At the end of this month (May 29) it will be one year since President Muhammadu Buhari’s inauguration, following his historic election on March 28 &29, 2015. The former General was swept to power on the promise of change and when President Goodluck Jonathan peacefully conceded defeat on April 1 it seemed as if Nigeria had turned a corner. In the days before the election the now Nigerian President defined his change agenda. According to the then GMB change meant: – A country that you can be proud of at anytime and anywhere: where corruption is tackled, where your leaders are disciplined and lead with vision and clarity; where the stories that emerge to the world from us are full of hope and progress. – A Nigeria in which neither yourselves, nor your parents, families or friends will have to fear for your safety, or for theirs. - A Nigeria where citizens get the basics that any country should be provided: infrastructure that works, healthcare that is affordable, even free; respect for the environment and sustainable development; education that is competitive and outcome-oriented in a knowledge-economy. – A country that provides jobs for its young people, reducing unemployment to the lowest of single digits and providing safety nets so that no one is left behind. – A Nigeria where entrepreneurship thrives, enterprise flourishes and the government gets out of your way so that you can create value, build the economy and aggressively expand wealth. Against that vision, the reality looks starkly lacking through the haze of kerosene smoke that brings tears to the eyes, as does the boredom of queuing for petrol. Buhari’s Nigeria looks and by all accounts feels much the same as Goodluck’s; biting fuel scarcity, erratic power supply, ailing economy, and rising unemployment. So it is legitimate to ask, Change? What change? Especially as we in the diaspora are not seeing emerge the opportunities we were promised and instead are having to pick up the tab in the form of increased remittances. This is not knocking copy based on back-biting from the usual suspects of political opponents and the disgruntled with an axe to grind. Globally respected media houses such as Al Jazeera, the Financial Times, BBC, are all reporting an administration seemingly in a state of drift and lacking leadership. That’s partly because the President is often away. Since coming to office he has made just short of 30 official visits outside the country. This would not be an issue except under PMB power has become more centralised. He has nearly halved the number of ministries, from 42 to 24. Cabinet meetings have become an ad hoc affair, held as and when deemed necessary. Reuters report diplomatic sources as saying, “Power is concentrated in Buhari’s office where files pile up on the desk of his chief of staff. Ministers appointed only in November – more than six months after Buhari’s victory – are reluctant to make decisions.” All this dithering when the collapse in the price of oil has left the economy flatlining and has for the past year demanded strong and clear leadership. Yet the administration has looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, startled and devoid of expertise and experience. A clear manifestation of this has been the 2016 budget process. Nearly six months into the year – and with the 2017 version being worked on– it has still to receive ascent. Considering PMB’s undoubted commitment to eradicating corruption from government, and is the justification for streamlining ministries and pruning the civil service, the 2016 budget has been a fiasco. Delivered by a PMB appointment it was riddled with errors that smacked either of shabby work or business as usual, i.e., graft. The draft labelled car or computer purchases as capital expenditure and one billion naira – over $5m at the official exchange rate – for office furniture alone. One report alleged there was N17bn worth of padding. “This was really depressing when we expected that this should be a total shift from the wasteful culture that we had in the past,” said Oluseun Onigbinde, founder of the Nigerian research group BudgIT. All the while the economy has taken a battering from falling oil prices. And the very people that put PMB in office, the middle and lower classes, are paying the price. The welfare safety net that he trumpeted as the pillars of the change agenda have been postponed or abandoned. Students studying abroad – Nigeria’s future – are finding themselves destitute. Nigeria’s SMEs – statistically the greatest employer in any economy, and accounting for 70% of jobs in Nigeria – are struggling. All are taking a battering from the exchange rate and restrictions on the availability of the dollar. The official exchange rate is N197 to the dollar. In the parallel “unofficial” market it is N320.5 to the dollar. (The naira is trading against the Pound Sterling and the Euro at N457 and N361 respectively.) The two rates reflect two universes: the official rate is that which is enjoyed by the rich, the politicians and large corporations; the unofficial rate is that which is suffered by the general populace and SME sector. And this is the kind of institutionalised disadvantage that Nigerians wanted to see the back of when they voted for change. It didn’t help that in a recent Al Jazeera interview when PMB was asked about schooling his children abroad, paying in dollars at the official rate which was an option unavailable to most Nigerians, the President responded that “those who can afford it, can.” His lack of empathy and arrogant entitlement was shocking from a man who had paraded his ascetic lifestyle as a virtue in the election, aligning himself with the common man. Then it was revealed his daughter had been travelling first class between Nigeria and UK, where she is studying medical micro-biology. The price of such a return ticket to Abuja is almost £8,500 ($12,400) – a far cry from Nigeria’s GDP per capita of $1,091, according to recent World Bank figures. And the fees for her course as an international student will be substantial. While it might not be wrong, it gives the wrong impression. Especially as President Buhari has decreed that his ministers should not fly first or business class on official duties. And the Financial Times revealed last month that 18% of all government spending was on travelling expenses. Nigeria’s Presidency maintains an 11 plane fleet – the second largest of all fleets in the nation that does not have a functioning national carrier – the largest and most expensive in Africa and one of the more expensive arrangements in countries across the world. It looks bad. As does the fact that the President’s nephew was caught up in the nepotism scandal at the Central Bank of Nigeria, which was exposed to have employed relatives of the ruling elite. Change? What change? It is not visible on the ground or in actions such as these. On Facebook PMB is portrayed as a snail, with the moniker Baba Go-slow. On social media there is the satirical #bringbackourcorruption. The argument is that if with the monumental corruption of the previous administration, Nigerians had petrol, inflation was single digit, the dollar was about N200 and available, the electricity companies could still provide light for about six to 10 hours a day, and the general econometrics of life were attainable, then we should have that brand of corruption and let life continue. In other words, Buhari’s fight against corruption is not yet translating in any way to a better life for the people. Indeed, some say this is because far from being a surgical strike to remove graft from the system it is a vendetta as only PDP associates have been pursued and charged – and none who crossed over to join the APC. In response to all this the administration cautions patience, as unemployment rises. PMB and his spokesmen say change is coming and in the next six months, with the budget in place and ministers settled in to a restructured government, the coast will be clear for his administration to fire from all cylinders. They say the anti-graft fight is paying dividends, as is the treasury single account. The petroleum sector is next on the hit list as the President and Minister for Petroleum sets about reorganising the oil and gas sector. And the price of oil is starting to creep upwards, towards $42 a barrel. But the special adviser to President Femi Adesina in March said the president cannot perform magic to facilitate the change he promised, adding that it would take a minimum of 18 months to revive the economy. He is cutting it fine. PMB is a quarter of the way into his tenure in office and the green shoots of recovery better start appearing soon. Nigerians are sick of the blame game, hearing that it’s all the fault of the previous administration. Nigerians voted for change because they knew things could be better and PMB promised they would be better. It is time to deliver.
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