President Buhari: Slowly Grinding Nigeria Forward Or Just Slowly Doing Nothing?

Editor’s note: To find balance between those who say Muhammadu Buhari is moving too slow and those who tend to shower him in praise just a little over one month since he has taken the seat, the Naij.com columnist Japheth Omojuwa makes an assessment of the President Buhari-led administration’s successes and slip-ups.

This article expresses the author’s opinion only. The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Naij.com or its editors.

Story highlights:

—  Six weeks into the new administration, it is still too early to evaluate the Buhari-led administration, but enough to tell if they are moving in the right direction

— President Buhari’s administration assessed on the grounds of national security, foreign reserve, fuel supply, auditing of the ministries, cutting the costs of governance and making money

— “Each move of the administration must be contextualized against the immediate and long-term effects,” Omojuwa says

Too early?

President Buhari has been referred to as “Baba Go Slow” by a reputable international media platform. That landed well with those who always looked for an opportunity to scream “We told you so!” in apparent reference to their fact that Buhari was not the best candidate for Nigeria. We have since crossed that bridge of “who is the better candidate between Muhammadu Buhari or Goodluck Jonathan,”  but you must agree that those who decided to stay in the election battle mode have a given right under the constitution to continue to live in that immediate past.

This is not about some people’s emotional attachment to what might have been, but a clear attempt at reviewing the Buhari administration over the last six weeks of its inception.

Really and truly, six weeks is too short a time to take stock of a president’s reign; but, seeing as most people are desperate to score the administration, it would be okay for us to at least help them keep score. This is of course not about scoring the administration, in terms of whether or not it is doing well so far, but about outlining some of its moves against the accusations of “nothing is happening.”

Progress in the first six weeks

What concerns national security, things have indeed gotten worse against the relative calm of the last few weeks of the Jonathan administration. Boko Haram has been on rampage, and we have lost some 600 people to the insurgents. No matter what the government’s excuses are, it is unacceptable. The government needs to activate its agenda against terrorism. Long-term strategies must be met with immediate term exigencies. The engagement with the G7, where Nigeria played a respectable part in Germany, counts for something, but the real deal would be the results such an engagement brings to bear in the fight against terrorism. One hopes that the latest sacking of the service chiefs is in line with the government’s attempt to refocus the fight against terrorism.

There is a knife that cuts both ends of the divide one must highlight. What you must note at all times is this: Buhari’s detractors will always be quick to point out his failings, Buhari’s supporters will always be quick to point out his successes, but what must matter to you in the end if you care about Nigeria’s sustainable progress is to look beneath the noise and see what really should count for progress and what should not mutatis mutandis failure.

The foreign reserve has gone up a notch over the last six weeks. The last administration left the foreign reserve at the lowest it had been for a decade but the numbers have since picked up a couple billion dollars. That is refreshing and worthy of note but it means nothing really. The long-term status of the foreign reserve matters more than periodic perturbations.

Fuel supplies have been a critical issue in Nigeria, and fuel scarcity was so prevalent towards the end of the last administration that scarcity indeed became the normal state of things. The fuel subsidy scam of 2011 remains the biggest heist in recent memory and most of it was caused by the granting of importation licenses to briefcase companies who were allegedly aligned to the last administration, with the 2011 elections in mind. There were 128 marketers at the time, most of them companies that were only running inside the briefcases of government cronies. The heist apart, the increased number of charlatan marketers also resulted in intermittent scarcity over the years. That is expected to change for the better with the Buhari government having now cut away the briefcase companies from the importation process. Only twenty-nine companies will import fuel this quarter against the forty-three that did last quarter. This does not solve the problem entirely, but it is a right step in the right direction. What the government has simply done is clean the corruption stable in anticipation of what one hopes will be the complete reregulation of the downstream sector. The refineries are expected to be in operation soon, so the conditions for deregulation are very much in place now. The most important condition is the president’s obvious intolerance for corruption and corrupt people. There is a movement forward here but it would matter more if that movement ends with government’s ending of fossil fuel subsidies. The resources can be better channeled into critical sectors like education and agriculture.

The current auditing of the ministries before the appointment of ministers is a step in the right direction. Another good step would be the reduction of the ministries. We really must do more than verbal commitments to the reduction in the size of government; such statements must be met with credible action. The governments of Kaduna and Kano have already shown some direction on that front by reducing the number of ministries drastically, and the governors, along with some of their conterparts who later followed suit, cutting their salaries. The president and the vice president have since announced similar cuts, but such will not be far reaching if we do not reduce the number of government ministries and agencies.

The current administration’s making the money from liquefied natural gas available was reported to be the first time that would happen in over two decades, according to House of Representative member, Hon. Dr. Abdulmumin Jibrin. On his part, Yusuf Tuggar, a chieftain of the APC, stated that previous earnings from NLNG were deposited into a secret Morgan Chase account in Chicago, USA. There are already calls for President Buhari to probe this and other claims on what the immediate past administration did with earnings from NLNG.

Is the Buhari government moving in the right direction?

As you would see, there is a lot to do. It is too early for anyone to praise or knock the new government, but what is never early or late is to see the direction of the government. Each move of the administration must be contextualized against the immediate and long-term effects. That is what a citizen who cares more about the country than the government would look at. That is what those who know the interest of Nigeria is above that of those who wished they had won the last elections would look at. In the end, sustainable progress is not a thing about quick wins; it is a thing about reforms that help shape the country’s prosperous future.

Japheth Omojuwa

Japheth Omojuwa is a renowned Nigerian social media expert, columnist and Naij.com contributor.

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