The Ahmed Joda Interview

 

Super permanent secretary and chairman of President Buhari’s transition committee, 85-year-old Alhaji Ahmed Joda, two Sundays ago gave a phenomenal interview to Sunday Trust newspaper. There were several things to take away, including work ethics, customer service, civil service rules and regulations and selfless service to one’s nation. In the end, everything boiled down to efficiency and service. It’s been a long time that I have read an interview so profound.

I was in school at the prestigious Queen Amina College Kaduna with Bilkisu Joda, one of Alhaji Joda’s daughters, and I am friends to another, gender rights activist Asmau Joda. They are sharp-witted, brilliant, friendly, firm, humane with beautiful minds. Upon reading that interview, it was clear whose daughters they were.

A man of impeccable pedigree, Joda served as permanent secretary in the era of super permanent secretaries.

Alhaji Joda dwelt extensively on the disintegration of the civil service and its current inefficient size. Because I have harped so much on customer service on this page, his interview validated me and relieved me somewhat because when I complained about poor service, it seemed like something was wrong with me and all those not complaining were good Nigerians and I was just plain difficult. Holding people accountable, demanding service everywhere you go has become such a herculean task that most persons simply walk away and leave it to God. If you missed your flight because of someone’s inefficiency, God will certainly not come down to help you if you do not first lay a complaint. In addition, you let those delivering poor service go scot-free and they become entrenched in their poor work ethics until no one can hold them accountable anymore.

For the benefit of those who missed the interview let me share excerpts.

“In the course of your assignment were you under some kind of pressure from people coming to lobby for one favour or the other?

There was a lot of that from people who wanted contract, who wanted to be given special favours. They were coming to me day and night and I said to them these are my terms of reference; they didn’t include things like award of contracts. . . or. . . employment of any group of people or individuals. I told them these were not part of our terms of reference. But we continued to receive them and nobody believed me when I said I could not appoint them ministers or chairmen or whatever; they said look you have influence on Buhari and I said I don’t have and even if I had I didn’t think he would respect me if all I did was go to him with piles of papers and saying he should do this favour to this or that man or this or that woman . . . For example, somebody telephoned and after introduction said he wanted to vie for the position of minister of sports. I said well I don’t know the address to which you would send it to. . .

Buhari, as a politician, knows a large number of people but not intimately. . .

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. . .

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.

Given the picture you have painted how challenging is the task before the new administration?

I think the new administration has a pretty good idea but the situation we are going to meet is going to be difficult. They should have prepared themselves to face these challenges adequately. That is why it is necessary for the government of Buhari to select those who would work for him, to be extremely careful of how they select the people who will be doing the work for them!. . .

These are people who must devote themselves absolutely to the people of Nigeria and it is possible. It was possible under Awolowo, it was possible under Sardauna . . . I have worked with the two of them . . . men who understood their responsibilities and duties and they encouraged those who worked for them to tell them the truth and nothing but the truth.

It was like that; you don’t receive decisions from above. I don’t know at what point a decision from above was invented, but we never had it in our own vocabulary; everything had to be reasoned and everything had to be recorded.

Given the enormous task ahead, what would you advise President Buhari?

Well, I am not an adviser to the president. I was a chairman of his transition committee and I have finished my work. He has the sole responsibility of assembling his advisers to advise him on every aspect and he can call on anybody in Nigeria to help him do this task . . .”

Every Nigerian should read this interview. Enough said!

 

Eugenia Abu