By Mideno Bayagbon
In just under one year from now, the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government will come to an end and a new regime, by God’s merciful-grace, will be enthroned. May 29, 2023, will mark the end of the dream Nigerians had in 2015 when they booted out President Goodluck Jonathan and brought in President Muhammadu Buhari, who came into power with so much of the nation’s revival hopes invested in him.
Buhari promised to wipe their tears in the areas of the then struggling economy; massive security challenges represented by Boko Haram terrorism in the North East; the epileptic power supply which had stagnated at 4000MW; what the All Progressives Congress, APC, characterised as massive corruption bedevilling the Jonathan government; arresting the downward educational spiral and restoring better economic value to the Naira and fixing the dilapidating infrastructural networks; and so on.
Now in the twilight of his regime, Nigerians no doubt are making up their minds what scores to award the man who was touted as the answer to all Nigeria’s problems. Would they be sad or will they be elated when, finally, Buhari heads back to Daura or Kaduna as an ex president? What would be the reaction of the average Nigerian on the streets? At the end of the eight year tenure, how would they assess him based on their lived reality against the lofty promises sold to them? What indeed would Nigerians remember President Buhari for? What would history record for him as a two term president?
WORST PRESIDENT NIGERIA EVER HAD? Nigerians were sold a Buhari, who the APC lionised as sincere, incorruptible, disciplined, and capable leader. Nigerians were told that he is the solution to the many hydra-headed problems inflicted on the nation, that he would easily bring solutions to them all. In place of the draconian military dictator, who peeped on human rights and rule of law during his disreputable rule from 1983 to 1985, a sexed up, new faced democratic Buhari was unveiled and Nigerians were beguiled into shouting hosanna. Running under the CHANGE mantra, Buhari in one of his favourite sayings often cajoled Nigerians with IF WE DON’T KILL CORRUPTION, THIS CORRUPTION WILL KILL US. Nigerians believed him. He became president.
Nigerians, to their regret, now easily recall that Buhari led APC government promised to make Nigeria one of the fastest growing economies in the world. The president specifically promised that under his government, the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, will increase by at least 10-12% yearly. (GDP measures the size and health of a country’s economy over a period of time). What they got instead are a drum full of excuses, two recessions, a very badly managed economy, and the nation becoming the poverty capital of the entire world. On top of that, we have gone borrowing. We now use up to 93 percent of our earnings to service debts annually as the economy sinks deeper and deeper into the abyss.
True, some of these borrowings have been used to fund some major infrastructural low hanging fruits. This perhaps is one of the few areas some credit can be given to this government. The Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; those of Lagos, and Port Harcourt; the train link between Abuja and Kaduna, and the one between Warri and Itakpe. Some of these had less than five percent work left to completion. They were majorly built by the Jonathan government but were completed by the Buhari government and are now in use. However, the construction of the Lagos – Ibadan rail line was started and completed by this government, but the one to nowhere, linking to Maradi is ongoing.
But not so the power situation which the president was effusive about improving when he wanted the votes of Nigerians. Said he at the time: “Continuous tinkering with the structures of power supply and distribution and close to $20 billion expended since 1999 have only brought darkness, frustration, misery and resignation among Nigerians. We will not allow this to go on. Careful studies are underway during this transition to identify the quickest, safest and most cost-effective way to bring light and relief to Nigerians.” As a testament, the facts speak volumes to how cheap talk was not put into action. Just four days back, the national grid suffered again a total collapse, its fifth this year! And this is even when the capacity has dwindled from the 4000MW which this government inherited to 3522.80MW seven years after.
The Naira which his regime inherited at between N169 -N200 to the dollar, today has nose-dived to about N610 to the dollar. Instead of the five million new jobs yearly he promised, the unemployment rate has jumped from 10.4, the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics laments, to 33.3 percent in 2020. Meaning every one in three adult Nigerian is without a meaningful source of livelihood. Among the youths, especially university graduates, it is as high as 70 percent. In all, about 70 million Nigerians are jobless.
That the nation is not importing food to feed the about 200 million citizens today is a miracle. Prices of available foodstuff have shot through the roof and inflation rate which was at 9.5 percent when Buhari took over, was last year disturbingly giddily still rising at 22.7 percent. While Godwin Emefiele deceives himself at the Central Bank of Nigeria that, the government has pumped in billions upon billions of Naira into agriculture by parading what it termed a rice pyramid, hunger rules the land. Rice which was considered expensive at N8000 per 50KG bag under Jonathan’s government is somewhere around N30,000 today.
Yet hunger in the land is Buhari-government inflicted. Most farms across the country today are abandoned, first because a group over which the President is a life patron, I am talking about the Fulani herdsmen, also known as Miyetti Allah or MACABAN, raped, maimed and killed farmers at will with protected impunity. This has been exacerbated by some of the herdsmen graduating to become terrorists or what this government deodorises as bandits. Not only are our farms now abandoned nationwide, our roads, villages, towns and cities have become the abandoned playing fields of the bandits and terrorists who unleash death at will; levy tax and collect billions of Naira in ransom money monthly.
Examples are just too many to recount here. Which ones do we mention and which ones do we forget? Is it the almost 100 Nigerians kidnapped when their Abuja – Kaduna bound trained was bombed? Or is it the Prelate of the Methodist Church who had to cough out N100 million to regain freedom from his abductors? Across Nigeria, daily, no fewer than 50 persons are kidnapped or killed, with those who eventually make it back parting with millions of Naira while the Buhari government who accused Jonathan of gross incompetence over the Chibok girls sits pretty, issuing impotent nonsensical press releases.
Perhaps the greatest legacy the Buhari administration will be remembered for, will be its absolute failure in handling the security challenges of the country. True, when he came in, the North East was the centre of insurgency in Nigeria. Entire swats of Borno, Yobe and indeed the entire North East were under the control of the Boko Haram and ISWAP. But turning a blind eye to the calamitous activities of Fulani herdsmen in the North West, the Middle Belt states especially Benue and Plateau states, and indeed all over the country opened the door for the spread of the nefarious activities of terrorists. They latched on the seeming romance between government and the herdsmen to infiltrate the entire country engaging in cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom and making the entire country a hot bed of terrorism. No where and no one is safe any longer except perhaps the President, Governors and those whose security entourage is a moving military battalion.
The president’s notorious nepotism and incompetence have led to sundry groups across the south springing up to try and counter the activities of the rampaging bandits and terrorists. IPOB and ESN have taken over the South East with devastating self immolation. Amotekun in the South West though still nearly comatose after its leader, Sunday Igboho, was smoked out, and was arrested in his bid to escaped the scotch earth moves by the military to fish him out. But indicted fanatics in his government, like Communication and Digital Economy minister, Isa Pantami, who doubles as Aso Rock Imam, are ensconced in the president’s blind eye.
Even corruption which this government promised to checkmate has not met with the fatal blow promised. Instead, perhaps no government in the nation’s history has witnessed the massive looting and corruption which people around the president, have visited on the nation’s treasury. Transparency International, TI Corruption Index shows how abysmal this government effort at fighting corruption has been. From a ranking of the 136 most corrupt country in the world in 2015, Nigeria in 2021 was the number 154 most corrupt country out of 180 countries in the world surveyed. What a plunge and what a shame for a government that came on the wings of pretended transparency!
The most generous of Nigerians will hardly give this government a 35 percent pass mark. History will be very harsh on Buhari’s tenure as President of Nigeria.