RAY EKPU FROM THE GUARDIAN
In the last few days, there has been a whirlwind of activities to bring to a close the eight-year tenure of Muhammadu Buhari as the President of Nigeria. These include commissioning of projects, launching of books, dinners and luncheons as well as lectures on how to keep Nigeria united, keep Nigeria developed and keep Nigeria progressive.
The President also gave a farewell speech, in which he told us that he felt fulfilled. In that speech he also said “I am confident that I am leaving office in Nigeria better in 2023 than I met in 2015.” That was his assessment of his performance. He is entitled to it even though it sounds like an incestuous proclamation. His wife, Aisha, also gave him a 50 per cent score on his eight-year performance.
Several analysts have been sinking their teeth into the matter on social media and in the traditional media. It is not easy to discuss an eight-year tenure in one page or even in a few pages. I am not sure that the President was able to speak with chin-jotting pride about his achievements even though he struggled to put gloss over the rough edges of his policies.
Obviously, he made some achievements. That is being fair. He invested heavily in rail transportation linking Kaduna with Abuja and Lagos with Ibadan etc. He paved some roads in various parts of the country and built some bridges including the long abandoned Second Niger Bridge. He took Nigeria through the COVID-19 era in a commendable fashion that limited the casualty figures. He also completed some airport projects, bought planes and other hardware for the Armed Forces.
So it can be said, truthfully, that he contributed significantly to infrastructure, improvement in Nigeria even though the execution of these projects lacked transparency and accountability. This column is able to agree with him that in the area of infrastructure he left that sector better than he found it in 2015. But on the three major planks of his policy, namely: economy, corruption and security, the story is different, tragically different. On these three areas, his reputation took a hit as Nigerians were thrown into the abyss of grief on a regular basis.
On the economy, the government failed to make a significant departure from the past whereby the government depended largely on crude oil for its survival. Other assets such as agriculture and solid minerals remained largely untapped. And when oil production was low or its price fell or the product was stolen we were left in a quandary.
Even though crude oil is said to have been discovered in parts of Northern Nigeria, we are yet to get it into the market for sale. And as our four refineries remained dormant we had to import finished petroleum products into the country at suspiciously high prices. That has been the root cause of the subsidy removal battle that we have today. That albatross will be hanging on the neck of President Bola Tinubu.
The power sector is a major factor in the production or manufacturing process. Our power generation capacity has hovered between 2,674mw and 4, 725mw as at last month. Since Buhari took over in 2015 the national power grid has collapsed 99 times. That is inefficiency. All politicians like to engage during campaigns in a pageant of promises. In 2015, Buhari promised to generate 10, 000mw. Today, we are far, very far, from that target.
