29 May marks the first anniversary of
Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration as President
of Nigeria. Analysts have been busy assessing his
performance so far.
Alarmingly, the Financial Times has reported that
“Nigerians are impatient for the gains they voted
for and have little appetite for further pain […]
confidence in President Muhammadu Buhari,
elected a year ago on a wave of hope, is
evaporating.”
Buhari’s election platform
Buhari and the ruling party, the All Progressives
Congress (APC), which is a fractious coalition of
interests, inherited a country with multiple
profound challenges. During the campaign,
Buhari and the APC positioned themselves as a
‘movement for change’, promising to bring the
Boko Haram insurgency to a rapid end, tackle
corruption and promote more ‘inclusive’
economic growth. While they have achievements
to their name on the first two counts, most
observers feel that they have barely got off first
base on the last.
Progress on security and corruption…
Boko Haram has been pushed out of most of the
territory which it controlled in Northeast Nigeria
and is seen by some as “ on the back foot”. Their
attacks, while still causing significant numbers of
casualties, reflect guerrilla tactics, rather than the
‘semi-conventional’ ones witnessed during
2012-14. Buhari has revamped the military high
command and begun a programme of military
retraining and expansion. Foreign countries,
including the UK, have scaled up their assistance
to the Nigerian military. Cooperation between
Nigeria and regional neighbours Niger, Chad and
Cameroon against Boko Haram has improved.
One of the Chibok schoolgirls has been freed
recently, raising hopes that the remaining 218,
widely believed to be being held in the remote
Sambisa Forest, may soon be too.
Source: Voice of America
On anti-corruption, a wave of arrests have been
made against former office-holders from the
presidency of Buhari’s predecessor, Goodluck
Jonathan (for example, former National Security
Advisor Sambo Dasuki) and several major
investigations launched.
… but criticisms too
However, critics claim that there have also been
blots on the government’s copybook on the
security and anti-corruption fronts. They argue
that some the steps taken on anti-corruption
have been politically-motivated, rather than
‘without fear or favour’.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian security forces remain
prone to committing human rights abuses but
continue to enjoy impunity. There was a furore
when in in December 2015, the Nigerian security
forces clashed in Zaria with supporters of the
Islamic Movement of Nigeria, a Shi’a group with
close links to Iran, resulting in around 300 deaths
according to Human Rights Watch, which called
the killings “ unjustified”. Investigations are still
under way.
A more fundamental criticism is that Buhari and
the APC have not yet got to grips with the
interlocking ‘root causes’ of violence – poverty,
inequality, marginalisation and corruption – in
Nigeria, whether in the North or elsewhere. The
authorities continue to face challenges in
maintaining peace and security in the oil-rich
Niger Delta, where attacks on oil pipelines by a
new generation of militants have been on the up
again; in the ‘ Middle Belt’, where inter-communal
violence rumbles on; and in the Southeast, where
there is a revival of Igbo agitation for a separate
Biafran state.
Deepening economic woes
The new government acknowledges that a crucial
element in tackling the root causes of violence is
the promotion of more ‘inclusive’ economic
growth. But its efforts on this count have so far
been largely frustrated. Some would argue that
the government has not yet shown that it is equal
to the challenges.
The country is in full-blown fiscal crisis. 2016 is
set to see Nigeria’s lowest GDP growth since the
country returned to democracy in 1999.
Plummeting global oil prices have meant that it
has been difficult for economic policy to go
beyond crisis management over the last year.
At the same time, dwindling foreign exchange
reserves led to acute fuel shortages, compounded
for ordinary Nigerians by hefty price rises at the
pump. . Although oil prices have recently begun
to rise again, there seems little immediate
prospect of economic rescue from that quarter.
There are discussions with the World Bank about
a loan and Buhari has sought to mobilise support
from China.
A lot of this was beyond the new government’s
control. But the fact that it has taken most of the
last year for it to articulate a detailed economic
agenda has been much criticised. Indeed, Buhari
only announced the composition of his cabinet in
November 2015. Supporters of Buhari respond
that taking time to find ministers who are clean
and competent will ultimately prove time well
spent.
A credible economic strategy?
Amid controversy over its transparency and
accuracy, a much delayed budget for 2016 was
finalised in late-April. It is intended to stimulate
growth through increased capital expenditure
and promote diversification through support to
agriculture and the mining industry. Long-
delayed reform of the oil and gas industry is also
promised. The budget also proposes greater
investment in the country’s ‘human
development’. For example, it includes a
conditional cash transfer scheme aimed at one
million of the poorest Nigerians.
Reactions to the budget have varied. Some are
asking where the money is coming from to fund
such an expansionary approach; others, by
contrast, view it as too cautious, asserting that
the cash transfer scheme is a drop in the ocean in
a country where 80 million people live in extreme
poverty. Critics struggle to see anything
dramatically new in the economic proscriptions of
Buhari’s government, noting that much of this
has been seen in the programmes of past
dispensations. Buhari’s resistance to devaluing
the Nigerian currency (described by one source
as “Naira nationalism”) has also been slated as
misguided, although there are growing
indications that the government is about to
change tack on this.
Still plenty of donor goodwill – but how long
will Nigerians wait?
One year on, the deep economic downturn means
that the mountain that the Buhari administration
has to climb is steeper than ever. There is still
plenty of donor goodwill to draw upon – including
from the UK, which despite deep concerns over
rampant corruption, recently pledged to give
Nigeria £40 million over the next four years to
help in the fight against Boko Haram and to step
up training support to its army. But it is less clear
how long reserves of domestic goodwill will last.