Nine months after, Nigerians may have found that they rejoiced too soon about the so-called Buhari Effect and its presumed impact on our public institutions. For die-hards of the Buhari administration who only a while ago thought little of appropriating the modest appearances of “progress” observed few days after the coming of the new Sheriff, going as far as investing it with a garb of extraordinariness, it must be a new lesson in the day that the magic has turned to a mere fleeting shadow given the nation’s steady regression of the last three weeks.
For the throng, it must be a terrible time indeed.
Across the board, the indices are anything but “progress”. If anything, it’s more of the same – worse in some respects. The nation’s currency – the naira – is in terrible shape. By weekend, it traded N320 to the United States dollars. Our foreign reserves – no thanks to the plunge in oil prices – are in full negative flight. From $28.2 billion in January, it shrunk further to $27.8 as at the end of February – barely enough to cover four months of imports. For an import dependent nation – with practically nothing, save oil to export, that can only spell trouble.
The security situation remains as troubling as ever. Presently, our gallant troops may well be on the final stages of routing the band of insurgents – the Boko Haram – in the North-east, the Fulani herdsmen – our new nightmares – are off the leash with their orgy of rape, killing and maiming not-so-fellow Nigerians. The same with the menace of kidnapping that have assumed epidemic proportion.
As if the situation is not grim enough, our old nightmares have returned in full force. The fuel shortages have returned full blast – never mind that it never really went anywhere. Yet again, it is a season of finger-pointing: the government blames the two foremost unions in the industry; the unions on their part – ever so eager to dredge up all manners of ‘agreements’ with the employers and government to justify their penchant for strikes – in turn accuse the government of reneging on them. The third leg in the triumvirate, the marketers blame the government for falling behind in its obligations to them; the government in turn accuse them of lacking in patriotism or of outright sabotage. Ever heard of deregulated chaos?
The same is true of the power sector. A decade plus after the coming of the Power Sector Reform Act, what we have done is replace government monopoly with the reign of a cartel of disparate players answerable to no one in particular! And now we are learning that beneath the façade of changes are the same old, crippling structures of inefficiency, corruption, red tape and tyranny of a hubristic kind! Imagine when we thought things had changed for the better; and at a time we are supposed to be ramping up power generation, all it took was a bunch of brigands and outlaws to throw the system into crisis to let us know that things are not as they seem. And now for that, we have a paralysis that has endured for three weeks running!
If the lessons of the current paralysis said to have been caused by vandalism and the sabotage of power infrastructure are any instructive, it is how very little things have refused to change; it is a classic throwback to the ancien regime.
And now, in what must be a cruel irony, the throng once described by Presidential handlers as wailing wailers are not only having fun, they have drawn a new battle in our minds on the state of the nation with their brand new hash-tag – #Bring back corruption (read Goodluck Jonathan)!
Stumbling on their verse in the cyber-sphere recently, I couldn’t but chuckle:
With Corruption a bag of pure water was N80 / Without Corruption a bag of pure water is N150
With Corruption dollar was N180 / Without Corruption dollar is N400
With Corruption I have 20hrs electricity at low tariff / Without Corruption I have 7hrs electricity with 45% increase in tariff
With Corruption Keke to my house takes N50 / Without Corruption Keke to my house takes N100
With Corruption smallest Indomie was N40 / Without Corruption smallest Indomie is N60
With corruption a bag of rice costs N8,500 / Without corruption it is N14,000.
# I stand with Corruption
# Bring back our corruption
Do I smell Stockholm syndrome here – a psychological phenomenon in which the victim express empathy, sympathy and positive feelings toward the victimiser – a longing for a return to bondage, the proverbial Egypt?
As for the wailers, if we excuse their artful preying on the nation’s tragedy as indeed mischief laden in their verse, not so their cruel, opportunistic displacement of effect for cause in their explanation of the current morass for which they are most culpable. Much as they are entitled to their nostalgia about the laissez-faire regime and its ethos of plunder –which they are not even ashamed to admit to – their attempt to place things on the same pedestal with the salvaging administration only because of the palpable frustration with the latter’s slow pace, or if you like, its rather pathetic response to the broad range of challenges hobbling the economy, must pass as the greatest affront to the sensibility of every self-respecting Nigerian.
This however is hardly a denial that the growing impatience with the Buhari administration is anything but real. For instance, Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria (GAIN) in their February survey reportedly found that more Nigerians for the first time since December 2015 scored Buhari low on jobs, economy, and power. Not all, it reported the President’s approval rating as dropping from 63.4 per cent in January to 32.8 per cent. When compared with an earlier poll which found that majority of respondents actually blamed former President Goodluck Jonathan for our current economic woes, the waning magic of Buhari Effect is perhaps better appreciated.
What to do? Simple: the administration needs to sit up. By sitting up I mean embarking on hands-on, effective governance. Time for the Buhari administration to offer the nation a clear, discernable roadmap on the whole range of problems holding the country down; to inject a sense of urgency and purpose into the business. Suffice to say that these elements are currently lacking.
Last week for instance, I listened to the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami (SAN), threaten to bring the roof down on any person suspected to have engaged in foreign exchange round-tripping. Said he: “It has become obvious that having failed in the attempt to force devaluation, certain forces have now aligned to create an artificial situation whose primary purpose is to undermine the economic programmme of the Buhari administration”.
My response: That’s drama – more of the same – not governance. If as the minister claims, he has “proofs”, shouldn’t the minister have simply gone after the saboteurs rather than treat Nigerians to what is becoming a wearisome melodrama? Didn’t the sportswear giant Nike say – Just Do It
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