Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari took office a month ago on a wave of hope that he would quickly deal with a deepening economic crisis and an Islamist insurgency in the north. So far, he hasn’t met those expectations.

While Africa’s biggest oil producer has been hit by a 40 percent fall in petroleum prices in the past year that has slowed economic growth and weakened the currency, Buhari, 72, has delayed naming a cabinet until September. As the momentum of being the first opposition candidate to win power at the ballot box fades, critics are mocking him as a sluggish elderly man, or “Baba Go Slow.”

Buhari has acknowledged the crisis, saying last month that his government is facing severe financial strain, with a Treasury that’s “virtually empty,” and his party is calling for patience. Yet his lack of urgency in tackling economic woes could leave Nigeria badly adrift, said John Ashbourne, an economist at Capital Economics in London.

“Every week that Nigeria goes without a cabinet increases the chance that it will face a dangerous shock -- whether a revenue collapse or a currency crisis,” Ashbourne said by phone Tuesday. “Leaving the federation without a finance minister would be a questionable choice at the best of times; doing so during a period of economic instability is difficult to explain.”

Investor Displeasure

Nigeria’s currency, twice devalued in the past year in an attempt to cope with lower oil income, has weakened 7.7 percent against the dollar this year on the interbank market. The International Monetary Fund estimates that growth will slow to 4.8 percent this year from 6.1 percent in 2014. The naira was trading at 198.85 against the U.S. dollar at 2.38 p.m. in Lagos.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange Index hit its 2015 peak of 35,728.12 on April 2, the day after Buhari was declared the election winner. Since then it has fallen 8 percent.

The cabinet delay won’t please investors, said Alan Cameron, an economist at Exotix Partners LLP. They’re expecting tighter fiscal policy, a currency devaluation and a greater focus on tax collection after the drop in oil prices, he said.
“There was initially some hope that Buhari would be able to tackle these changes more quickly and with more credibility, but the time line has now been pushed back,” Cameron said by phone from London. “It’s going to be a difficult pill to swallow for foreign investors.”

Inertia Concern

The central bank has banned importers from using the foreign-exchange market to buy certain goods as it seeks to stabilize the naira and hold on to external reserves, which are down 16 percent this year to $29 billion.
“Even what little could have been achieved so far, such as the nomination of ministers, has not been addressed, and there is a sense of inertia,” Folarin Gbadebo-Smith, managing director of the Center for Public Policy Alternatives, a Lagos-based research group, said by phone Wednesday.
Buhari’s own party, the All Progressives Congress, has recognized the growing public disenchantment and pleaded for patience.
“Nigerians are right to demand even a faster pace. Nigerians are right to ask that a government be quickly put in place,” party spokesman Lai Mohammed told reporters at a June 30 press conference in Lagos, the commercial capital. “All we ask for is a little more patience, a little more understanding.”

Government Change

Buhari is facing a unique situation because his victory over the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, ended 16 years of rule by the Peoples Democratic Party, his spokesman Femi Adesina said.
“This is not a normal changeover, it is from one government to another,” he said.
Buhari, who previously governed Nigeria as military ruler in the 1980s, has moved more quickly in the fight against the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, which has waged a violent six-year campaign in the north.

He ordered the army to move its headquarters from Abuja, the capital, to the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the scene of some of the worst fighting, and has traveled to neighboring countries such as Chad and Niger to discuss cross-border military cooperation.
It’s the “one area in which the Buhari administration has hit the ground running,” Mohammed said.
Yet, while troops from Nigeria and Chad have largely dislodged Boko Haram from its self-declared caliphate in the northeast this year, the insurgents have stepped up hit-and-run attacks.

Corruption Fight

Buhari will also have to deal with shortcomings in his own army, which Amnesty International said last month should be investigated for war crimes, including unlawful killings.
In a step toward meeting his campaign promise to attack corruption that has crippled Nigeria for decades, Buhari disbanded the board of the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. The National Economic Council on Monday set up a four-member panel to probe its accounts.
Even some opposition lawmakers say Buhari needs more time.

“His approach may be different, but I am patient, I will give him some time,” Ben Murray-Bruce, a PDP senator, said in a June 29 interview in Abuja.
Where Buhari has come up short is communicating a sense of engagement to the public, said Gbadebo-Smith.

“He doesn’t say anything about anything,” he said. “The public would be satisfied with signals that say we are doing something about this, we are on top of this.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-01/buhari-goes-from-nigeria-s-champion-of-change-to-baba-go-slow-#media-1

cc lalasticlala

No be only baba go slow,add dullaardinho,DD ie Daura Dullaard,Baba west Germany,etc,I no fit remember all of them sef.
The ppl below me will help me supply d rest.
#Thank God my man GEJ is having a well deserved rest,make we face Buhari.

