Enigmatic former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as he is wont to, stirred the hornet’s nest last week. In a strongly worded missive addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari, the three-time Nigerian former ruler simply took the Buhari administration to the cleaners.
Obasanjo reeled out a long list of failing points in the almost three years of this administration, with a simple advice to the president to perish the thought of contesting for another term in office.
While the Federal Government may have made genuine efforts to revamp the economy, the results are far-fetched with practical indices denoting a Nigerian population of sweltering masses, gasping for breath
While the former president assessed this administration on three key points of war against insurgency, corruption fight and economic recovery measures, he particularly pilloried the administration in its handling of the economy. To him, Buhari does not come as a man with the requisite intellectual capacity to appreciate the rudiments of a nation’s economic management. But at the start of his administration, he had thought Buhari would attract competent hands to make up for his inadequacy. He, however, expressed disappointment that the reverse had been the case.
“Buhari is weak in the knowledge and understanding of the economy but I thought that he could make use of good Nigerians in that area,” Obasanjo had stated.
While he said the government made fitful efforts to curb the Boko Haram insurgency, Obasanjo castigated Buhari for being weak-kneed when the time came for him to demonstrate valour and candour by crushing the Fulani gunmen, following mass killings allegedly perpetrated by them.
The former president particularly lamented the parlous state of the economy, how the condition of living of the ordinary citizen had nose-dived pitiably. “Let nobody deceive us, economy feeds on politics and because our politics is depressing, our economy is even more depressing today. If things were good, President Buhari would not need to come in. He was voted to fix things that were bad and not engage in the blame game,” Obasanjo lamented.
No doubt, a well-loaded letter by Obasanjo to any administration, going by his antecedent, is no more than a foreboding of sort to such an administration. He had written similar letters to President Shehu Shagari, General Ibrahim Babangida and President Goodluck Jonathan, and we are all living witnesses to the denouement of such open communication with the powers-that-be.
As expected, the Federal Government responded, in a language laced with caution, as it defended the administration in the area of alleged failure in the management of the Nigerian economy.
In a statement issued by the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the FG contended that rather than flunk as being alleged by Obasanjo, it was actually making steady progress in its determined effort to revamp the economy, and that the results were showing.
The government pointed at the foreign reserves that had “peaked at $40bn, the highest level in about four years, and up from $24 billion, just a year ago,” despite the fact that the price of oil had crashed woefully when the government came on board.
It also quoted the National Bureau of Statistics as stating that inflation had fallen for 11 consecutive months, standing at 15.37 per cent as at December 2017.
“This is the lowest inflation rate since January 2017, and it has met and surpassed the target set for inflation in the administration’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. Our determined implementation of the Treasury Single Account has stopped the hemorrhaging of the treasury. Some 108 billion naira has been saved from the removal of maintenance fees payable to banks, pre-TSA. The nation is being saved 24.7 billion naira monthly with the full implementation of the TSA,” the government had defended.
While the FG sounded persuasive in its defence of the management of the economy under the Buhari administration, poignant realities, no doubt, put a lie to such defence, as inflation, at double-digit, is nothing to jubilate about, especially considering the worsening Human Development Index.
While the Federal Government may have made genuine efforts to revamp the economy, the results are far-fetched with practical indices denoting a Nigerian population of sweltering masses, gasping for breath.
Like a bad dream, the price of fuel was increased from N87 to N145, and it is ultimately hitting at the N200 ceiling with spasmodic scarcity that has gravitated to a recurring decimal. The costs of food and other consumer items have equally soared with income either remaining static or dwindling dangerously.
Added to the era of squalour is also a new dimension to insecurity in which gunmen believed to be Fulani herdsmen have been slaughtering defenceless local farmers in the states without consequence. The latest outbreak of such horror were the Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba cases that have attracted international attention.
The Buhari government, having been buffeted with sincere suggestions, coming even from Obasanjo, who should have acted with tact, goes to show that a lot of things are wrong. This administration should go back to the drawing board and re-address the pathetic state of the Nigerian economy and also act in good faith in its efforts to tackle the insecurity problems besetting the country and threatening to snap its tenuous string of
unity.
For the letter, which read out the minds of many Nigerians, OBJ deserves
our thanks.
