FG’s verdict on electoral promises

LAST week, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari had fulfilled all the promises it made to Nigerians. Speaking with State House correspondents in Abuja, the minister averred: “As a government, we are happy that we have been able to meet all our promises, all our obligations to Nigerians. And as the year rolls out, we are determined to deliver even more to Nigerians.”

Had the minister made the comment against the  backdrop of verifiable improvements in the daily lives of Nigerians in the last three years, it would have been difficult to challenge its authenticity. However, the fact that the government’s rather adulatory self-assessment came during one of the bleakest yuletide seasons for the country’s workers portrayed it as being detached from and indifferent to the realities faced by the majority of Nigerians as the year 2018 winds up. Instructively, despite the minister’s chest-thumping, he nevertheless hoped that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) as “a very patriotic union…will not do anything that will embarrass the government or do anything that is going to worsen the situation.”

Ahead of the 2015 general election, the campaign manifesto of the then candidate Muhammadu Buhari expressed the belief, rightly in our own view, that the country urgently needed fundamental political reform and improvement in governance. He therefore promised that if elected into office, his administration would, among others, initiate action to amend the constitution with a view to devolving powers, duties and responsibilities to states in order to entrench true federalism and the federal spirit; strengthen the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to reduce or, if possible, eliminate electoral malpractices in Nigerians’ political life; prevent the abuse and misuse of executive, legislative and public offices through greater accountability, transparency, and implementable anti-corruption laws; and strengthen and sanitise the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) as independent entities.

He further promised to restructure governance for a leaner, more efficient and adequately compensated public service sector; promote the effective participation of the private sector for more robust job creation programmes; reform and strengthen the justice system for efficient administration and dispensation of justice with the creation of special courts for accelerated hearing of corruption, drug trafficking, terrorism and similar cases, and urgently address capacity building mechanisms of law-enforcement agents in terms of quantity and quality. He would, he said, also consult and amend the constitution to enable states and local governments to create city, local government and state policing systems based on the resources available at each levels to address the peculiar needs of each community.

• 2019: I’ll still campaign on security, economy, corruption ― Buhari

However, as we noted in our previous editorials, as the country clocked 58 years as an independent entity, the most remarkable fact about it is the widespread poverty among the populace. We drew attention to the statistics by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showing that between January and September 2017, 4.07 million Nigerians became unemployed. The 2018 figures indicated that the economy remains fragile as GDP growth slowed down in the second quarter of this year. The economy grew 1.5 per cent in the quarter, a downturn from the 1.95 per cent growth recorded in the first quarter, yet population growth continues steadily at 2.5 per cent. As acknowledged by the Federal Government itself, no fewer than 80 million Nigerians live in poverty,  and only about 455,857 (0.57 per cent) had been captured in the National Social Register (NSP) used for its National Cash Transfer Programme. Of those captured, just 297,973 (0.37 per cent) of the identified poor actually got the monthly support. In the third quarter, the number of unemployed Nigerians rose by 3.3 million to 20.9 million. Perhaps worst of all, the Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organisation in the United States, rated Nigeria as the poverty capital of the world. If the government has fulfilled all its electoral promises, why is this the case?

In our view, the current agony and despondency in the land could have been averted if the government had not shelved the very first item on its manifesto when it assumed office. As we have said time and again, Nigeria was never conceived by the founding fathers and mothers as an entity with a behemoth and unproductive centre breathing down the necks of the sub-national governments. For Nigerians to experience the kind of development that would cause any government to make the kind of statement made by the Minister of Information without serious challenge, power must be returned to the regions/states from which they were cornered by the central government without any discernible good to the body politic.

Clearly, as things stand, development and progress elude the country, marking out the Information Minister’s assertion as being blatantly false. The government can only make a positive change in the lives of Nigerians by embracing the restructuring imperative, reducing the cost of governance, fighting corruption holistically, obeying court orders and rolling out innovative strategies for managing the economy. Unless and until it is done, development will be a mirage.