As President Muhammadu Buhari takes the oath of office for his second term today, many are pondering on his first tenure of four years, writes Augustine Ehikioya.
Many Nigerians, no doubt, earnestly desired change before the 2015 general elections.
They felt their lives were not positively impacted by the 16 years the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) spent in power.
They were relieved when Muhammadu Buhari won the presidential election in 2015 under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
So, they expressed hope and aspiration for a better Nigeria when Buhari was sworn into office on May 29, 2015.
The President’s first term of four years ended yesterday with many Nigerians expressing mixed feelings about his administration’s performance.
Many critics have said there was nothing to write home about Buhari’s first term.
They claimed that the government failed Nigerians who massively voted for it.
According to them, the condition of Nigerians is worse than in 2015 when the administration came into power.
One of those who picked holes in the Buhari administration is former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Obasanjo, in a series of statements and open letters to the President, gave a damning verdict of poor performance on the Buhari administration.
He alleged increasing poverty, insecurity, poor economic management, nepotism, gross dereliction of duty and misdeeds. Noting that there was a lack of progress and hope for the future, Obasanjo urged President Buhari not to seek re-election.
Another major voice against Buhari’s first term tenure is the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But Buhari’s camp believed that Nigerians got a good deal in the first term of the administration.
To them, Nigeria never had it so good, as progress was made in the past four years. So much is said to have been achieved in the administration’s anti-corruption campaign, transparency, security and the economy under the first tenure.
The Buhari administration is said to have established for itself an anti-corruption reputation that has known no major scandal in the past four years. The achievement in this regard was said to have informed the African Union’s selection of President Buhari as the continent’s anti-corruption champion.To win the war against corruption and institute transparency in the affairs of government, the Buhari administration introduced a number of fiscal reforms and plugged several leakages.
On corruption, the Buhari’s camp had declared “The administration has significantly curtailed corruption to the point of abolishing what is called “grand corruption.”
Given Treasury Single Account, TSA, the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information Scheme, IPPS, the Bank Verification Number, BVN number and Whistle Blower schemes.
“It is no longer possible for people in authority to, for instance, request the withdrawal of millions, or sometimes billions of Naira or US Dollars to be shared among party members as was the practice under the past administrations.”
Under the Whistleblowing Policy, recoveries made were said to be over: N13.8bn from tax evaders, and N7.8 billion, $378million, £27,800 from public officials targeted by whistleblowers.
The administration through improved oversight on Ministries Departments and Agencies also discovered underpayment of over N526 billion and $21 billion to the Federation Account by revenue generating agencies between 2010 and 2015.
On the poor levels of remittances by MDAs, JAMB under Buhari administration remitted N7.8 billion in 2017 against only N51 million between 2010 and 2016.
Through the activities of the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA), over 54,000 fraudulent payroll entries have been identified, with payroll savings of over N200 billion.
The Treasury Single Account (TSA) resulted in the consolidation of more than 17,000 bank accounts previously spread across commercial banks in the country and in savings of an average of over N4 billion monthly in banking charges associated with indiscriminate Government borrowing from commercial banks.
The use of Bank Verification Number (BVN) to verify payroll entries on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) platform was said to have led to the detection of 54,000 fraudulent payroll entries.
The controversial Offshore Processing Arrangement (OPA) was cancelled by the Buhari administration and replaced with a ‘Direct Sales and Direct Purchase (DSDP)’ scheme with reputable offshore refineries.
The Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB), drafted by the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, has now been passed into law by the National Assembly, after 17 years of failed efforts.
In 2016, the Federal Government exited the cash call arrangement by which the NNPC traditionally funded its share of the crude oil exploration and production Joint Ventures (JVs) with International Oil Companies (IOCs).
The Cash Call obligations had consistently put pressure on the Federal Government’s finances, and a failure to fully fund them has resulted in the accumulation of debt arrears of 6.8 billion dollars, as at December 2015.
To boost the fight, the Buhari administration has signed onto the global Open Government Partnership, OGP.
In the justice sector, the reforms against corruption said to be carried out include a number of domestic legislation and international agreements to facilitate the identification, tracing, freezing, recovery and forfeiture of ill-gotten assets.
The administration’s primary sectors of agriculture and solid minerals experienced growth of 180 and 565 percentage points respectively.
The major achievement in agriculture is Nigeria’s achievement of near self-sufficiency in rice production.
The government launched a series of funding and capacity development initiatives to support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in the country.
Another milestone, according to Buhari’s camp, is the work of the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC), inaugurated by President Buhari in August 2016.
PEBEC is said to have resulted in moving Nigeria up 24 places on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings and earning a place on the list of 10 most improved economies.
The administration, to this end, is said to have issued a number of Executive Orders on improving efficiency in the business environment and promoting local content.
