In 2015, Muhammadu Buhari was elected president of Nigeria, a country sometimes touted as Africa’s largest democracy, if only in name. Buhari defeated Goodluck Jonathan, whose major achievement during his tenure as president was leading the nation in becoming Africa’s largest economy. But Jonathan’s failures in national security—including the notorious kidnapping of 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok in April 2014 by the terrorist group Boko Haram—proved disastrous for his political future. Buhari, a former military general, ran and was at least partially chosen by a majority of voters due to his promise to end security issues in areas of conflict, notably in the country’s northern region.
Seven years after the Chibok kidnapping, 112 of the girls are still missing. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported in March that since last December, more than 800 children have been abducted in the country, a majority in Nigeria’s north and northeast. For the kidnappers, called bandits in the country, many request ransoms, sometimes as much as 500 million naira (approximately $1 million).
A 312-page report recently released by the International Committee on Nigeria and the International Organization for Peace Building and Social Justice has detailed how Boko Haram’s offensive and attacks by Fulani herdsmen have left tens of thousands of Nigerians dead in what is tantamount to religious genocide and ethnic cleansing. Buhari, who is from the north, in a nation where its north-south split is erroneously used as a proxy for its religious and ethnic differences and tensions, has undeniably failed to keep his security promises.
Yet security is just one among this administration’s many deficiencies. Buhari has failed to expand the economy, reduce the country’s dependency on oil, and follow through on his anti-corruption pledges. Indeed, he may be presiding over the least effective government since Nigeria’s independence from Britain in 1960. Sadly, the current state of the country under Buhari was eminently foreseeable based on his political past.