President Muhammadu Buhari’s second tenure kicked off Wednesday last week. However, the problems and challenges for which Nigerians expect him to find solutions in the next four years are not different from the ones he was saddled with when he first assumed office four years ago, writes Akani Alaka.
Soon after he was sworn in for his first term of office on 29, May 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari had, in an elaborate speech at the Eagle Square, Abuja, spoken eloquently about his plans for the country. The president’s party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, had campaigned on a slogan of ‘change,’ an indication that it was coming to government to do things differently from what happened in the 16 years the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was in power.
The president had in the speech identified security, economy and anti-corruption war, as the three national afflictions his administration would focus on in its four years tenure. That four-year tenure ended last week Wednesday and the president has been sworn in for a second term.
Chest thumping
Although, he did not say anything when he took the oath of office, the president had in his closing remarks at the valedictory session for members of his cabinet about two weeks ago, listed the ‘successes’ recorded by him and members of his administration in the first term to include liberation of locals in Borno State from Boko Haram rule, revival of the agrarian economy through food security and economic diversification agenda of the administration and development of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, which led Nigeria exiting its worst recession in decades.
He also identified, as among the successes of his administration, the introduction of the social investment programme, which he claimed had enhanced livelihoods of millions of Nigerians as well as settling outstanding pensions while supporting state governments to meet their salary arrears.
President Buhari also claimed in the valedictory remark that his government had embarked on the most ambitious road, rail and airport rehabilitation ever witnessed in the history of Nigeria.
“I want to put on record, that your achievements in the last three and a half years have guaranteed your position in the history books of this nation. You have certainly built the foundations for an improved economy and a more purposeful government,” the president told the ministers.
Also, aides of the president have been touting Buhari’s success at winning a second term of four years, as indication that he had fulfilled his promises to Nigerians.
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Worsening security challenges
There is no doubt that the government has recorded some achievements in the three areas of security, economic revitalisation and anti-corruption war listed by Buhari when he set out in 2015. But analysts told The Nigerian Xpress that the president’s achievements amounted to only ‘scratching the surface’, as promise of ‘change’ of his administration remains unrealised when the past four years of Buhari’s administration is subjected to critical analysis. It is true that the president inherited the problem of Boko Haram insurgency when he took over the government in 2015 but many Nigerians had believed that as a former General, he would rise up to the challenge of tackling the insurgency, as he promised during the campaign before he was elected.
While many will agree that the government has been able to confine the insurgents to the north eastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, the fact is that Nigeria is still losing lives, limbs and property to the terrorists, who now like to be addressed as the Islamic State of West Africa, ISWAP. Scores of military personnel and weapons have been lost to Boko Haram attack on military bases like Geidam, Yobe State; Banki, Mararrabar Kimba and Gubio since the beginning of the year.
In their hit and run campaign, the terrorists have also continued to burn down villages while abducting villagers in their homes and in their farms.
“As the cropping season sets in; farmers could not work in the farms now for fear of the insurgents’ attacks. Many farmers were attacked and killed during the dry season activity in various farming communities on the outskirts of Maiduguri and other local government areas,” Malam Ali Bukar, a beans grower at Keyamla plantation fields in Jere and Mafa Local Government Area of Borno State said in an interview last week.
He alleged that the insurgents had recently coordinated attacks against farmers and loggers, thus forcing most of them to abandon their farmlands.
The insecurity problems of Boko Haram have been compounded by bandits, who seemed to be running amok without let or hindrance in the North-west. On a visit to Zamfara State about two weeks ago on the instruction of the president, the Minister of Interior, retired Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, was regaled with stories of atrocities of the bandits by traditional and the community leaders.
Alhaji Attahiru Ahmad, Chairman, Zamfara Council of Chiefs and Emir of Anka, told the minister that apart from money, the bandits now demand for foodstuffs, recharge cards and other necessities, as ransom from their victims.
Sani Galadima, the Vice Chairman of Shinkafi Local Government, told the minister that six members of the ‘Civilian JTF’, a local vigilance group set up to protect the villagers from bandits, were attacked and killed two days before his visit.
“Even yesterday (Sunday), these bandits sent a letter to the district head of Shinkafi town, saying that they were coming to attack the town. This ugly situation is very disheartening; every day we pay millions of naira in ransom to these bandits. We really need the government’s urgent support to end this problem. Our women also suffer a lot (because) the bandits attack communities and abduct ladies from their parents’ homes. People no longer sleep with their two eyes closed in the night in Shinkafi LGA,” he said.
Galadima regretted that though the villagers had made information available to security agencies on the location of the bandits, the security operatives had not been able to go there to confront them.
“We are hoping that with this visit, this problem will come to an end,” Galadima said while pointing out to the minister that at least 98 communities had been abandoned in the local government, as a result of assaults from bandits.