The Buhari administration has also demonstrated a single-minded commitment to upgrading and developing Nigeria’s transport, power and health infrastructure.
The administration is also patting itself on the back for completing many abandoned roads in the country, even though some of the road projects are still ongoing across every state of the country.
The country’s narrow-gauge rail network of 3,500 Kms is being upgraded; while Abuja’s light rail system has been completed and commissioned with a link to the Abuja-Kaduna rail line, which has also been completed and launched.
While the Ibadan-Lagos standard gauge rail is being a test run, Ibadan-Kano rail has been awarded.
The administration has also successfully reconstructed the Abuja Airport runway, while new terminal buildings in Port Harcourt and Abuja with Lagos, Kano, Enugu have been completed and commissioned, others are being considered for inauguration soon.
Several water supply projects and dam/irrigation projects were completed and many more on the way to being delivered.
About 100 ecological projects were awarded and completed in the six geopolitical zones.
The Buhari administration more than doubled power generation capacity. It increased generation to 8,100 MW and expanded transmission to more than 7,000 MW capacity, and has successfully deployed thousands of solar power systems to rural and urban households.
The administration in the last four years introduced a Social Investment Programme (SIP) with four components, including N-Power, home-grown school feeding programme, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program, (GEEP) and the Conditional Cash Transfer, (CCT).
The N-power employment scheme is expected to have benefit 500,000 this year, while the home-grown school feeding program is currently feeding more than nine million school children across the federation.
The Government Enterprise and Empower Program, GEEP is giving out interest-free loans to millions of market women, traders, artisans and farmers while the conditional cash transfer, CCT is paying N5,000 monthly to the poorest and most vulnerable households in the country.
In dealing with security, one of the first major steps the Buhari administration took was the revitalisation of the Multi-national Joint Taskforce, MNJTF aimed at combating transborder crime and the Boko Haram insurgency.
The MNJTF has the support and participation of neighbouring countries Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Benin, in addition to Nigeria.
On the day of his first term inauguration, the President had directed the relocation of the command and control centre of the Boko Haram war to Maiduguri, the epicentre of the insurgency.
The military has since proclaimed victory over the Boko Haram terrorists, following the capture of their operational and spiritual headquarters, “Camp Zero” in Sambisa Forest.
So far, more than one million displaced persons have returned to their homes and communities while about 20,000 hostages have been freed.
While one hundred and six (106) Chibok Girls, abducted in April 2014 and 105 Dapchi Girls abducted in February 2018 have been released and reunited with their families, some Nigerians are still in captivity including the Dapchi schoolgirl, Leah Sharibu, who refused to denounce his Christian religion.
Looking at the giant strides taken in securing the nation, President Buhari at the end of the first four years has declared that his greatest happiness was degrading Boko Haram.
But critics of the administration had noted that upsurge in herdsmen killings in the country in 2018 and increased banditry and kidnapping have put a dent on government’s achievements in securing the nation in the past four years.
While the battered economy inherited in May 2015 is said to be far from total recovery by critics, the Buhari’s camp believed that the economy is on the path of growth, especially after overcoming recession between 2016 and 2017.
The Buhari’s administration also claimed that the FX Window introduced by the CBN in April 2017 now sees an average of $1 billion in weekly turnover, and has attracted about 45 billion dollars in inflows in its first year, signalling rising investor confidence in Nigeria.
It also claimed that Nigeria’s Stock Market ended 2017 as one of the best-performing in the world, with returns of about 40 per cent.
Over five million new taxpayers are also said to have been added to the Tax Base since 2016, as part of efforts to diversify Government revenues.
While claiming that tax Revenue increased to N1.17 trillion in the first quarter of 2018, which was a 51% increase on the 2017 first quarter figure, it is said that the 2.7 Trillion spent on Infrastructure in 2016 and 2017 Budgets is an unprecedented allocation in Nigeria’s recent history.
The Buhari’s administration also claimed that 14 Moribund Blending Plants have been revitalized so far under the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) with a total capacity of 2.3 million MT of NPK 20:10:10 fertilizer.
The benefits included annual savings of US$200 million in foreign exchange, and ?60 billion annually in budgetary provisions for Fertilizer subsidies.
The contribution of Solid Minerals’ to the Federation Account is said to have tripled from N700 million in 2015 to N2 billion in 2016, and to N3.5 billion in 2017.
The Buhari Administration is also said to have expended more than 1.9 Trillion Naira to State Governments, to enable them to meet their salary and pension obligations, especially in the face of dwindling oil revenues.
The administration is said to have done well in the Niger Delta.
In the area of diplomacy and international relations, the Buhari administration has also re-established Nigeria’s position and influence in the regional and global arena.
But many Nigerians believe that Buhari and his team still have more tasks ahead as the second term begins today.
