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By Emman Ovuakporie
Today officially marks five years since President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in, with fanfare and great expectations, as President of Nigeria. That is taking into account his first four year tenure and the one year since he was re-elected and sworn in.
In 2015 when the change mantra ensured victory for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Nigerians were giddy with expectations from the Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Buhari and his party, APC, had built their campaign on the change mantra. The change was canvassed and associated with a better life for all Nigerians in the six geopolitical zones of the country.
But Nigerians quickly realized that Buhari was just one man, a new-be politician and that he needed intellect, strategic focus and people to help champion his ideals he campaigned on. They had thought he had a master plan to turn around theirs and the nation’s fortune. But this dream was set burst from the very first six months when it became apparent the President and his party were grossly unprepared to run a government, not to mention having a strategic thrust to turn the economy around.
After six wasted months, in his first tenure, He appointed a lackluster set of super ministers, merged ministries and took the economy notches lower than he met it in a curious attempt, seemingly, to enable Nigeria float and put smiles on the faces of Nigerians.
Five years down the line, the results are bare and Nigerians are not smiling but suffering as the situation has snowballed into a dangerous slope.
The questions that have been begging for answers since the emergence of President Buhari include: what has happened to his so called three point agenda of combating insecurity, the economy and social infrastructures? What has happened to poverty, what is the inflation rate, what has happened to unemployment,what has happened to insecurity, what has changed in the power sector and finally what has happened to freedom of speech?
Buhari’s resolve to fight corruption, insecurity and unemployment is pinned on the mindset that the economy would automatically stabilise, meet the needs of the citizenry and develop the necessary resilience to withstand international turbulence if the aforesaid 3-point agenda is well pursued. So how has the Buhari-led government fared on his own tripod (Fight Corruption, Insecurity, unemployment)?
Insecurity:
On assumption of office in 2015, the first litmus test for Buhari on security is to ensure release of over 200 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno state who were kidnapped by the Boko Haram members.
To a large extent, the assignment given to Buhari on fixing Nigeria’s pervading insecurity at the said time extends to him totally silencing Boko Haram insurgents as stressed in his presidential campaigns, coupled with his military background.
Shortly after he was sworn in, Buhari relocated the country’s military command from Abuja to Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram. There were some quick gains at the beginning as the military recovered some lost territories and the Buhari-led government also secured release of 86 Chibok girls.
But, five years later, Boko Haram members have regrouped and carried out more deadly attacks, overrunning military bases and killing security operatives.
In fact, critics have said the Buhari led administration appears to be at ease over similar abduction of citizens in the north, silence over the remaining 112 Chibok girl’s lost in Boko Haram’s radar and the general insecurity across Nigeria.
Some of the similar abductions that raised fears that Buhari may not be the messiah that will ensure safety of lives and property in Nigeria include, Leah Sharibu, Alice Ngaddah, Grace Taku, others who are still in Boko Haram’s dungeon.
Worse still, there are new dimension of threats to Nigeria’s security under Buhari’s watch. One of such is Herder-farmer clashes which erupted across some central states, leading to the killing of hundreds and displacement of thousands, another is spate of kidnappings in the country.
Another failure: Corruption remains undying in Nigeria
Corruption, another strong premise to judge the performance of the Buhari-led government has continued to be a bane to Nigeria’s development. As at 2019, Nigeria ranked 144 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index.
Although, Buhari’s anti-corruption commission, other agents have had loads of prosecution of alleged corrupt individuals and politicians, the number of convictions recorded is extremely low.
Most of the prosecutions have ended as mere media trial, today corruption charges against some public officials and politicians have been put on hold as most of the accuses have crossed carpeted to Buhari’s part, APC.
Hence, the opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) labelled Buhari’s administration as one which grants amnesty to politicians who join the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Corruption has remained the norm and there’s no visible sign that things will improve from what was in vogue before the change government.
Rising unemployment rate; economic woes; threats to press freedom
Nigeria has still not recovered from the 2016 recession that sent more than 13 million people into unemployment.
Unemployment has steadily risen in the last five years and the cost of survival is on a daily on the downward trend.
Recent Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reveal that Nigeria’s inflation rate increased by 12.34% (year-on-year) in April 2020. This is 0.08% higher than the rate of 12.26% recorded in March 2020 and the highest rise since April 2018.
The bigger problem is the unsteadiness of Nigeria’s – a sign of a struggling economy, causing prices to fluctuate, and unemployment and poverty to increase.
Nigeria’s economy – a so-called “mixed economy”, which means the market economy is at least in part regulated by the state – is not entirely in bad shape, though. More than half of its GDP is generated by the services sector, namely telecommunications and finances, and the country derives a significant share of its state revenues from oil.
Before taking office in 2015, Buhari campaigned on a promise of delivering annual economic growth of about 10 percent annually. But the realities of global oil markets collided with that pledge.
Nigeria is Africa’s top oil producer. Like many petroleum-rich states, it depends heavily on oil for foreign currency and income and has failed to sufficiently diversify its economy to guard against price shocks as the world is threatened with Covid-19 pandemic.
For Nigeria, World Bank has projected the second coming of a recession which will be “much more pronounced” than in 2016 and potentially may be the country’s worst financial crisis in four decades.
On Freedom of Speech: Nigeria is one of West Africa’s “most dangerous and difficult countries for journalists,” an international media watchdog has said.
Freedom of speech is in the doldrum because now for insulting a minister you are detained for 17days and charged to court.
In its 2020 annual World Press Freedom Index, RSF ranked Nigeria 115 out of 180 countries, in which one is considered the freest.