If there is any appeal Buhari has for Nigerians, it is a lesson in patience from the study by Joel Weldon. Joel Weldon is an expert in human potential development. He drew a lesson with Chinese bamboo to encourage people to approach life from the perspective of patience.
Joel Weldon’s study revealed that it takes five years for a Chinese bamboo seed to germinate after it is planted. However, when it sprouts up, it takes only six weeks for the bamboo to grow to the height of 90 feet. In those five years, the bamboo seed develops elaborate roots that will enable it shoot high after it sprouts. Chinese farmers are always patient, watering, weeding, and guarding their bamboo seedbeds in those five years waiting in hope for the time they will begin to germinate.
While we need to give Buhari time to develop elaborate roots, Buhari ought to avoid the extreme of taking Nigerians for a ride. This is because Nigerians have waited longer than the Chinese bamboo seeds in hope of better governance.
It may appear too early to begin to criticize this administration for being too slow. But Buhari, like his governors must be cautious not to step into the lethargic cesspool that swallowed the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua administration after it took over baton of leadership in 2007. Yar’Adua’s administration heaped its delays on the need to follow ‘due process’ and ‘the rule of law’. This led it to be both slow and indecisive in virtually all its approaches to governance. Where it stirred itself into action, it would take no time to reverse itself. Matters remained that way until its terminal exit some two years later.
Mohammadu Buhari cannot afford to be the authoritarian soldier of 1984. But he also cannot afford to be the over cautious and tentative democrat of 2015. Like Yar’Adua’s, the administration has been cautiously moving on snail speed. And like Yar’Adua’s, while one expects that slow movement being witnessed will guarantee impeccable decision, it is not the case. Today, an order is issued, and the next day it is reversed. Today, the military will be directed to remove all check-points; tomorrow they will be ordered to reinstate the check-points in some selected regions and states.
Four weeks after the Muhammadu Buhari administration was inaugurated amid much hope and high expectations, nothing has begun. But while the new president has taken a few significant steps locally and internationally in terms of giving out orders, it leaves much to be desired where the administration is heading to. With crisis everywhere including his party and the National Assembly, and the delay in the appointment of ministers and other key administrative staff, Nigerians are getting confused. The anxiety is who might make his ministerial list or otherwise. The criticism is that Buhari ought to have known those he will work with even before inauguration. The delay has shown again that Nigerian politicians always underestimate the level of the country’s degeneration. During their campaigns, they promise citizens what only God can give and vilify those they aspire to succeed as devils from the hottest part of the hell sent to torment innocent citizens.
But as soon as the elections are over, they begin to cry wolves where lions and tigers are playing under mango trees; they start giving excuses. Because of this false hope, at the beginning of every administration, Nigerians always expect miracles but the truth is that the reality surrounding political office is not totally grasped from outside. That is why when politicians get into office they stumble on the reality and get frustrated.
Buhari appeared to have underestimated the country he is governing today. In sincerity, Buhari looked poised during his campaign to change Nigeria. Stepping into Aso Rock has changed his view. He has understood his age and the limitation it imposes on him. Like others before him, he has seen the messy and murky Nigeria system. The rot is not the personal weakness of the former president Jonathan but cumulative leadership failure since 1960. When Jonathan cried out his frustration trying to change the country, he was not taken seriously by critics neither did he demonstrate courage to deal with it.
Nigeria has enormous challenges that can never be quickly fixed. Let us take a look at the state of power. It is estimated that Nigeria needs 30, 000 megawatts to catch up with its Vision 20-20-20. But at present, Nigeria’s electricity generation has dropped to 1327 megawatts. This represents only a single digit percent of what is needed to run industries in Lagos alone.
The corruption in our system cannot even allow any initiative to develop legs. Our corruption level has reached a very critical stage. While the APC government is busy strategizing on how to recover the unaccounted for missing billions of naira in NNPC, latest release ranked the country as the 27th most corrupt, having been placed at 136 out of 175 countries.
There is a problem of unemployment too. The 2014 figure shows that 22.6 million Nigerians were unemployed. This grows higher by day. While the APC promised to engage all the unemployed, it is good to remind ourselves that our annual budget shows that only 19 per cent is allotted for capital expenditures while recurrent expenditures engulf as high as 81 per cent. Creating more jobs means that the percentage allocation to capital expenditure will shrink further. This comes at a time the Africa’s top economy and largest oil producer, Nigeria, has been hammered by the 50 percent fall in oil prices, with crude sales accounting for more than 70 percent of government revenue. A cash shortage caused by low oil prices has forced Nigeria to borrow heavily through the early part of 2015, with the government struggling to pay public workers. Okonjo-Iweala said that the federal government had a projected borrowing allowance for 2015 of 882 billion naira ($4.4 billion/4 billion euros). And 473 billion naira had already been used up to meet recurrent expenditures, including public workers’ salaries. Latest figure shows that the country’s home and foreign debt stand at $60bn. The issue of fuel subsidy, to be or not to be, presents another challenge. Either way, there is a problem. In 2014, Nigeria government paid 314 billion. Removal of the subsidy seems to be the answer. But what effort has been put in place to cushion its effect on the citizens?
All military command headquarters are relocating to Maiduguri, an evidence that Boko Haram is stronger. While we relocate command centres, the insurgents change tactics. Across the country, there are 3.3 million internally displaced people. All these have confirmed the report from the office of Statistician General which shows that 112 million people in Nigeria are living below poverty line. The life expectancy in the country is less than 55 years and infant mortality stands at 74 deaths per 1,000 births.
Above all, an improper handover of these worries will surely delay their understanding and government response. The inability of the Jonathan government and transition committee to cooperate before handover because of pride has compounded Buhari’s chances to scale through the hurdles. The new administration set Ahmed Joda Committee to study the handover note and that has taken more than three weeks to do.
The submission of the report coincided with the National Assembly crisis; and the crisis is far from being over. To say that Buhari is overwhelmed by these problems will be saying the least. Few steps already taken and excuses emanating from the presidency point to this confusion.
With Buhari’s administration surrounded by tasks and excuses, Buhari will not fix Nigeria as quickly as many had thought. With what we see, the ‘Messiah-ship’ of Buhari is now contestable. If he out-performs Jonathan, it will be in courage to confront the cabals; although that will be a wonderful legacy if he succeeds. Yet, we are most likely to wait for another. Nigeria is a complex country. Poor Buhari.