While reports of mass slaughter and kidnappings by the bandits used to be from Zamfara State, the criminals seem to have shifted their base to the president’s home state of Katsina in the past few weeks. The bandits, who spared no one in their murderous campaign, grabbed media headlines when some weeks ago they kidnapped the traditional ruler of Daura, the president’s home town.
The Magajin Garin Daura, who was kidnapped by daredevil armed men, who swooped on his residence about 7pm, is still in the custody of the abductors many weeks after. And while the president was celebrating his inauguration on Wednesday, there was no such celebration in Katsina, as Governor Aminu Masari was forced to make the affair low key, following the slaughter of scores of villagers by the bandits.
The same situation is replicated in other states of the North-west, including Kaduna where Kajuru Local Government and the Birnin Gwari areas have witnessed slaughter of many innocent souls.
The states in the South are battling the problems of cultists and kidnappers. There are reports of gory killings with the heads of the victims being cut off in Rivers State and mass kidnappings and killings of passengers on the East-West road that traverse the South-South states. Militants recently kidnapped four top officials of National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, who were released after payment of ransom. Medical doctors in some states in the region have threatened to withdraw their services in recent times, following relentless kidnapping of their members.
Incidents of kidnappings carried out by local criminals have been reported across the South-west. But the recent abduction of an orthopedic surgeon at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Prof Olayinka Adegbehingbe, on the Ife-Ibadan expressway, has raised fears that the much dreaded Fulani gangs, using the cover of the forest to carry on kidnappings, may have infiltrated the region. This was confirmed by the university professor, who told journalists that his abductors were Fulani herdsmen who allowed him to go after receiving a ransom of N5.045 million.
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‘Security on my mind’
At a meeting with the president last week, members of the Northern Governors Forum, led by its outgoing chairman, Kashim Shettima, while noting that there had been some gains in the battle against Boko Haram, warned that armed banditry had become a dangerous threat that must be tackled with all the swiftness he can summon.
“The security of the country is on my mind 24 hours of the day. I get daily and weekly situation reports. I have listened to your brief. I will look into your recommendations. I am acutely aware of the situation, but I have learnt more today,” the president said while assuring the governors that he would not let the country down.
Flagging war
On the anti-corruption war, the Buhari administration had in the past four years tried to institutionalise the process of fight against graft through the implementation of initiatives like the Treasury Single Account, the whistle-blowing policy and the establishment of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption.
The acting Chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, at an event in February in 2019 said the agency had recovered over N527 billion, $53 million and £122, 89 through the whistle-blowing policy initiated in December 2016.
But, in spite of the initiatives, corruption still continues to constitute big obstacles to the country’s socio-economic development. Apart from systematic corruption involved in processes like contracts awards, vehicle licences, passports, clearing of goods at the ports, police operations and recruitment, which have persisted, top officials of the Buhari government have also been smeared with various corrupt allegations.
The United States Department of State had in a report in 2018 noted that impunity still thrives to the extent “that it allows officials to engage in corrupt practices with a sense of exemption from punishment,” under the Buhari government. The situation has been compounded by slow prosecution of corruption cases.
At a recent round-table organised by the PACAC, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo agreed that the Buhari administration has not won the war against corruption. “We are not even slightly deluded into thinking that we have won the battle, certainly not,” the vice president, who said what the administration focused on in its first tenure, was to stop the brazen looting of public treasury.
“We are now poised to deal with the wider problem of systemic corruption, especially where the average person interacts with government,” he said.
Nigerians will wait to see how the Buhari government will deliver on this promise in the next four years.
Sustainable economic growth
While the Buhari government has been thumping its chest about its success in bringing the country out of recession, analysts contended that the economic growth, which the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, put at about two per cent for the first quarter of 2019, is too low to reduce the number of Nigerians under poverty.
According to them, the country has to grow its economy at eight per cent annually to reduce poverty, unemployment and underemployment. Growing the economy is also necessary to generate revenue that will help the country reduce its dependence on loans. “Nigeria’s growth at two per cent is below population growth rate and employment requirements. Therefore, we are in a vicious cycle of poverty,” an economist and Chief Executive Officer, Financial Derivatives Company Limited, Bismarck Rewane, said.
He added that building strong institutions is key for Nigeria to achieve the desired economic growth.
“The solution is that we have to increase the injection and investment levels into the economy; this is the only way to increase output and employment. We have to increase the level of confidence to attract investments.
“The level of confidence is a function of what you do rather than what you say. Policy makers have to be more collaborative; they need to be more honest than being ambivalent and more than anything else, we have to align the goals of government, local and foreign investors, as what should be the preoccupation of the Buhari government in the next four years,” he recommended.
