On Friday, May 29, 2015, thousands of Nigerians gathered at Eagles Square, Abuja, as millions more followed on television to watch their new President, Major General Muhammadu (retd.), take the oath of office.
Supporters chanted, “Mai gaskiya! (meaning Man of truth) Sai Baba! Sai Buhari!” The sheer fanfare and jubilation on the streets nationwide showed how much confidence and trust Nigerians had in the 72-year-old, tall, slender former Head of State from Daura, Northwest Nigeria.
Having contested the Presidency and failed thrice, Buhari was now inheriting a fragile economy, a heavily polarized state and would fight to reclaim swaths of ungoverned territory from Boko Haram’s grip. The terrorists did not seize lands alone. Many of the 276 schoolgirls abducted from their school in Chibok a few years earlier were still held captive. Buhari promised to set them free.
On inauguration day, he stood as tall as his reputation; a no-nonsense leader poised to uproot deep-seated corruption, crush the Boko Haram insurgency, restore security and revamp Africa’s largest economy.
These expectations were neither arbitrary nor thrust upon him. They were only a result of his promises; promises of change, hope and opportunity for citizens whom, he said, have endured 16 years of bad governance under the Peoples Democratic Party.
After emerging as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress that Thursday night of December 11, 2014, Buhari pledged to “govern Nigeria honestly under the constitution, strive to secure the country and efficiently manage the economy, attack poverty through shared economic growth, attack corruption through the impartial application of the law, tolerate no religious, regional, economic or gender bias in government, return Nigeria into a position of international respect through patriotic foreign policy and to choose the best Nigerians for the right jobs.”
In the weeks that followed, he traversed the country, rehashing this proposal to Nigerians in various forms, eventually garnering enough votes to defeat the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, in the presidential elections of February 2015.
If Buhari had the will to better Nigeria, now he had all the power to do so. But did he?
The first signs of trouble began when the new administration had not convened a functioning cabinet 100 days after assuming office. The months-long delay earned Buhari the moniker “Baba go slow.” This slow start would herald many more woes.
For the first time in 25 years, Nigeria’s economy contracted 1.5 per cent and went into recession in the second quarter of 2016. The National Bureau of Statistics said the sharp fall was due to plummeting oil revenues and a shortage of hard currency.
“This contraction reflects a difficult year for Nigeria, which included weaker inflation-induced consumption demand, an increase in pipeline vandalism, significantly reduced foreign reserves and a concomitantly weaker currency,” the NBS said in a report.
Months prior, oil production, Nigeria’s economic mainstay, fell to 1.833 million barrels daily from 2.13 million bpd in 2015 as militant attacks skyrocketed in the oil-rich Niger Delta.
Although the government weathered through, the country slipped into another recession in 2020, its second in just five years.
In November 2022, the World Bank revealed that development progress in Nigeria had stagnated since 2015 when Buhari took office as President.
Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, it’s not all zeros for Buhari.
He said while the regime revamped part of the railway sector, it performed poorly in the general management of the economy.
“When it comes to economic issues, we cannot score the President any average of good. He has not done well. But he has done well in the area of rail and transport infrastructure.
“However, in the general management of the economy, he has not done well. The rate of unemployment is still very high. We are still not far from being the poverty capital of the world, except that we traded places with India. We have entered into a debt trap. And we are still looking for more loans while we use 80 per cent of our revenue to service debts. It’s not good enough.”
When contacted for comments, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, referred our correspondent to the Presidency’s eight-year scorecard for the Buhari regime.
There, the Presidency argued that Buhari launched the National Social Investment Programme, which contains over 46 million persons from over 11 million poor and vulnerable households. Out of these, it said two million poor and vulnerable Nigerian households currently benefit from the Conditional Cash Transfer programme, which pays a bimonthly stipend of N10,000 per household.
It said the regime also implemented the Treasury Single Account and prioritised the deployment of the Bank Verification Number and the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System to curb corruption in the civil service as part of wide-ranging reforms. (The PUNCH)
