In 2015, the change of baton at the Presidency was not turbulent because the incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan, made the historic phone call to the incoming President Muhammadu Buhari, wherein the outgoing President congratulated the person whom the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared winner. Jonathan’s followers did not fathom that he would accept defeat in an election they were not convinced that he lost. But Jonathan kept saying that his ambition to remain in office was not worth the blood of any Nigerian. Buhari’s supporters were said to be baying for blood if their candidate was not declared winner, and Jonathan probably saw bloody clashes everywhere, if he resisted exiting the exalted office. One of his ministers, who was also his kinsman, Godsday Orubebe, insisted, while the votes were still being collated, that there was foul play. But Jonathan, who fought the political battle of his life, had come to his wits end and was ready to go. Some governors in Jonathan’s party (PDP) at that time worked against him from within. They got him out of power, and he took it in his stride.
That era was gone with the coming of the “Cchange,” as propagated by Muhammadu Buhari. He won another term in 2019 and the Supreme Court affirmed that he beat PDP’s Atiku Abubakar, whose followers believed to have won the election and that Buhari’s performance could not have earned him a second term. All that is now history. Buhari has served the nation in the highest capacity for eight years. History’s verdict may vindicate or vilify him. We may be hasty by passing judgment now. We can only make comments from a point of view of our observations. The bare facts as we see them today are that virually all previous regimes have fared better than the successive ones in management of the economy and in inflationary trends, which is why it may be wishful to think that an in-coming regime would be better that an outgoing one. Anyone in doubt can do a little research on that matter. You would find that prices were lower in the Obasanjo, Yar’Adua/Jonathan era that they are now.
The Buhari era is coming to an end in spite of the on-going political contestation in court. Whatever the outcome, Buhari cannot return to the Presidency. I understand that all political occupants in Aso Rock Villa are expected to leave the place today. New people will move in except those whose services would be needed by the incoming regime.
What did we observe in Buhari’s regime? He came when the country was in the midst of near intractable security challenges. He tried to mitigate the situation but expectations from him were so high that his achievements fell short of, not on account of complacency or neglect, but the people expected a drastic apprehension of the situation given that an army general had mounted the saddle. The populace wanted the President to get new hands into the nation’s security architecture, in terms of leadership, but the President knew better. He kept the service chiefs in office in defiance of calls for their removal. In fairness to the President, he does not dispense with his aides easily. Scores of killings in Kaduna and Benue put a blemish to whatever credits Buhari garnered from the security sector. Those places remain sore points. The days of horrific experiences along the Kaduna-Abuja road, and the railway abduction may have ended but the unending killings in Benue and Kaduna seem to have defied solution and thus made nonsense of Buhari’s gains.
Buhari has also been lampooned for taking Nigeria’s debts to the hilt. The last figure in my possession says the regime has borrowed a whopping N80 trillion. The President, the other day, rose in strong defence of the loans, saying they were taken to buoy infrastructure in the country. The Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the Second Niger Bridge, the Abuja-Kaduna Highway and others can be named as the dividends of the loans. The President put it this way as quoted in some newspaper reports, “As we look at the debt profile, I urge us to look at the assets and investment profile, some of which were paid for by debt and some by investment income. In eight years, I am proud to say that we have doubled Nigeria’s stock of infrastructure to GDP (gross domestic product) from about 20 per cent to over 40 per cent and that is no small undertaking”.
The forgoing shows that the President has justification for the debts. It has also come to light that some of the loot recovered from past leaders were deployed to pay for infrastructure, the Second Niger Bridge being one of such beneficiaries. So the debt profile would have been higher but for such interventions. In 2005, Nigeria worked hard to pay off its $20 billion debt. See where we are today. Previous regimes always seem better, which is why I refrain from passing any judgment on this regime.
The President’s fight against corruption was dented by his release of two former governors, namely, Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame, both indicted by the appropriate authorities for financial impropriety. Their release tended to show that some people had greater protection than others. Questions have been raised as to whether a politically exposed person like Ike Ekweremadu, his wife and the complicit doctor would ever have been sent to jail in Nigeria, and in this regime? Why did it take a court outside Nigeria for another former governor, James Ibori, to be convicted? Since the incident did not happen here, it is pointless to speculate.
I have made mere observations on some issues, but the judgment for this regime is for posterity. It would, indeed, be hasty to say it failed or acquitted itself creditably given that no one can predict what the coming regime has in stock. I can only pray that the outgoing regime would not be better that its successor. That jinx has to be broken if the nation would not continue the unending slide down the slope.