President Muhammadu Buhari appears to have rested any lingering doubts as to whether or not the cries of Nigerians on the two subjects arguably at the heart of the Nigerian dilemma have finally pierced through the impervious walls of his Aso Villa abode. Here, I refer to the renewed debate about the future of the polity in the face of the increasingly open and direct threat to its corporate existence, and the frustrating slow pace of governance that has foisted a situation of stasis on the polity. In an emphatic pushback to the charges of indifference, or of if you like diffidence on the two key issues, the President would let it be known that Nigerians and their exaggerated expectations, rather than the pace of his administration, are the problem.
“We Nigerians can be very impatient and want to improve our conditions faster than may be possible considering our resources and capabilities. When all the aggregates of nationwide opinions are considered, my firm view is that our problems are more to do with process than structure.
“We tried the Parliamentary system: we jettisoned it. Now there are shrill cries for a return to the Parliamentary structure. In older democracies, these systems took centuries to evolve so we cannot expect a copied system to fit neatly our purposes.
“We must give a long period of trial and improvement before the system we have adopted is anywhere near fit for purpose.”
That was the President on the occasion of his New Year broadcast.
To those who argue the president is slow and appallingly self-absorbed, he made clear at the dinner he hosted in honour of chieftains of the All Progressives Congress at the Presidential Villa, Abuja Thursday last week that Nigerians ought to be thankful for his Pauline conversion:
“I keep telling people that while I was in uniform, quite reckless and young, I got all the ministers and governors, and put them in Kirikiri. I said they were guilty until they could prove their innocence. I was also detained too.
“I decided to drop the uniform and come back. Eventually, I am here. So really, I have gone through it over and over again.
“This is why I am not in a hurry virtually to do anything. I will sit and reflect and continue with my clear conscience.”
Now, the president may have sought to avail the citizens a fresh window to assess him and the administration that he leads. Even at that, it comes as a new thing that the president would seek rationalisation in a rather strange, almost incomprehensible inertia at a time of dire emergency.
To be sure, it is possible that a sizeable number of Nigerians may not have known just how bad how things were in 2015. However, it suffices that the greater majority of the citizens knew just enough to work assiduously to replace that utterly incompetent administration headed by a man whose trajectory in public service was powered more by chance and good luck than any real preparation, a leader under whose watch governance was reduced to a grand bazaar.
Nearly three years on, we do have a fair idea of how bad things really were. From the war in the Northeast which although required and still requires hefty resources to prosecute but which officials with their filchy hands rendered nigh impossible, the completely run down infrastructure that bears the ignoble fingerprints of each successive PDP administration since 1999, the deliberate elevation of heist to the directing principle of state policy and with it the desecration of the pillars and institutions of governance across the board, there was very little contention about the humongous work of cleaning and cranking needed to get the Nigerian machine revving back at full throttle.
As if to pour pepper on the nation’s injury, the above challenges will coincide with yet another cycle of collapse of commodity prices that plunged the nation’s finances to the nadir.
That was how it was nearly three years ago. If we had thought that the period was sufficient to articulate a cohesive direction of governance, to rev up the pace of governance given the administration’s specific diagnosis of near total collapse of state institutions, to break new grounds and make new friends all in the bid to get all hands on board, we are finally finding out that things are not only what they seem, but also that the perception of emergency is far from shared. Part of which is the current frustration under which the chant Sai Buhari has since yielded to #BringBackCorruption in quarters that would ordinarily have been unthinkable in recent past.
It is not as if anyone needed reminding that things are not exactly all gloom under President Buhari. The economy is out of recession even if many will insist – nominally. Thanks to improvements in oil prices, the foreign exchange situation has stabilised just as the foreign reserve is on the upward spiral. The capital market has been quite impressive having finally found its verve after the bubble of 2008/9. I know a tribe out there who will swear that confidence has begun to return to the economy even if the only proof they have to show is the so-called 24-step leap in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report for 2018 which puts Nigeria 145th in 2017 as against 169th place in 2016. Many are eager to point to the impressive stride in the agricultural sector, the modest improvements in industrial capacity utilisation and the unprecedented cutbacks in food imports.
Do all of these therefore excuse the president’s frustration with what he chose to describe as Nigerians’ impatience let alone rationalise his frustratingly slow pace?
To start with, it is hard to see what could be deemed as “achievement” outside the usual enabler called crude oil. First, with the price of crude at nearly $70 a barrel, it seems only a matter of time before the economy returned to the now familiar trajectory of non-inclusive growth. Godwin Emefiele and company at the apex bank may have done a yeoman’s job of growing the reserve and keeping some 41-odd items at bay; it seems as yet a long shot from any real progress in the absence of robust attention to the infrastructure challenge. Clearly, if you have an economy delivering two percent growth at a time population is doing 2.6 annually, it is tempting to imagine that a luxury, such as the one the president so badly craves, is one that the country can ill-afford.
Finally, the president thinks that the political architecture matters a little. I agree with him to the extent that the hood does not necessarily make the monk. Moreover, if the word restructuring has become so contentious and disagreeable, how about getting the federal government, in the face of the pervasive insolvency across the states, to shed some of its weight to give them some muscle? Or is that not what governance is all about?
