Missing gaps in Buhari’s Democracy Day speech

 

Permit to begin by congratulating all compatriots on the auspicious occasion of celebrating 22 years of uninterrupted civil rule in Nigeria out of which the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has accounted for six years. Though the new Democracy Day which is June 12 fell on a Saturday, the President gave Monday, June 14 as a work-free day. I dare say, this kind of public holiday needs to be discontinued. A lot of productivity is lost due to our observation of too many holidays. I am of the considered view that any festivity apart from Eid-el-Fitr, Eid- el-Kabir, Christmas and New Year should not warrant public holiday especially if it falls on a weekend.

Many Nigerians had been vociferous in urging the President to speak out on the state of the nation. Last week, he heeded that clarion call and granted the Arise News TV crew an interview and then did another interview with the Nigerian Television Authority crew last Friday before crowning it all with a national broadcast on Saturday morning to commemorate the Democracy Day. My focus this week is to analyse the President’s June 12 broadcast to see if there are missing gaps. Indeed, the 59-paragraph speech has a lot of soundbites but three stood out for me. They are paragraphs 36, 48 and 56.

Paragraph 36 says: “I will be the first to admit that in spite of our efforts and achievements which are there for all to see, there is still much more to be done and we are doing our best in the face of scarce resources and galloping population growth rate that consistently outstrip our capacity to provide jobs for our populace. Our over-all economic target of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years is our goal notwithstanding COVID-19.” Paragraph 48 says: “My commitment to bequeathing a sustainable democratic culture remains resolute, my pursuit of a fair society remains unshaken and my desire to see that Nigeria remains a country for each and every one of us has never been stronger.” The third and final one is Paragraph 56 which says: “In adhering to the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy notably Section 14(2)(b), I shall do all within my power to ensure that the security and welfare of the people remain the primary purpose of government.”

In that broadcast, Buhari dwelt extensively on his economic policies, programmes, projects and achievements. He reeled out several statistics many of which need to be fact-checked. He said in the agricultural sector, for instance, that the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme resulted in sharp decline in the nation’s major food import bill from $2.23bn in 2014 to US$0.59bn by the end of 2018. Rice import bill alone dropped from $1bn to $18.5m annually. This initiative supported local production of rice, maize, cotton and cassava. Government financed 2.5m small-holder farmers cultivating about 3.2m hectares of farmland all over the country and created 10 million direct and indirect jobs.

The President noted further that in the manufacturing sector, the Central Bank of Nigeria – Bank of Industry N200bn facility financed the establishment and operations of 60 new industrial hubs across the country, creating an estimated 890,000 direct and indirect jobs. The CBN’s N50bn Textile Sector Intervention Facility reportedly increased capacity utilisation of ginneries from 30% to nearly 90%. He further said that the National Social Investment Programme has over 32.6 million beneficiaries and that the country now has a National Social register of poor and vulnerable households, identified across 708 local government areas, 8,723 Wards and 86,610 communities in the 36 states and the FCT. The President also claimed that his regime’s conditional cash transfer programme had benefited over 1.6 million poor and vulnerable households comprising more than eight million individuals. This provides a monthly stipend of N10,000 per household. As of the end of 2020, the Development Bank of Nigeria, the President said, had disbursed N324bn in loans to more than 136,000 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises through 40 participating financial institutions. Some 57% of these beneficiaries are said to be women while 27% are youths.

All the aforementioned claims need to be independently verified. However, areas where I personally want to commend the President is in the area of infrastructural development. For instance, the Itakpe-Warri standard gauge rail was completed and inaugurated 33 years after construction began. The Lagos-Ibadan double track railway line was also inaugurated on Thursday, June 10, 2021.

Also praiseworthy is the presidential approval for four new seaports using a Public-Private-Partnership approach. These four sea ports; Lekki Deep Sea Port, Bonny Deep Sea Port, Ibom Deep Sea Port and Warri Deep Sea port which we hope will create massive job opportunities and foreign investment inflows. The deepening of the Eastern ports, the president said, has led to success like having three container ships berth at Calabar port, a first in 11 years.  Similarly, on October 30, 2019, an LPG tanker operated by NLNG berthed in Port Harcourt, the first time an LPG ship is berthing at any of the Eastern Ports. The launch of the NIMASA Deep Blue project – which is an Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure which was recently inaugurated is designed to add to the layer of security needed to safeguard our maritime sector.

The regime’s successful battle of COVID-19, the National Disability Act and the inauguration of the National Disability Commission, the setting up of the Police Equipment Trust Fund, the approval of N30,000 National Minimum Wage Act, increase in the salary of Nigerian Police and teachers, as well as the signing into law of five constitution amendment bills in 2018 among which was the Not-Too-Young-To-Run bill are some of the other achievements of the Buhari regime in his six years in office.

Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the President and his lieutenants, statistics on democracy, development and good governance are not favourable to him. A few highlights will be in order. In April this year, there was a report which indicated that Nigeria had been ranked in the 102nd position out of 104 countries captured in the inaugural Chandler Good Government Index which classifies countries in terms of government capabilities and outcomes. The data are aggregated to produce a score on a scale of 0 (lowest) to 1 (highest), and Nigeria scored 0.319 points.  On November 16, 2020 when the 2020 Ibrahim Index of African Governance of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation was released, Nigeria ranked 34 out of 54 countries. Precisely, the country scored 45.5 points out of 100, just as she declined by -1.6 in overall governance. On the 2020 Legatum Prosperity Index, Nigeria ranked 144th out of the 167 countries surveyed. When Transparency International released its 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index on January 28, 2021, it ranked Nigeria 149 out of 180 countries surveyed. TI said Nigeria scored 25/100 which is one point less than its 26 points in the previous year, a record that is three steps lower than its rank of 146 in 2019.

In a 2020 Global Terrorism Index by the Institute for Economics and Peace, Nigeria remained the third most terrorised country in the world.  Latest figures by the National Bureau of Statistics have put the country’s unemployment rate at 33.3 per cent. The NBS in a May 2020 report said 40 per cent of Nigerians live below poverty line. In a report about poverty and inequality from September 2018 to October 2019, it said 40 per cent of people Africa’s most populous country and biggest economy lived below its poverty line of 137,430 naira ($381.75) per year. That represents 82.9 million people, it claimed.

A November 2020 report by World Poverty Clock has shown that more Nigerians have been plunged into extreme poverty since November 2019. The latest figure shows that over 105 million Nigerians now live in extreme poverty – from 98 million in October 2019. The figures represent 51% of the population. Nigeria, according to the World Poverty Clock, has a total population of 205,323,520 people with 105,097,856 in extreme poverty, representing 51 per cent of the population. An individual is classified as living in extreme poverty if the person earns below $1.90 or N855 a day.

With these depressing statistics, could Buhari have doctored his economic scorecard? Not necessarily so. The import of the external statistics is that it is an accumulation of performance of the country over a long period of time. For instance, while insecurity did not start with the Buhari regime, it has worsened under his watch. The same go for poverty, unemployment, corruption and the likes. The performance indicators or scorecards, I have also reeled out, are a clarion call on government at all levels in Nigeria to do more for the security and welfare of the citizens. There is no gainsaying the fact that right now, there is high cost of living instead of high standard of living; the cost of doing business in the country is also astronomic thereby impacting negatively on the ease of doing business. The shrinking civic space under this regime should be a source of concern. The #Twitterban and attack on peaceful protesters against government are cases in point.