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As Buhari Shifts to Gear 2 By Umar Gide
1. There have been five presidential elections in Nigeria since it resumed democracy in the fourth republic. Muhammadu Buhari contested all but one, and lost all but one. That one was the 2015 election won by the APC, a new party formed by several opposition parties including aggrieved members of the hitherto ruling party. The ruling party, sensing the looming threat, perceiving Buhari as the centre of gravity, ferociously attacked the person of Buhari in their campaign media; they observed that Buhari was too old, he promised not to contest again why is he contesting now! After all, he doesn’t even have O level certificate and their military hench men corroborated the allegation. The worst was aired by AIT. The threat blossomed and barely two weeks to elections, it was postponed to six weeks further down the calendar in the pretext of enhancing the security situation in the North-East which just got all time worst in the history of the nation and the Boko Haram insurgency in particular. Eventually, the elections were held and Muhammadu Buhari polled 15,424,921 to defeat incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, who scored 12,853,162 votes. At the end of the exercise on a Wednesday morning, Buhari won 21 states and Jonathan 15 plus the FCT. Orubebe was not very pleased. 2. What kind of a country did Muhammadu Buhari took over? Poor infrastructure, massive corruption that resulted in empty treasury, empty Excess Crude account, colossal internal and external debts and depleted foreign reserve. According the former Minister of Finance, the government was borrowing to pay salary. $20 billion was alleged to be missing from oil revenue. $2.2 billion illegally withdrawn from Excess Crude Oil Accounts of which $1bn supposedly approved by President Jonathan to fund his re election campaign without the knowledge of the National Economic Council. NEITI discovered $11.6 billion was missing from Nigeria LNG Company Dividend Payment. 60 million barrels of oil valued at $13.7bn was stolen under the watch of the NNPC in a period of three years. 60% of $1bn foreign loans obtained from the Chinese was diverted by the Ministry of Finance. Massive scam in weapons and defence procurements, and misuse of 3 trillion naira defence budget since 2011 under the guise of fighting Boko Haram. 3. Meanwhile the boko haram militants had gained control of swathes of territory in and around their home state of Borno, estimated at 50,000 square kilometres (20,000 sq mi). Fourteen local government areas in the North-East were under boko haram. They kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok. The group continued to capture territory in north-eastern and eastern areas of Borno, as well as in Adamawa and Yobe. Boko Haram had attacked seized Baga and the multinational joint task force military base. As the militants advanced the army fled. The death toll of the massacre was estimated by western media to be above 2000. Buhari inherited a Nigerian military that was, in the words of a former British military attaché, “a shadow of what it's reputed to have once been. It's fallen apart....’’ 4. While Mr Jonathan inherited external debt of $3.94 billion Dollars he bequeathed more than $9.3 billion dollars debt to his successor. He also took over foreign reserve of $47. 7 billion (As At December 31st, 2009), he handed over $28.2 billion. Mr Jonathan inherited and excess crude account of $4.5 billion with accruals of over $103 billion from 2010 to 2014. As at 2010, Oil Price was at $89 per barrel, as at 2011, It was $103 per barrel, as at November, 2014 it was $100 per barrel), he blew everything away and grudgingly left only $2 billion. 5. That was the picture and geography of the Nigeria bequeathed to Buhari. There was a very high expectation that this time around the country has elected for itself a no-nonsense man in an election regarded as the most free and fair. His platform was built around his image as a staunch anti-corruption fighter and his incorruptible and honest reputation. As he assumed office, Buhari enforced the implementation of TSA which saw the government getting a firm control on its revenue annoying shylock bankers and bureaucrats in cohorts with kleptomaniac political office holders. As expected, Buhari exposed a monumental $2 billion thievery in the office of the NSA in the infamous weapons scam known as ‘Dasukigate’ with the former NSA, Rt. Col. Sambo Dasuki as the Paymaster. The monthly oil subsidy expenditure suddenly dropped, ghost workers (43,000 so far) were discovered. Government was able to pay salary without borrowing as before. Suddenly power seemed to improve, kleptomaniac civil servants seemed to mind their fingers so as not to get them burnt and fuel queues disappeared! He ordered the relocation of the military command centre to Maiduguri. The military started getting their acts together and Boko haram were made to understand that a new sheriff is in town. The people in and the North, North East in particular can now live in peace. The military continued to push book haram out of their strongholds and started pushing them hard and deep in to sambisa. Presently book haram has been effectively decapitated and their final defeat is imminent within one year of Buhari’s government. 