As Buhari presidency celebrates modest gains

Deputy Editor, LEON USIGBE, looks back at President Muhammadu Buhari’s first term tenure and points out that he has his work cut for an enduring legacy in the next four years.

 

President Muhammadu Buhari would admit that his first tenure had been tough: tough on him, tough on the Nigerian people and tough on the economy. But he also thinks that there is a turn-around in the horizon. The past few years were particularly unkind to him personally because of the affliction which took a toll on his health. The ailment required him to spend months under medical care abroad. It was a condition that took away valuable time and focus from the business of governance even though Vice President Yemi Osinbajo did his utmost to fill the gap.

It is mystery to many how he survived that critical moment of his life during which time a lot of Nigerians had projected a new dispensation. But like a believer in divine intervention, the president is convinced that the prayers of Nigerians resuscitated him. He seemed to have grown from strength to strength since.

Around the time he was in and out of medical care, the country’s economy suffered its own health mishap, sliding into a recession just when the Buhari administration was settling into office. The president absolved himself of blame. His minders hammered on the fact that the signs had been there all along that the economy would suffer a nose-dive and that, indeed, former Minister of Finance and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr  Okonjo-Iweala, had warned on occasions of the handwriting on the wall.

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However, the Buhari presidency was blamed by many cynics for not being expeditious enough to avert the economic downturn. They cited his delay in constituting his cabinet and having an economic management team in place. Besides, his administration’s implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in one fell swoop, rather than in a staggered form as it was envisaged by the preceding administration, was also questioned.

The sudden mopping up of money from the economy appeared to have unbalanced businesses, with severe consequences for circulation of money. Added to that was the increase in the pump price of the premium motor spirit (PMS), otherwise known as petrol. Things were tough especially for the ordinary Nigerian.

But Buhari was steadfast in the implementation of what he thought was right. He had ridden to power on the crest of fighting corruption, insecurity and reviving the economy and he was sure that, to stem corruption, the TSA implementation was the logical first logical step to pull resources into one central account for the purpose of proper monitoring.

As a safety net, the presidency instituted the Social Investment Programme (SIP) which the government said is the largest and most ambitious social investment programme in Nigeria’s history. Over N470 billion has been released for it. The programme comprises Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP), Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), with sub components, including MarketMoni FarmerMoni and TraderMoni as well as N-Power job scheme. According to the presidency, these programmes have impacted positively on the people.

The government is pleased with the implementation of the TSA, has substantially blocked leakages and made more money available for development purposes, according to government. To complement these gains, the administration, true to Buhari’s promise, has intensified the war against corruption. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) was emboldened by the body language of the president and appeared to find new teeth. Money was recovered voluntarily and per force and public officials realised that there would be consequences for looting public treasury and therefore became more circumspect, eyeing the commonwealth.

The government action did not go unchallenged as the EFCC has been seen in some quarters as a witch hunt tool against political opponents of the president. Critics have pointed to the fact that only members of the opposition are targeted by the anti-graft agency for arrest and prosecution. But against contrary view in some quarters, the Buhari presidency credits its action with curtailing grand corruption which it argued, had eaten into the fabric of public life.

It also praises itself for rolling back the nagging Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East. At the time he was sworn in as president on May 29, 2015, the insurgents were said to be in control of 17 local government areas. The government embarked on re-armament, retraining, refocusing of the military and upping their welfare. It has since proclaimed victory over the terrorists, even though it concedes that they are still capable of guerilla attacks on soft targets.

Taking the gains away from the administration are herdsmen who pulverized parts of the country, especially the North-Central, as well as bandits that have found a new trade in killing and kidnapping for ransom in the North-West. The Buhari presidency’s response is to set up various security operations with presidential orders to flush out the unscrupulous characters.

Also, the government is spending money in trillion to try to reflate the economy. For instance, official figures showed that N1.219 trillion was released for capital expenditure in the 2016 budget and more than N1.476 trillion in the 2017 Budget, making a total of N2.7 trillion (about US$9 billion) in two years.

The administration believes that the investment has enabled the resumption of work on several previously stalled projects, including road, rail and power projects across the country. Savings have shot up at a time of low prices of oil, with external reserves seeing appreciable increase. The Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) is also seeing inflows. Last year, the Federal Government launched the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF) under the management of the NSIA, kicking it off with seed funding of US$1.3 billion.

There is hardly a doubt that progress has been made on the economic front, but much more remains to be done to grow the economy on a consistent basis, if the most recent National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Report is anything to go by. This report indicated that the economy expanded more slowly in the first quarter of 2019 than it did in the last quarter of 2018. However, it also showed that, compared to the first quarter of 2018, with real GDP rate of 18.9 per cent, the Q1 2019 growth rate represented an increase of 0.12 per cent points. Observers think that this is indeed a sign of turnaround on the economic front for the country.

Despite the modest achievements and possibly the laying of a positive foundation for the future, worth celebrating, observers still believe that President Buhari heads into his second tenure with a heavy responsibility to meet the yearnings of Nigerians and would, therefore, have his legacy well served if he manages to surmount the more significant pitfalls of his administration’s first four years.