On September 8, 2015, it will be 100 days since the swearing-in of President Muhammadu Buhari. The President and his party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) defied the odds and swept to office on the back of a near hysterical clamor for change. The March 28 presidential election was a historic victory, as it was the first time since independence in 1960, that an opposition party defeated the ruling party. In the process, both the President and his party made hundreds of promises with respect to what they would do to change the direction of the country, and put it back on the path to stability and prosperity. When Nigeria pulled through the presidential election, the country regained so much respect on the international scene because the election defied all expectations that the country would break up in 2015. It is incumbent on Buhari to make the country work and sustain this international honor it has regained. As the clock ticks to the first 100 days, Buhari seems to be losing this momentum to inertia.
To begin with, the president is yet to name his full cabinet; a delay that has, of course, exposed him to charges of unpreparedness for the presidency even though he had sought the office for 12 years before eventually getting it. Worse even, there has been a remarkable shoddiness that has characterized the few appointments he has made, in a manner that speaks more than a little about presidential confusion. The president’s recourse to the quibble that there is the need for caution in the choice of his cabinet so that only the best would be appointed is hardly convincing anymore. The danger the president has unwittingly exposed himself to by his delay is that when he names his team as promised this month, there might be a suspicion that such appointees were imposed on him and that he has not chosen them based on their personal merit.
Secondly, of the nine promises made as measures to prosecute the war against corruption, the President at the moment has only achieved the constitutionally-mandated pledge on his public declaration of assets and liabilities. Together with his vice-president, he has also announced a 50% salary cut. Buhari has not convinced governors or legislators to follow his example in reducing their salaries and it appears governors are declaring non-existent assets, with the hope of acquiring such assets while in office. Nigerians have not seen any meaningful steps being taken to fulfil other campaign promises that are fundamental to winning the war against corruption. Nothing has so far been done to enact the Whistle Blower Act; strengthen the EFCC and the ICPC through financial and prosecutorial independence, as well as the presentation of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy and inauguration of the National Council on Procurement, as well as implementation of the findings of the Nigeria Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI).
Similarly, Nigerians have not seen any publicly known steps towards ending the insurgency that has turned the northeast into a killing field. In his inaugural address, Buhari announced that the Command and Control Centre in the war against Boko Haram would be relocated from Abuja to Maiduguri, the main theatre of the war. He followed this up with diplomatic shuttles to Chad, Niger, Cameroon, the G-7 summit and the USA, to exact commitments and build consensus on how to defeat the insurgency. He later ordered the release of $21 million to the Multi National Joint Task Force fighting Boko Haram. But over 1000 innocent Nigerians have been killed in several bomb explosions and attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram since May 29, 2015, when Buhari took office. Nigerians are still waiting for the promised Marshal Plan on insurgency, terrorism, ethnic and religious violence, kidnapping and rural banditry. And promises of state-guaranteed life insurance to security personnel, activation of regular meeting of the National Police Council, recruitment of 100,000 police officers, creation of Local Government and State policing systems, to strengthen security capacity of the country all remain a far cry.
It is safe to assume that the President is not on course to fulfilling his campaign promises in his first 100 days. Beyond these promises, however, the President needs to be reminded that the problems he has been voted into office to solve cannot wait while he dithers. Nigeria needs to move ahead and very fast too. In various spheres of national life, a sense of urgency is needed, if not one of desperation. The country is in the throes of an economic downturn that has spawned widespread unemployment, kidnapping, armed robbery Boko Haram and other forms of insecurity.
On the list of the national challenges are also the energy crisis, and even the absence of a clear-cut foreign policy. Even if Mr. President had to delay the appointment of others, Nigerians have been at a loss to understand why he delayed the appointment of some strategic members of his administration like the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Minister of Finance, Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Foreign Affairs Minister. The appointment of Engr. Babachir David Lawal as SGF and Alhaji Abba Kyari as Chief of Staff to the President is belated and speaks directly to the lack of a palpable sense of urgency in the way the president has been going about his duties. Just as he named the service chiefs and the NSA, he also needs an economic team to fight inflation and calm the markets.
It also does not inspire confidence that after the President requested and was granted Senate approval to appoint 15 special advisers; he has appointed only one. Buhari needs appropriate appointees to deal decisively with these issues. Nigerians cannot afford to watch helplessly while he runs the country with permanent secretaries. In fact, the President needs to be told that the permanent secretaries, nay civil servants, are part of the problems of the country in so far as they have been weaned on the routine of government that does not guarantee productivity but rather breeds corruption.
Owing to the absence of a team, there have been glaring mistakes even if in procedure. For instance, the announcement of the removal of Ita Ekpeyong as the Director General of the Department of State Service and his replacement by Lawal Musa Daura who had been retired from public service should have been done by the SGF and not the head of civil service of the federation (HoS) as was the case. While the SGF ought to deal with political appointments, the HoS should normally be concerned with civil servants. Even his decision to appoint governors to probe the NNPC raises fundamental questions about how much technical competence those governors have to undertake such a complicated task. More importantly, it is impervious of the governors’ responsibility in bankrupting their states. A situation whereby governors and state lawmakers award huge perks to themselves is deplorable, amounting to sheer robbery.
Buhari urgently needs the right people around him to effectively pilot the affairs of the nation and cannot settle on an ad hoc arrangement. Power abhors a vacuum. Buhari must learn from the failures of his predecessors and avoid such. The President must acknowledge that nations fail or succeed because of leadership, hence; it is incumbent on him to lead from the front. As a president who campaigned and promised change, the president must chart a trajectory of values in sync with the promise, values that are clearly different from those that have retarded the nation’s development. Nigerians must feel secure and confidence in his leadership and although he has failed to live up to expectations in his first 100 days, the President still has a golden opportunity to change the narrative.
