BEVERLY HILLS, May 30, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari assumed power as Nigeria’s democratically elected president on May 29, 2015. He completed his first term and was duly elected for a second term in 2019.
Before he got elected for the first term, he promised Nigerians a three – point agenda, namely improving security, ensuring a good and improved economy and fighting against corruption. Six years down the lane, it is time for the electorate to assess how much President Buhari has fared in his promise to take the country to the next level.
Speaking on his principal’s performance in office shortly before the 2019 presidential election, the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, said the President was in the habit of saying that a country that was not secure would be difficult to manage. According to him, that was the reason why security topped the list of Buhari’s priorities.
“Remember that right from the day he was inaugurated, he spoke about ending the Boko Haram insurgency and directed that the command’s centre be moved to Maiduguri, which was like the hotbed of the insurgency then. Between 2015 and 2019, we have seen the difference. The insurgency may not have been totally annihilated, but the difference between 2015 and now is like a difference between heaven and hell.
“In 2015 Boko Haram was running riot all over the country. It was in the North- East, North-West, North-Central and it was about to go into the South-West. If you will recall, it was already in Kogi and from there it would have entered the South-West and move from there to the South-South. What would have been left of the country? Nothing. It would have overrun the entire country. But to the Glory of God, President Buhari came, rekindled the morale of the military, re-equipped it, retrained the personnel and gradually began to beat back Boko Haram.
“The military beat Boko Haram out of the North-Central and the North-West, beat the insurgents even in the North-East that was their bulwark and restricted them to Adamawa, Yobe and Borno States. Even then, they got restricted to just Sambisa forest and the battle was taken to them in the forest. The Nigerian military took ground zero from them and they became scattered. As we speak they are in some places, but they are not in such a formidable force as they were in 2015. The insurgency has been degraded. What we have now are cowardly attacks, kidnapping young girls and using them as suicide bombers, hitting this location and running away. it was not like the past when they would seize a location and begin to administer it. The difference is clear.
“There are other challenges, kidnapping, robbery, herdsmen – farmers clashes, they are all there, but one thing you can’t deny this government is that it is able to solve all those problems and stay on top of them. Those problems will become things of the past. The government has the capacity to deal with those problems. Those that seem intractable are also due to the fact that it goes beyond what we see.There are some hidden hostile hands that are involved underground. You have genuine criminality and criminals who are at work. We also have political criminality. Some political forces are using the so-called criminals for political ends. To them it is the struggle for power and all is well in war. That is the way they see it.
“Yes, the anti – corruption war is going without fear or favour. You will see that since the President assumed office, no wrong doer has been spared by the anti-corruption agencies. Anybody that has a case to answer will answer it,” Adesina said.
Also speaking on President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievements in the last six years , the Minister of Information and Culture , Alhaji Lai Mohammed, cited several initiatives targeted at creating jobs for the youth and alleviating poverty among women and vulnerable groups, describing them as the best in the history of the country.
Mohammed gave Nigerians the assurance that despite the security challenges facing the country at present, Nigeria is in safe hands.
However, speaking on the achievements of President Buhari, Second Republic politician and a stalwart of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai, said the administration believes it is doing its best, but its best is not good enough for the country.
He said “Buhari always talks about Boko Haram. One of the promises he made was that he would end the Boko Haram insurgency. But now Nigeria has more problems to contend with. We now have problem of kidnapping and ransom taking. The problems have multiplied. Sadly he has not solved these problems and changed this country for better”.
A former Chief of Training, Operations and Planning in the Nigerian Army, Major-General Isola Williams (retd.), in a recent interview with THEWILL, said the President had failed in the area of security and in the fight against corruption. As a result, he added, Nigerians had found themselves in a situation where their safety is no longer guaranteed.
Williams said, “The point is that the Muhammadu Buhari administration has created a situation in which everybody has to look after himself in terms of personal safety. So nobody will defend anybody now like the Nigeria Police. The police have refused to get reorganised. What they continue to do is to create big positions for their top-ranking officers. That is all.
“If President Buhari has done what he was supposed to do, are we going to be in this kind of situation by now? We will not be. There is no doubt about that. Everybody all over the country has told him this and even if he doesn’t read newspapers, somebody may tell him. So the issue is that he knows what is going on and if you tell him something is happening he would say we are going to deal with them. There is no strategy. There is no strategy at all.”
Also a former Ambassador to the Philippines and renowned Media Manager, Dr Yemi Farounbi, said the worsening insecurity was caused by unbalanced structure in the country.
He advised the presidency to shed its obviously partisan outlook.
“Buhari presidency must begin to speak in a way as if they belong to Nigerians and not a particular set of people. They must also begin to act in a way that they are not privileged and favoured people who are not under the law. The presidency in its speeches with the masses and in its action must begin to behave as if every Nigerian is important, not a particular ethnic group. When Nigerians begin to feel their impact positively, they are going to discover that Nigerians will be better disposed to the presidency.
“It is not only about Buhari. No matter what we do, if we don’t rearrange the architecture that is so centralised, which put 774 local government areas under one Inspector – General of Police. If we don’t rearrange that architecture that put 1 million squares kilometers under one Inspector- General of Police, no matter what we do, we will come back to this situation that we have found ourselves.”
In his reaction, a member of the Campaign for Democracy, Comrade Sola Olawale, said the President, probably due to his ill-health and old age, had failed to fulfill his promises to Nigerians.
He said “Like everybody knows, Buhari promised to improve the economy, which has now gone from bad to worse. He promised to fight against corruption. Revelations as witnessed when the House of Representatives probed the activities of the Niger Delta Development Commission last year and the suspension of the Managing Director of the Nigerian Port Authority, Hadiza Bala Hassan, among others, have shown that the fight against corruption in the last six years is nothing to write home about .
“Nigeria’s external debt is very high and worse under his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. An average Nigerian cannot afford three square meals a day. The unemployment rate is very high. So the economy is bad. He has failed to improve the economy”.
With the mixed reactions trailing President Muhammadu Buhari’s six years in office , the president still has two years to redeem his image and bow out graciously.
About the Author
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
