Jonathan’s handover panel meets, govt denies N3b budget

THE Federal Government Transition Committee yesterday met to fine-tune the modalities for handover of power to the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.

The maiden meeting of the panel chaired by Vice President Namadi Sambo started a few minutes past 12 noon at the vice president’s conference room.

Though membership of the committee was not made public, others who attended the meeting were Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN), and Head of Service of the Federation (HoSF), Daniel Kifasi.

Meanwhile, the Presidency has described as blackmail the social media report, which claimed that President Goodluck Jonathan Administration has budgeted N3billion for members of the Transitional Committee working on the handover note to the President-elect. Special adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr Reuben Abati, said ‘‘there was no such thing.’’

Also in attendance were the Minister of State for Finance, Bashir Yuguda, Minister of Police Affairs, Abduljelili Adesiyan, Minister of Transport, Idris Umar as well as the Director-General of the National Agency for Foods Drugs Administration and Control, (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhii.

Speaking with State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, Anyim said: “We met to discuss the terms of reference and developed the guidelines for preparing the handover briefs, and the committee adjourned to the 20th of April for a second meeting.

“After we have collected our own briefs from the MDAs and then we put them together, we will then interface with the other committee so that whatever clarification they want, the questions they have, we will be able to address them.”

On whether he was aware that a committee had already been set up, he said: “Yes, that is normal. Ours is to collect our own hand over briefs, prepare the briefs, prepare the President handover notes.

“The terms of reference of our own committee is to collate relevant information for the hand over briefs from all the MDAs, prepare them and interface with the incoming administration’s