Engr Muazu Muazu Jaji SamboI is first and foremost a great patriot, a man who has come into public service with the greatest desire and determination to show that public office can be used for good. A humble man. Very unassuming, but a man who also has grit and strength of character. Once Muazu Sambo is focused on the delivery of an objective, you can be rest assured that he is committed and determined to delivery of that objective without any distractions whatsoever. So for me, working with him, particularly at this time has also been a great joy and you know, a learning curve in a lot of ways because he demonstrates very clearly the capacity for office.And I think for me, Muazu Sambo also is the sort of officer that this country would need to have.He is in the class of people that were prepared and ready for the responsibility of office.
In my humble opinion,part of the challenge of leadership in this nation has been instances where we’ve had people run offices for whch they may not even know exactly what the job description of the offices may be,Muazu Sambo is totally different. This is a man who is ready, who is very prepared for the responsibility of the office, and I think he makes the justification for the requirement of office that you should at least be very well schooled and prepared and ready for the responsibility.
Let’s keep in mind that Sambo is actually an industry person, we are talking here about the maritime Industry, having cut his teeth, working with the Nigerin Ports Authority and then moved to the National Inland Waterways Authority, MIWA,, all agencies of the Ministry of Transportation. And so he already had a very rich resume, one that was relevant, one that as I said, prepared him for the responsibility of Office as Minister of Transportation.
He is not only humble, but also intelligent enough to appreciate and to understand the workings of the industry in which he presides .These were the character attributes that Muazu Sambo brought that has allowed him to be as effective as one can hope for any minister of transportation. And we are talking about a gentleman who was in office less than one year ago.And so ,the the evidence of his performance in office is the best illustration in my opinion, the justification, as I say, for the appointment of an individual who has the requisite information and knowledge of the workings of the industry over which he was made to preside.
So in summary, I would say this gentleman has been a blessing in a lot of ways as far as the Ministry of Transportation and is concerned. When Sambo came into office, the first thing he asked all of us to do as chief executive officers of the agencies in his ministry, was to identify the low hanging fruits, So he was looking immediately at his place in history, the reason being because of the short amount of time available to him.He wanted things that he could do within the shortest amount of time possible that was available to him. Now, as far as the Nigeria Shippers Council was concerned,we were able to identify quickly areas that we felt we needed his urgent intervention. The first obviously is implementation of the cargo tracking electric note . We also put forward to him our challenge which is the legal framework of the Nigerian Shippers Council which in our opinion was a hindrance to our ability to exercise our mandate in a way that we do can justice. You know that as the Port Economic Regulator , additional responsibilities were given to us which ought to be captured in a new legal framework. Areas that we wanted him to assist include identifying and allocating the statutory revenue source of funding of the Nigerian Shippers Council, These were immediate areas of intervention that we approached the honourable minister on his assumption of office. He gave his word and told us that he was going to do everything within his powers to make sure that those complaints were addressed as quickly as possible. I’m happy to announce that in nine months ,Muazu Jaji Sambo has been able now to get us to the point where we’ll begin the implementation of the cargo tracking note, which is something that for almost six years ,this administration has been pursuing and have not been able to achieve. So I’ll put that in my own judgment as the number one. The secong thing he has has been able to achieve within nine months or less of his stay in office of course, as I said, we also put forward to him is the issue consigning the legal framework of the Nigerian Shippers Council and the need for us to have that law amended and make sure a new legal framework is properly articulated. As I speak, Muazu Sambo has constituted a ministerial committee that looked into the legal framework of the Nigerian Shippers Council . A clean document has been produced, signed off by Sambo and forwarded to the National Assembly for The National Assembly’s passage of that amendment into law. We consider this a huge mileage and a huge achievement as far as the Identity of the Nigerian Shippers Council is concerned. Again, for too long, the statutory source of revenue of the Council has not been assessed. Again, we put that before him. He set up a ministerial committee that looked into it provided a framework for the achievement and actualization of the the source of revenue of the Nigerian Shippers Council. Again, this was what has been done in nine months of Muazu’s appointment as Minister of Transportation. So these three things as far as we are concerned in the Nigerian Shippers Council will go down as a huge achievements recorded.There are a couple of other very key developments that have taken place, one of which is the disbursement of the CVFF for which he has gotten an approval from Mr President.