₦airaland Forum

At no point in its 60-year history has Nigeria’s economy expanded slower than its population for a longer period than between 2015 and 2020, an indictment on President Muhammadu Buhari who has led the country in that time.

With data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showing a 1.9-percent contraction in 2020, it means….....
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Racoon:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/businessday.ng/exclusives/article/buhari-sets-record-as-nigerians-grow-poorer-for-sixth-straight-year/amp/

Since independence in 1960, Nigeria had experienced two recessions, in 1984 & 2016 both of short durations. The third is underway and inevitable in 2020.All three will be debited to the account of one Head of State – President Muhammadu Buhari. That is a fact which his loudspeakers in Aso Rock cannot deny. They can only offer explanations; but cannot alter the facts.

Obasanjo returned in 1999 to see crude oil prices surging upwards. His administration was able to leverage our improved economic future trends to get us out of the debt trap in which we found ourselves.His government also established the Excess Crude Account, ECA which was finally run down by Buhari’s government this year.

Under Gowon and Jonathan, the economy grew at averages of six to eight per cent. Those were our finest periods from the standpoint of economic growth. Only Gowon’s regime took us to full employment meaning anybody who wanted a job could literally get one.

While Buhari cannot be held totally responsible for the recession of 1984, because he took no part in the coup which brought him to power, the fact remains that he was ill-prepared for it and he had no clue regarding how to manage an economy in distress.

Virtually all the measures he introduced made the situation worse. When failure stared his regime in the face, he and the late Major-General Idiagbon resorted to authorised violence. Grandmothers and housewives were whipped by twenty-year old soldiers while on queue for essential commodities: sugar, salt, detergents and soaps, baby food etc. The scarce commodities returned to shop shelves and markets after he left in 1985.

The recession of 2016 should not have caught Buhari and the All Progressives Congress, APC, by surprise – if they were really embarking on ruling the nation instead of just seizing NNPC and CBN for whatever reason. Buhari ran for President in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. He lost three times and won in 2015. The least that would have been expected of anybody aspiring to leadership in any country is that they should have a good grasp of what they are likely to inherit if they win.

That explains why effective leaders elsewhere appoint their cabinets within days of getting to office instead of five months as Buhari did in 2015 and 2019. He was unprepared. Any half-decent economist could have predicted that a recession was coming in 2015/2016 even if Jonathan had been re-elected.

But, GEJ had Dr Okonjo-Iweala who could have foreseen that possibility and the government would have taken pre-emptive steps to minimise its impact. Mrs Kemi Adeosun was not and can never be in the same class as her predecessor. Nigerians paid dearly for it. We failed to learn our lessons. “The APC government has dragged our country down the gutter.

This was not what we promised in 2014/15 when we campaigned vigorously for a Buhari Presidency.” Dele Momodu, THISDAY, March 28, 2020, last page. Dele and I have two things in common. We both worked our hearts out for Buhari. I toiled like a galley slave in 2011 and 2015. In 2011, I actually developed an outline for Economic Governance if Buhari won at my own expense. It took two months of 2015 to realise I had made a grave blunder. Buhari is not worth it.

Dele still believed in Buhari and, on March 21, 2020, he wrote about his encounter with the President – who massaged his ego by telling Momodu that he reads his columns. I have been hearing that story since 1987. Reading the two articles, it is clear that my namesake is almost at breaking point with regard to Buhari. He even tried to advise the President on March 21. Pure waste of time.

“Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it most always want it least. Earl of Chesterfield, 1694-1773, VBQ, p 5. It is doubtful if Buhari reads newspapers himself. Most likely, he reads only what his aides cut out for him. I never flatter myself that he reads my articles. He might not even understand them.

I will suggest to my fellow pen-pushers to forget Buhari as a reader – unless they write articles that flatter him. At, any rate, it is impossible to advise a leader, who in the midst of our worst crisis, retires to “the other room” and only addresses the nation through loudspeakers.

Buhari’s undoing is his wonted predilection for hierarchising ethnicity, religion and loyalty above competence. Since 1999, no president has obtrusively shown a more nepotistic aspect than Buhari.

It is unarguable that the president arrays the most competence-challenged cabinet ever in the chronicle of governance in Nigeria.Yes,a recession cabinet.

Buhari is the only Nigerian president that has presided over the country under multiple recessions. As it was in 1984 under General Buhari, so it is in 2016 and 2020 under President Buhari.

StaffofOrayan:
Hunger Nigerians are used to,
It's the killing and being forced to accept it 'because we don't want war' that drives me crazy!

Sirjamo:
Nonsense talk. Your miserable oil economy is going down because your useless Poverty Development Party refused to diversify.



Oil accounts for 90% of Nigeria's income, it has lost more than half of its value since 2014. Do you want Buhari to use his pension to run the economy for you?

Racoon:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/businessday.ng/exclusives/article/buhari-sets-record-as-nigerians-grow-poorer-for-sixth-straight-year/amp/

saaron:
A terrorist can NEVER give what he does NOT HAVE. The chart above shows the difference between people oriented govt and fulani terrorist oriented regime.
Mass hunger, poverty and general insecurity are the main hallmarks of Tyrannical regimes.
Mark my words, this bloody regime won't reach 2023.

Ekealterego:
Well.
Suffering is like drugs to Nigerians. They love it, they live it and they enjoy it and sadly, they deserve it!
'cos I do not understand how one could make a mistake twice in succession. Let's say you made a mistake voting a proven dead brain the first time, what about the second time around?
Disintegration of this contraption is the ultimate solution... So that those who enjoy suffering and poverty can continue to bask in the glory of poverty, whereas those who want to move forward can.

plaetton:
My point exactly.

It was the grandest of Delusions to ever have imagined that a certified Dunce, Tribalist and a religious Bigot like Buhari could have done anything to move Nigeria forward in any positive way.

Buhari simply cannot ever give what he has never had; Love for country, a progressive Vision , Personal Integrity.

A man at his age, a father and grandfather, , an army officer for most of his adult life, a retired General, who loathes the idea of taking responsibility for anything.
Our Mannequin President has blamed the PDP, blamed GEJ, blamed OBJ, blamed IBB, blamed Gowon, blamed all past Nigerian leaders (forgetting that he was one of them), blamed the Western Powers, blamed Ghaddafi, blamed the youths, even blamed God,..just blame it on anyone , anything but the current government that he leads from the back.