One Year Of ‘Change’: Buhari’s Top Sevens Failings So Far

By Saheed Animashaun

For my criticism to be fair let me cut Baba some slack. This is perhaps the worst possible time to be Nigeria’s President. Nigeria is an oil economy. As a mono-economy therefore, our economy is in normal circumstances bound to move in the direction of oil income. The nation’s income from crude oil sales is at an all time low. The demand for the dollar at the moment far outweighs the supply due to i) Fall in the proceeds from sales of crude which is our primary source of forex, ii) Our non-oil exports being quite too insignificant to fetch reasonable amount of forex iii) the fact that we import majority of the oil we consume thereby having to part with our scarce dollar reserves.

*Buhari 

Also, change is a gradual process. One year is too small to rate an administration that took over from a party that had milked Nigeria dry for a good part of 16 years! Kwarapshun is our ONLY hindrance to development and Baba is ardently tackling it!

Enough of sounding like one of this administration’s many spokespersons! Enough of these excuses!
This administration don fall my hand in many areas. Below is a countdown from seven to one of the most disappointing aspects of the Buhari administration in my opinion!

CAVEAT: Whatever has happened after Buhari got elected doesn’t negate the fact that there was only one right choice between Buhari and GEJ. Nigeria was nose-diving into a seemingly bottomless chasm as a result of the ineptitude of the previous governments. May be with that government still in power, Nigeria would have been auctioned to China by now! Recent revelations have shown that it was that bad! The looting was unprecedented as it has been for several years though.

7. Many pending appointments –
The defence line that it takes time to find the right people is balderdash! You have been trying to be president for more than ten years! Until recently, many appointees of the previous government that were supposedly inept were still running the show in various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of the Federal government! Till now, many appointments have still not been made. This has definitely affected administrative duties because these individuals already know they would definitely be replaced. They are only not sure of when!

6. The nefarious activities of “Fulani Herdsmen”
While I agree that there are some narratives to this imbroglio that are unknown to many and hardly publicized by the press, the seemingly innocuous posture of the C-in-C has been embarrassing. This dangerous phenomenon has the potential to deteriorate into a huge scale war if not nipped in the bud. I still find it hard to fathom out the reason little to no mention of it was made in the long democracy day speech of the President! This is a disaster waiting to happen that needs to be decisively tackled on a huge scale.