Buhari’s first year started very slowly, but it is time to pick up momentum
One thing about governance is that time can mock the man of action. It is the one resource that the man in the arena, whether president or governor or even a local government chief, cannot take back no matter his powers. President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in a year ago today in a blaze of enthusiasm. He gave an emphatic, if sometimes rambling, inaugural speech against the backdrop of a profligate era of inept leadership.
With his austere image strengthened by a past of strict soldiery, many expected the Buhari era to take off with a democratic version of a military dispatch. But what happened was a temporising that affected not only the appointment of his personal staff but also the main cabinet.
However, his administration showed great strength and resolve on two fronts. The first was in the fight against the Islamic insurgents known as Boko Haram. No doubt, he saw it as a defining task, and quickly he reorganised the top brass of the Nigerian military and turned Maiduguri as the command centre in the all-important task. Within a few months, the swagger of the militants turned into a puny retreat. No more the perennial saga of bombs touching off in multiple locations within hours. They roared from village to village, city to city and their flags waved imperiously as though the Nigerian state was in a frenzy of shrinking.
The states of Yobe and Borno were constant targets, and life was not only precarious for subaltern Nigerians, but the state house in Maiduguri was only within a few miles of falling to the pious renegades. That was the danger that confronted the Nigerian state and also the early days of the Buhari administration. So, it was no mean task that today, confidence has returned to much of the state. The Boko Haram sect has retracted into a ragtag military outfit with no swath of Nigerian territory it can smother.
For all symbolic significance, one of the Chibok girls walked into freedom recently even if it had little to do with the present administration solid efforts. It must be noted though that, despite the pathos and histrionics of the Chibok girls narrative, President Buhari, who has jetted to quite a few countries from China to the United States, has not stepped on the soil of Borno State, no less the ambience of Chibok.
The other area of emphasis has been his war on corruption. With the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission fortified under Ibrahim Magu, a leadership hewn from Buhari’s own world, President Buhari has effectively achieved two principal objectives. One, he has imbued the war on corruption with much-needed draft of public credibility. Before then, the EFCC had waxed into a coven for political brinkmanship and vengefulness. It had also become a moral cesspool, guilty of its own righteous rage.
Two, the EFCC has unveiled to the surprise of many Nigerians, a litany of corrupt impunity, the top men of the Jonathan administration taking advantage of a weak and ineffectual leader to loot the treasury. It turned out, too, that the war against Boko Haram was an underbelly of corruption. The revelations from the office of The National Security Adviser unveiled a lot of sleaze. It reflected how the lives of innocent citizens became the opportunity for self-enrichment, and the beneficiaries were some of the peacocks of the bygone era who flaunted their wealth and vanity before an increasingly impoverished population.
The overall effect so far of this is that he has successfully elevated the moral tone of governance, so much so that public officers are now wary with the people’s funds. We have been told that the federal government saved huge sums of money that we expect the president to make public in his broadcast to mark his first year in office.
In spite of these, the government has shown itself tardy in handling the economy. It stumbled in presenting the budget, and it was not helped with the posturing of the Senate. For the first few months, we never heard anything salutary about a vision for the economy, but the Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has fleshed out details.
The Buhari administration has also raised the price of petrol in deference to an economics over which it had no control given the pillage to our foreign exchange and steep fall of oil prices. The administration has also had to contend with the increasing army of the jobless, layoffs, and a diminishing atmosphere of investments.
The budget was passed as the first year in government came to a close, and we expect that the administration will kick off with an array of projects to make up for lost time. The first year was bereft of any lofty project either in works or education or power. The budget should not delay. He has quite a good cabinet with men of proven records. It makes a bad story to have a good team and poor record.
The Buhari administration enters the second year with the barbarities of the herdsmen and Niger Delta militants. His rhetoric about the herdsmen has been tame while he has shown a fiery disdain for the Niger Delta militants. Both acts of violence call for not only military action but force that should be based on tact and intelligence.
The second year will show whether the president will take the country in the right direction in major areas of security and economic development. This is where the president’s capacity to weld the nation together and bring joy to poor homes will be tested. It also means that the president ought to warm up to his fellow citizens, cut down on his foreign trips and travel within the country and see the Nigerians who made him president.
