Story by Dili Utomi.
In every one of our various endeavours as human beings, we are usually tempted to draw comparisons, be it in our families, schools, work places and even our social lives. This, if viewed from the angle of one’s desire to improve oneself in order to better the supposed person or institution becomes a very good thing.
The need to make this clarification is imperative in view of the fact that there have been various opposing views and opinions about the performance or lack of it on the part of the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, a man who rode to power on an avowed principle of integrity.
Nigeria as a country has had at least six rolling plans and two of these have happened before independence in 1960. The first post independence rolling plan was for the period between 1962 to 1968, it had a proposed total investment expenditure of about N2,132million. The administration of the then Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa largely now seen as very focused and with the zeal to implement the plan did try with the implementation, but never had the opportunity to see it all through as the government was halted by the coup of 1966.
There have also been the 1970 to 1974 plan, the 1975 to 1980 rolling plan, the 1981 to 1985 plan and 1990 to 2009 too. Most of these plans have been had started and had degrees of implementation, but of course, the socio-political and economic dynamics within each period determined to what extent each plan was implemented.
One could easily sieve out some level of focus, the desire to make positive change in the lives of the average Nigerian and of course the intellectual input geared towards making the nation to attain certain developmental goals and objectives.
The revenue earned by the country over these periods increased exponentially from one succeeding government to the other, but one is forced to ask, where had all the financial resources gone? The highest revenue earned by the country happened to be 1837.52 NGN Billion in the third quarter of 2022. source: Central Bank of Nigeria, but this never rubbed off on the life styles of the average person in the country.
The Muhammadu Buhari eight years of presiding over the activities of Nigeria is at this juncture x-rayed in order to have some level of clarity as opinions generally point to a very dismal performance amidst inept leadership and the seeming ruderless nature of the ship of state. To start with, it should be noted that there has never been any form of clear cut plan or policy properly aimed at tackling the myriads of social, economic and political problems. There have only been mere adhoc cum knee jerk approaches to critical issues of national importance. We started by giving examples of the different rolling plans that have been instituted by different administrations, but not much can be credited to the outgoing administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
The security problems though inherited had rather been exacerbated than reduced with the only reprieve coming in the wake of the currency swap and cash scarcity period. Some figures suggest over 63, 000 violent deaths over the period of eight years as a result of the Boko Haram, Bandits, Fulani Herdsmen, Unknown gunmen and kidnapping cases all over the nation with various hot spots in the North East, North West, North Central and South Eastern parts of the country. There are at this moment over 3 million internally displaced persons in the country and over 366 thousand persons living as refugees outside the country.
The political crises took different dimensions with the arrest of judges, clampdown on disenting voices and the enthronement of absurdity as in the case where a candidate that came fourth in an election is now serving as the Governor of a State. The administration muddied the political water a but more with the organisation of the worst election in the history of Nigeria having promised so much and spent the whooping sum of over #300 Billion while aqcuring the bi-modal voters accreditation security (BVAS) machines that were supposedly the antidote to election rigging.
On the economic front, this administration has got to be the worst in terms of the impact it made on the economic lives of all Nigerians. Reports say that over 133 million Nigerians are living in multidimensional poverty with 6 Nigerians falling into the poverty trap every minute and the country becoming the poverty capital of the world. Nothing is more eloquent in the discription of the performance of this administration than this fact.
Corruption assumed a frightening position in the lifespan of the tenure of President Buhari. It was under his tenure that the secretary to his government was reported to have used several hundreds of millions of naira to cut grass, #13 Billion was said to be used to feed school children during the covid-19 pandemic lock down when they were supposed to be at home, snake and monkeys were said to have swallowed tens of millions of naira and a man who was indicted for misappropriating over #28 Billion of pensions fund was smuggled back into his position. This government also had the penchant for appointing dead people into positions of authority. The president will be leaving an unprecedented national debt of over #77 Trillion.
The administration though has been able to spend some of the borrowed money on certain level of infrastructural development over the period as attested to by the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, the second Niger bridge and some rail projects, but these can never rationally justify the humongous debt profile of the administration. The completed projects can be refered to as mere token considering the amount of money that the government has generally expended. Some of his appointed aids and supervisors neither knew what their duties entailed nor cared about it all and this buttressed by one of his Ministers saying that he never knew anything about the Ministry that he is supervising.
In terms of administration, President Buhari has set a record for being so unaware of events around him and one who solely depended on the selected information passed to him by aids and cronies. He is reputed to be an intellectually lazy person who neither read nor writes and also relied so much on whatever information he may have happened upon as a growing human being. This singular fact became the reason why the country continued to fall apart under his watch and he was never alive to this reality. Nigeria has probably never been this polarized, never.
All these could be considered rather disappointing as a vast number of Nigerians truly believed in the ability of President Buhari to turn around the dwindling fortunes of the country haven vigorously campaigned on the principles of honesty and integrity and to embark on real fight against corruption and corrupting tendencies. Alas, the reality that has been the lot of millions of Nigerians is conversely different from their expectations and on this note, one would wish that the new administration, whoever may head it will be far better and more inspiring of confidence to all Nigerians.
Dili Utomi writes from Lagos, Nigeria.
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