6. However, either due to high expectations of Buhari, what he actually met on ground or both, he was at first perceived to be very slow. It took Buhari five months in office to appoint ministers, further two months to submit his 2016 budget, and the rigmarole that ensued before finally being signed in to law in May this year. While all these transpired Buhari travelled widely from Washington to Cotonou, from pillar to post on various missions and errands and the wailers wailed and kicked. He spent 85 days outside Nigeria. 7. And the economy continued to deteriorate. This is attributed to several factors: if the previous government tenor was a calamity, its last one year was a disaster! Appropriated and unappropriated funds were squandered in re-election campaign and outright theft. Then followed the Buhari’s one year of planning, probing and all what not. In essence there has not been any real capital spending in the last two years! Why would the economy not dwindle? The dwindling oil revenue saw the 3 tiers of government sharing much less than they used to that some of the states couldn’t even pay salaries! Corruption has been so institutionally embroidered in to our system that when you attempt to arrest corruption the GDP tumbles. Because you would find government money being diverted to personal investments in BDCs, real estate, stock market, bank deposits and merchandise. BDCs peak period in the month was when there was subvention! Yes, just as GDP seem to increase after a disaster in affected countries due to extra spending on reconstruction and rehabilitation and if there was no disaster in the subsequent year the GDP drops. 8. The inherited slim foreign reserve, the low price of oil in the international market made the country unable to provide the required forex to import commodities as before. Naira fell to N320 per dollar. Economic downturn hit hard on the masses that resulted in price hike in both essential and non essential commodities. Fuel queues resumed in filling stations. The masses were under the impression Buhari would tackle the subsidy cabal and make fuel available. But it wasn’t to be, as the government decided to remove oil subsidy altogether, shooting pump price to N145 per litre! This was just after another hike on power rate. The government said there was no enough money to pay subsidy and no forex for fuel importers and it doesn’t have the capacity to supply our consumption 100% and so many stories about our existing refineries ranging from their age, capacity to pipeline vandalism. Then the CBN announced a new forex policy which I called ‘devaluation through the backdoor’: the Naira was not devalued to any specific figure per say, but the new policy empowers the interbank market as the general supplier at their own rate determined by ‘market forces’ while the CBN shall still finance ‘critical purchases’; first tier for masses, second tier for cabal? The model is identical to the second tier foreign exchange market system (SFEM) of Babangida as observed by one online newspaper. The doctor who promised to cure cancer ended up amputating! But Fuel is now available in virtually all filling stations and without queue (at the peak of the scarcity, many people have bought pms at more than N200 per liter anyway), except that power is till epileptic despite the spending of trillions of Naira in the last sixteen years and while the crude oil price just began to improve the Avengers are ‘avenging’ the ousting of Mr. Jonathan by Mallam Buhari, jeopardizing oil production from 2.2 million bpd to less than 1.4 million bpd. It was reported that the government is engaging them in discussion, to resume guarding the same pipelines they are now destroying. Very unlike the Buhari we know. 9. Mr Buhari has done well in curtailing and even decimating boko haram but should be vigilant on the Avengers, the herdsmen crisis and ‘commercial’ kidnapping so that not allow them replace boko haram. The war against corruption is another medal for Buhari but he has to work on the judiciary so that it do not scuttle his efforts, as on year in office there has not been any conviction yet on all the corruption cases initiated by his government. The government has formed National Prosecution Coordination Committee (NPCC) which is primarily charged with the handling high profile cases having public interest elements in Nigeria, and the outcome will be one of the key performance indices of this government in the next one year. A ‘beautiful’ budget has been passed and the masses are waiting to see if there is going to be any change from the previous budgets, and the Buhari-carrots better start coming as fast as the Buhari- sticks that have been hitting the Sai-babas! There are palpable fears in some quarters that the bad eggs around Buhari are more than the good ones: Baba should be wary of this as he is personally liable to the actions and inactions of his appointees, advisers and confidantes. And the IMF, the Multinationals, the Western-euro-American- bourgeois capitalists and their lackeys.
10.
While ‘gear’ one has been very slow
with too much ‘noise’ and overworked the engine without achieving
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