GIVEN his man of the people image, it is hard to paint President Muhammadu Buhari as disconnected from the masses he governs.
Time and again, he has proven at the polls that he has an unusual connection with common folk – especially in the northern parts of the country.
At political rallies or public functions, the mere mention of his name throws people into delirious fits.
It is certainly not because he doles out money to them. If anything, he never ceases to remind his followers that he has nothing material to give them. Perhaps his strange charisma lies in his reputation for plain-speaking.
A straight-shooter certainly is a breath of fresh air in an environment where politicians are better known for bending the truth and speaking from both sides of the mouth.
But sometimes, the line that separates bluntness from insensitivity is wafer-thin. Some comments of the president make him appear insensitive and uncaring concerning the day-to-day plight of the average Nigerian. They create the impression of distance from his people’s reality.
The presidency is an artificial environment that separates its occupants from truth. Those who are closest to power often find it extremely difficult to speak truth to power, thinking instead that a fawning servility is the best way to affirm loyalty to their principal.
Even the most well-meaning of leaders have been negatively affected by prolonged stay in such an environment. Could the president be coming down with a dose of ‘Aso Rocktivitis?’
One recent comment of Buhari that makes you wonder if he’s drifting out of touch concerns what to do about the thousands of failed federal roads across the country.
They are to be found in major cities and are the arteries that connect the states. While some like the Lagos-Ibadan and Lagos-Abeokuta expressways have started receiving attention, lots more are abandoned in their sorry state with little hope of rehabilitation in the horizon.
Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Fashola, at a recent interaction with a House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee on Abandoned Federal Government Projects, predictably faced questions about the condition of roads.
He gave an answer that was partly revealing but ultimately depressing. The summary was that weighed down by a mountain of debts and claims by state governors, Buhari had virtually drawn a line in the sand.
“Tell them not to fix my roads again if they’re going to claim compensation. If you want to fix it and not ask for compensation, send me what you want to do. But if you want compensation, go and mind your business while I mind my business. This is because I have inherited enough debts,” he quoted the president as saying.
He reiterated this position at another National Assembly encounter related to defence of the allocation to his ministry in the 2020 budget.
To his credit, Buhari did pay off the claims for refunds that he met when he assumed office. Fashola confirmed that out of a demand for N1 trillion, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) certified only N454 billion – the bulk of which has been paid to the claimants.
However, the way forward is now more complex with the president insisting he wouldn’t take on additional debt even when the states are doing him a favour.
These last few weeks in Lagos, millions of commuters have had a torrid time trapped for hours in monster traffic jams largely caused by cavernous potholes. The hapless passenger who has to suffer this for days going and coming from work doesn’t know whether the road he’s grounded on is federal or state-owned.
They can’t relate to the game-playing that separates political assets and responsibilities but doesn’t address their pain. Abuja is thousands of kilometers away, but there is a governor in the theatre of their suffering – a handy target for venting their frustrations.
In better times, one or two governors who presided over states with healthy finances, took the position that they would fix the roads – even if the federal government refuses to pay back. Their argument was that they had to act because their people were the ones using the roads.
Unfortunately, the times are hard and many states are in dire straits. Not too many can afford to be that generous anymore – not even the so-called buoyant ones – given the pressure on their finances by competing needs.
It is certainly not fair to ask a governor who used state resources to deal with a federal problem in his territory not to ask for a refund.
The president reportedly said if you are thinking of asking for your money back, just leave ‘my roads’ alone. That position suggests that the federal government has the capacity to carry the burden. We know it doesn’t.
Nigeria doesn’t have enough right now to fund its institutions and fix critical infrastructure. Allocation for the Works and Housing ministry in the 2020 budget is a trifling N262 billion. This, as Fashola has pointed out, cannot even clear the debts on ground, not to talk of initiating new projects.
Lack of funds is partly why federal roads across the country are the way they are. Out of desperation states are forced to step in because people cannot move and businesses are suffering. For as long as this persists, the economy will suffer – and that is elementary.
If states are offering to help, it is wrongheaded to discourage or frustrate them.
If the new policy is truly just about the debt burden then there’s a way around it. It is something that can be addressed gradually as the country’s finances improve. After all, a lot of the refunds made by Buhari were racked up under the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Like most things Nigerian, there is the fear the some put up bogus claims in a bid to rip off the government. But this can be easily addressed by making the process so rigorous that it deflates any padding.
Even with the creative solutions that this government has come up with like the Sukuk bonds, it still doesn’t have enough to keep the roads in the shape that allows people and goods to move around seamlessly.
The president needs all the help he can get; he needs all the bright ideas people can think up to address the road decay. What he doesn’t need is wrongheaded posturing that only makes life worse for the people whose cause he claims to champion.
Leave a Reply