Snail baba

Ok. Slow and steady always win the race. In BABA we trust.

Lols

The Pictures above is am Under-statement.

The world is also seeing it.
Shame on this man and his party.
Nigeria just made the greatest mistake in decades

Hmmmm

but its not a lie na

I thank God am not the only on noticing it.

dokyOloye:
No be only baba go slow,add dullaardinho,DD ie Daura Dullaard,Baba west Germany,etc,I no fit remember all of them sef.
The ppl below me will help me supply d rest.
#Thank God my man GEJ is having a well deserved rest,make we face Buhari.

Id*iots like u are still the problem we are having in this country. Has your useless and wretch family ever produce head master in your miserable village before? Well, I never expect anything good from a frustrated man. Go get a life because u and other bastard sucks.

dullardo wen come do collabo

He doesn't even communicate. That's the tragedy of the situation.

sameer1212:
Id*iots like u are still the problem we are having in this country. Has your useless and wretch family ever produce head master in your miserable village before? Well, I never expect anything good from a frustrated man. Go get a life because u and other bastards sucks.

Go school,U no go gree.U see am?
'BastardS suckS'
Iti boribo.
How can U compare me that had 6As and 3 credits on my 1st attempt at WAEC with a man who failed all his military exams and apparently did not write WAEC?

sameer1212:
Id*iots like u are still the problem we are having in this country. Has your useless and wretch family ever produce head master in your miserable village before? Well, I never expect anything good from a frustrated man. Go get a life because u and other bastards sucks.

if Nigeria is good buhari with waec is not qualified to be his father's driver

Baba God, which kind sin we don commit for this zoo that you cursed us to the extent we even elected a snail as a president? Baba God, we are so sorry, please forgive us cos we know we gonna right this wrong in 2019. So help us God

presher:
if Nigeria is good buhari with waec is not qualified to be his father's driver

I swear to God,U r on point on this.

By december, after looking @ the state of the nation by that time, only then would I be able 2 comment without bias!

presher:
if Nigeria is good buhari with waec is not qualified to be his father's driver

LOL..@if nigeria is good? And educated one like your father is at the village drinking Ogogoro every day

sameer1212:
LOL..@if nigeria is good? And educated one like your father is at your village drinking Ogogoro every day

Lol buhari is an illiterate fool

dokyOloye:
Go school,U no go gree.U see am?
'BastardS suckS'
Iti boribo.

LOL.. Hatred will never take riff raff like u any where. Either u or any one like it not, he will be your fvcking president for good 8 years and there is nothing haters like u can do about it. U will only rant here and nothing more

presher:
Lol buhari is an illiterate fool

But better than your father, no offence.

sameer1212:
LOL..@if nigeria is good? And educated one like your father is at your village drinking Ogogoro every day

This empty brain has gone to modify his first post but still can't get it right.
If U must add 'other',then bastard should have an 's' added.Then U won't need to add 's' in suck.
Oya say thank sir.
Ewu.

sameer1212:
LOL.. Hatred will never take riff raff like u any where. Either u or any one like it not, he will be your fvcking president for good 8 years and there is nothing haters like u can do about it. U will only rant here and nothing more

I have never and God forbid I will ever depend on govt to do anything for me,ok.
As for being president for 8 years,lolz,e be like U don turn to God?

Nigerians were about inviting patience back but Sahara Reporters brought the Snailahari.

Now the world had taken over the #BabaGoSlow

dokyOloye:
This empty brain has gone to modify his first post but still can't get it right.
If U must add 'other',then bastard should have an 's' added.Then U won't need to add 's' in suck.
Oya say thank sir.
Ewu.

LOL...@ the correction. Hey u little bastard, this is not an english class or literature section, this is politics and the primary aim is to pass a message. So if u want to sure MR ITK, I bet u are with the wrong person. Pig

Nigerians comited its biggest mistake by fixing buhari as its president. Colabo of yorubas n d north. Smh...... I expect nothing frm dis regime.

sameer1212:
LOL...@ the correction. Hey u little bastard, this is not an english class or literature section, this is politics and the primary aim is to pass a message. So if u want to sure MR ITK, I bet u are with the wrong person. Pig

Go to school abokki or start afresh.
And 'english' shld start wt a capital letter,b4 queen Eliza will arrest U.
Ewu.