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.”
By Daniel Magnowski, Bloomberg

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

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