumption.
“As a matter of fact, almost all the candidates sponsored by various political parties were not familiar with their party’s manifestos. I recall what President Buhari did in appointing Ahmed Joda Committee is the same thing as what former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did after winning his election when he appointed General T.Y.Danjuma Committee to do almost what Ahmed Joda Committee has now done for President Buhari.
“Having read the summary of Ahmed Joda Transition Committee report, I am impressed by the trouble they took to address key issues that bedevil Nigeria’s progress which if used, the report can lead to the transformation of Nigeria into a better nation; and it can better the lot of the greater number of Nigerians. My advice to President Buhari on this matter is to retain the Ahmed Joda Committee as a semi-permanent Advisory Body with its membership trimmed into a manageable size. The work of the Committee will be to guide the Ministers which President Buhari will appoint and their officials in the implementation of the Committee’s recommendations.
“Let me conclude by advising the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that whenever general elections will take place, political parties are made to prepare a comprehensive manifesto with implementation strategy as part of the conditions that the electoral commission will stipulate to the parties that will be sponsoring candidates for the election; and that INEC should make it a matter of deliberate policy to compel political parties sponsoring candidates to organize workshops for the candidates they are sponsoring so that each candidate will know the inside out of his party’s election manifesto.
“By so doing, the current situation where people who contested and won election are totally ignorant of their party’s manifesto will become a thing of the past. This is the reason why when they are in power, they don’t work on programmes and as such, they end up achieving almost nothing for the masses that elected them.”
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I need to verify an e-mail forwarded to me by AHMED JODA. This is very important. I am in Australia and desperately need to make email contact with him. I have a grand-daughter who is dangerously ill, he knows about this and has tried to call me many times. I cannot turn on my mobile in the hospital so keep missing him.