Eye on power: Future-view of President Buhari’s re-election

President Buhari

Nigeria’s general elections have come and gone with President Buhari securing a controversially crucial second term; this is a statement of fact. I know his opponents and supporters of the main opposition candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the PDP would be nonplus and vexed with this assertion in the erroneous belief that the polls are not yet concluded as the judicial process can still reverse the outcome.

Well, it is good to wish but reality is a completely different thing. While it is their legitimate right to seek redress our experience makes the outcome academic; Nigeria is a country where truth and justice are often sacrificed on the altar of expediency and compromise. The tribunal process will go its full hug, but the outcome is already predetermined in accordance with our history and character. Nigeria does not do great and ennobling things; rather we are notorious for regurgitating old bad habits.

What then will be the future of Nigeria under Buhari’s second term? Few people can answer this question forthrightly and definitively. As expected, most people, in the typical Nigerian fashion and tradition, would prefer not to face the inevitable brutal truth; but instead wallow in the wishful pastime of best intentions. So was the case four years ago and here we are the worse for it. Intentions don’t produce any results; only actions do and the actions of this government do not suggest that things will be done differently.

Already, some ‘do-gooders’ are parroting wish lists of intentions, namely,form an inclusive government – the come and chop syndrome; balance strategic appointments across the geo-political zones; reform and redefine the anti-corruption fight;improve the economy to create more jobs, intensify war on insurgency etc. These are all necessary and desirable; Nigeria needs them more urgently now than before. However, the question is; why didn’t these happen in his first term and how could they happen this time around?

Some have argued that given the umbrage and opprobrium that attended his pursuit of northernisation agenda in the first term, commonsense and political expediency would compel a change. I am not convinced of this position. Again, why did he do those things when he had another election to contest and why should he have a rethink in his last lap? The truth as I see it is that the next four years will consolidate the ‘gains’ of the previous four.

It must be admitted however, that changes will be made – in appointments, fight against corruption and execution of some projects etc; but such changes would not be fundamental enough to alter the political trajectory already established in the past four years. The government has its agenda which is to return the country to a northern hegemonic control and domination; and that programme cannot be changed by the best of intentions.

As important as balancing appointments, fighting corruption and insurgency are, they are not the real problems facing Nigeria today. Those focusing on them – as this government has done – to be the main challenges of development and unity are simply deceiving the rest of us for their convenient political interest. These should be the least of our worries.

Nigeria’s main development challenge is existential – how to create a workable and equitable political and economic framework that does not rob Peter to pay Paul. Even leadership, which Prof. Chinua Achebe devoted a book to as Nigeria’s main problem is not; the past four years have proved that leadership as the solution is a short-term traditional approach. Leadership can be a catalyst to the process, but unless the changes are structurally deep and politically fundamental they are reversible and any change that can be easily reversed is not viable.

Nigeria needs basically two broad changes to survive as a productive, united and prosperous nation; other suggestions are peripheral and tangential. These are political and economic reforms. Political reforms should involve major constitutional amendments to reflect the principles of federalism, electoral process, census and citizenship.

These issues constitute Nigeria’s major hurdles to attaining nationhood and no leadership can resolve them, except through a national vision and consensus. And this government cannot, and will not even attempt to do it because it will negate what it stands for – to keep power.

Economic reforms will entail more liberalization of the economy through privatization and encouraging the private sector, right sizing of government and promoting productivity. Government does not create jobs and it is a huge joke for this government to promise job creation without a viable and vibrant private sector. The economy is the real bull in a china shop.

With a GDP growth of 1.8 percent, population rate of three percent, poverty rate of 63 percent, unemployment rate of 22 percent and a debt to revenue or budget ratio of 68 percent, Nigeria is an economic time bomb waiting to explode. And it will if major critical reforms are not instituted. How a government that is driven by statist policies can do this will be the Eighth Wonder of the world.

The economy is hobbled by our politics which, according to Marxism, is the superstructure. However, no house or structure is built without a foundation; the economy as the infrastructure is the foundation of every politics. Therefore the political edifice which is being defended with such righteous conviction is in mortal peril of economic explosion. Throughout history it is the economic and social conditions that produce the fertile ground for political change. Nigeria cannot defy this law of social change.

Nigerians will suffer more economic hardship in the next four years; power struggle for 2023 – expected to begin as soon as 2020 – will intensify political uncertainty; implementation of minimum wage by states will create more social dislocations and upheavals; introduction of and /or increase in taxes as well as fuel price hike will raise inflation and cause more poverty; insurgency and farmer-herders violence will escalate as government pursues its grazing reserve agenda. Indeed, Nigeria’s future view is foreboding.

Because this government and those before it have not been strategic, the future view of this country is unsavoury. Nigerians can wish for the best intentions from this government; and the government can make all the promises it can, but the brutal fact is this: The government will fail to meet the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians and President Buhari will leave office worse than he assumed it.