President Muhammadu Buhari has completed
his first year in office. In sports parlance this would be the end of the first
quarter of a 4-quarter game. At this juncture he is behind.
Before we explore how and why he is behind we need to express some inalienable truths:
Nigeria is a country of over 100 million fractious people who fight over bread and butter issues, over religion, and over tribe and culture. She is a factitious nation nearly impossible to govern. Nigeria cannot be turned around on a pin. In this context a year is not sufficient time to see meaningful changes.
PMB came to power at the time that
Nigeria economy was heading south due to the plummeting oil prices. A country
which depends almost exclusively on oil will falter whenever oil prices plunge.
Oil prices did plunge into the deep blue sea as PMB assumed office.
Nigerians were dissatisfied with the
prior government and put too high a hope on PMB’s shoulders which PMB himself
encouraged and fanned instead of damping down the flame. It has come back to
haunt him.
The above are the excuses which have
some fundamental truths. But there are many serious issues most of them of Mr.
Buhari’s own making.
1. He was not prepared. The greatest
evidence of lack of preparation for the office is the lack of policy direction
on day one. No blueprint or any readable agenda. One year is over and still counting, nobody can tell which direction PMB is taking Nigeria. He had said that
Nigeria was headed in the wrong direction and people were expecting a change in
direction but alas nothing came out. Without direction the nation started
drifting and is still drifting. He continued implementing Mr. Jonathan’s budget
since he did not have any plans, but without GEJ’s top notch economic team, and
the result was disaster everywhere. To make matters worse, when GEJ’s 2015
budget expired in December 2015, PMB began to operate without any budget for 4
months. Then presented a muddled up budget which the senate returned to the
sender. PMB blamed “saboteurs” in his government, which was a ridiculous
charge. It was evident that the proper reviews were not done. Nigerians and
world gave up. He was not prepared.
2. He focused on the
wrong crises. PMB focus on corruption was ill directed for corruption was
not the immediate crises or the one that can be resolved with political
speeches or rabble rousing anecdotes. He had promised that once in power he
would create a corrupt free nation; that he would recover pilfered money; and
that he would arrest and prosecute all corrupt officials. He did not utter a
word on putting into place internal control system and accounting controls that
would make stealing difficult but easy to detect. The result has been that
stealing continued which was why the first budget was rigged to the extent that
he blamed it on the saboteurs. It is still not clear that the system has been
restructured. There is for example provisions for salaries, in the passed
budget, but the salaries are still not paid as and when due. And civil servants
are suffering. Money is not flowing in or flowing out easily. The system is
still clogged. Meanwhile not a single corrupt official has been completely
tried and found guilty. We are still dealing with finger pointing and trials by
news bulletins. We have heard of billions of recovered funds, but nobody has
been able to pin down the total amount or to which project/s the recovered
amounts have gone. There is strong suspicion that money was recovered from one
thief but went into the pockets of another thief just as Abacha’s recovered
billions disappeared into thin air in the previous administrations.
3. Human rights abuses. The worst
failing of PMB’s administration is the abuse of human rights. Mr. Nnamdi Kanu
was arrested many moons ago and when the state presented him to court he was
ordered to be release but the FG held on to him citing flimsy reasons. Dis
obedience of the courts is the beginning of lawlessness. Mr. Kanu’s appeal to a
higher court again resulted in the higher court ordering his release and again
PMB’s agents disregarded the court rulings. Today Nigerians and the world do
not know where matters stand. On the other hand, alleged Fulani herdsmen are
killing ordinary farmers in all territories south of the Niger River Confluence
by thousands, and not a single murderer is under police detention. It is
strange that a person who has killed nobody is in jail and those who killed in
thousands are parading the streets with their AK47 in full display contrary to
the ban on possession of guns. Mr. Kanu’s case is just one of the many cases
where bails were granted to the accused but no release followed after the bail
conditions were met. Mr. Fani Kayode’s case demonstrated the persecution of
those with contrary political views.
4. The real crises have
been ignored. The real crises are economic. Everywhere one looked there is
decline compared with what PMB inherited. The volume of power supply has
declined by more than 50%. Darkness at all times’ and in all cities is now the
order of the day. Prices of all goods and services have quadrupled. Nonpayment
of salaries by all governments from local government to state governments to
federal government has reached unprecedented levels counted in months of
service without pay. Petrol and gas are mostly not available and when available
unaffordable. Food production is down at the time food importation is down, a
double jeopardy for ordinary folks. Personal security is now a luxury given the
Boko Haram efforts, the Avengers in the Delta, kidnappers everywhere, and the
roaming Fulani herdsmen in the southern states. Yes these are all changes but
they are not the changes that the people expected from a “change government”.
To many they would rather have the old GEJ days than the new administration’s.
5. Perception is the
unkindest cut of all. As mentioned in the top of this essay Nigeria as a
large nation and economy cannot be reversed by any master stroke. But one thing
that could be changed positively is the people’s perception. If the people saw
and believed that things are changing for the better, their mood would be
different. They are not seeing things moving in the right direction and are
becoming disenchanted every passing day. If one stands at any street corner of
any Nigerian city and asks “how are things” the answer would be a resounding
“BAD”.
The question now is what can PMB do to
change things? There are no easy answers.
The
disintegration of the nation is a real threat and this is where the
administration must focus. In much of the south the combination of Fulani
herdsmen incursions, the destruction of pipe lines and thus the economy, the
continued detention of Mr. Kanu all make the desire to tear down this wall a
viable option. There is need to reassure these people that they belong.
The sole administrator role is
inexcusable. Right now there is no other name or face of the FG but the
president. In both the foreign policy, and domestic arenas it is Buhari this
and Buhari that. Where are the minister of foreign affairs and finance? Where
is the governor of the central bank? Is Fayemi, Amaechi, etal, in
charge of anything or “ARE THEY JUST PARLOR WIVES?” We need to see
them, and hear from them. Is education an important priority? It does not
seem so from the budget allocations. There ought to be a refocusing of
attention from pursuing corrupt ex-officials without reforming the systems and
institutions to bread and butter issues or as I have heard “amala and osikapa
(rice) issues. Reforming systems and institutions must go before the fight
against corruption as the honorable minister of finance was once quoted. That
would be putting the horse before the cart.
PMB has still three quarters to go
before the game is over. He may still have time.
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