Politics

Seven years after, what is Buhari’s swan song?

With just one year remaining for his administration, LEON USIGBE reviews aspects of President Muhammadu Buhari’s performance in office so far.

After seven years in office, President Muhammadu Buhari has entered the home stretch, intent on using the ultimate year to cement his legacy. He would concede that it has been a struggle, a rough ride induced by burgeoning socio-political problems that seemed to have defied all solutions – a sluggish economy, unprecedented inflation, mounting insecurity in the form of Boko Haram insurgents compounded by the reign of terror unleashed on hapless citizens by a hydra-headed banditry, violent secessionist agitators, ransom-demanding kidnappers, among others.

There were two economic recessions. Then came the Covid-19 pandemic and its negative consequences on the global economy. Therefore, as he saunters into the last lap of his administration, when he looks back, observers say Buhari may be wondering whether his time at the helms has been worth the while for both himself and Nigerians. Perhaps, in his swan song, he would tell himself with confidence that he has done his best to turn things around and allow posterity to award the marks.

The President came into office as president in 2015 raising the expectations of Nigerians in what was encapsulated in his “Change Agenda.” It was a messianic introduction to the polity that was expected to alter the poor narrative of the performance of the preceding administration in the areas of anti-corruption, economy, insecurity and infrastructure development. Fundamental to this agenda was his yearning to mend the nation’s broken politics by instituting urgent reforms to improve governance, engender more transparency, accountability and modernizing decaying infrastructure. But how far has he gone to achieving that?

In the last seven years, his administration has superintended the passage of new laws or amendment including the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill, 2022, Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Bill, 2022, Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Bill, 2022, Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Bill, 2022, Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act, 1993 (Amendment) Act, 2019, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, AMCON (Amendment) Acts of 2019 and 2021, Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) Bill, establishing the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, Banks and Other Financial Institutions Act (BOFIA) 2020, Finance Act 2019 and 2020, among others. These are in addition to pioneering the use of Executive Orders to promote transparency and efficiency in the business environment.

Critics of the President like to cite the deteriorating state of security and ever rising cost of living in the country. But they seem to admit that the administration achievements in the area of infrastructure development have been unparalleled in Nigeria’s recent history. In 2021, with initial seed Capital of N1 Trillion, President Buhari set up the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp), which is now overseeing what the government regards as the biggest and most ambitious federal infrastructure programme since Nigeria’s Independence. Its goal is “to catalyse and accelerate investment into Nigeria’s infrastructure sector by originating, structuring, executing and managing end-to-end bankable projects in that space.” Now completed and commissioned are the 156km Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge Rail, 8.72km extension to Lagos-Ibadan Rail Line, to Lagos Port Complex, 186km Abuja-Kaduna Standard Gauge Rail Line, and 327km Itakpe-Warri Standard Gauge Rail, among others. Construction has commenced on others.

Under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), the administration has invested over one billion dollars in three flagship projects: Lagos-badan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Expressway. This is apart from others that are implemented under the Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme that allows companies that are willing and able to spend their own funds on constructing critical roads, to recover their construction costs by paying reduced taxes, over a period of time. Among other development initiatives for the ports sector, the administration also completed new terminals for International Airports in Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Port Harcourt; completed new runways for the Abuja and Enugu International Airports.

Despite coming from the military background, President Buhari has found insecurity the hardest nut to crack. There is a resurgence of Boko Haram, which he thought had been pushed out of the territories they occupied. Bandits that are now re-christened terrorists have fanned out onto the North West and North Central, pulverizing communities in their wake. Worse still, they have acquired the capability to take down military jets, tear down train tracks and seizing high-valued victims as spoils. Elements of the proscribed Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) have become more vicious in the South East, unleashing terror on security personnel, government establishments and citizens who may not cooperate with their criminal agenda. These factors have combined to diminish the efforts by the Buhari administration to fulfil his cardinal promise of securing the country.

However, the administration has not relented in the last seven years in its bid to roll back the dangerous outlaws. Towards this, Operation Desert Sanity (North East, Operation Hadarin Daji (Northwest), Operation Sharan Daji (North West), Operation Safe Haven (North Central), Operation Whirl Stroke (North Central), Operation Delta Safe (South South), Operation Dakatar Da Barawo (South South) were put in operation.

The Nigerian Air Force has acquired 38 brand new aircrafts since Buhari assumed office in 2015 and 36 more are awaiting delivery. The Nigerian Navy has acquired more than 400 new platforms within the period. The Community Policing Initiative has also now been enshrined into the Police Act, 2020. So far, about 25,000 Community Policing Officers (Constabularies) have been trained to serve as liaisons between the Police and their local communities, and to assist in intelligence-gathering. The President also approved the recruitment of 40,000 new police officers for a more effective policing coverage of the country.

Observers say these and more, inspire the hope that Buhari may yet be able to deliver on the security promise as he winds down. In fact, the Global Terrorism Index 2022, recently reported that deaths caused by Boko Haram dropped by 92% from 2,131 in 2015 to 178 in 2021 due to Nigeria’s “successful counterinsurgency operations targeting Boko Haram.” The United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres also acknowledged this much when he said during his visit to the North-East in May: “Now, the Borno State I have heard about… was a Borno State of terrorism, of violence, of displacement, of despair. This is not the Borno that I found today. The Borno I found today is a Borno of hope. It’s a Borno with future…”

Buhari’s efforts to revive the economy have seen the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) netting an inflow of US$2 billion from his administration; the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) completed a revision of the list of activities that can benefit from Nigeria’s Pioneer Status Incentive, which grants beneficiary companies a 3 to 5-year tax holiday. The administration pulled off a January-December Federal Budget cycle; it introduced the annual Finance (Reform) Bills to accompany the annual Federal Appropriation Bill; it launched a Visa-on-Arrival Policy, as part of Ease of Doing Business Reforms.

To help the economies of the sub-national, the Buhari administration extended more than N2 trillion in bailout packages to state governments, to enable them to meet their salary and pension obligations, especially in the face of dwindling oil revenues in the first three years of the administration. More than N700 billion for Federal Road projects embarked upon by state governments were refunded to them while the Debts Management Office (DMO) restructured Commercial Bank loans to 23 states with a total value of N575.516 billion to reduce their debt service burden.

Under the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP), President Buhari authorized the release of N5billion bailout fund for the Aviation industry shared among seven airlines and ground crews. The Covid-19 Response saw a three-month repayment moratorium for all Social Investment Programme microcredit loans including TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni. The National Social Register (official database for implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer programme) was also expanded by one million additional households. Pundits say power, agriculture, housing, digital economy, solid minerals, education, health among others were also positively impacted by policies initiated by the administration.

However, much remains to be done. With just one year left to mop up, Buhari will be in a race against time to etch himself in the history of Nigeria as one president, who came, despite all odds, rallied the nation to a time of peace, economic prosperity and progress.

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