Buhari: Two steps forward, three steps backwards

President Buhari’s first 100 days in office were the most impressive in recent memory. Power generation hit an all-time high and he managed to salvage us from a scorching fuel and salary crisis. The much touted messiah had finally arrived and we seemed headed for the promise land. Fast forward to March 2016. There are […]

President Buhari’s first 100 days in office were the most impressive in recent memory. Power generation hit an all-time high and he managed to salvage us from a scorching fuel and salary crisis. The much touted messiah had finally arrived and we seemed headed for the promise land.
Fast forward to March 2016. There are long queues at filling stations and power supply is once again nothing to write home about. The naira is now 310 to a dollar (at the time of writing this) and that is a tremendous leap from the all-time low of N400 to a dollar just a few weeks ago.
The fallen naira aside, the basic truth remains no economic transformation would occur if certain things aren’t already in place – security, power and an abundant supply of petroleum products.
Nigerians deserve to know not only the cause of the problem but also plans the government has of tackling it and preventing a reoccurrence. It is called transparency; a word that featured prominently during his campaign.
These are dire times and our President has remained mute and insensitive to the plight of the people while embarking on one trip to another, forgetting that we need to stay alive to reap any fruit his globe-trotting yields.
Like most Nigerians, I have never based my assessment of power supply on the figures published as megawatts generated or utilized but rather on the actual hours the average Nigerian has power made available to him a day.
After our best run ever following the inauguration of President Buhari, we are back where he met us. Power supply is at best; unstable with the sharp decline being attributed to vandalism of power installations. I choose to hold the President responsible for this predicament and my reason is quite simple – he hasn’t taken adequate steps at ensuring their security.
Apart from the monumental corruption and incompetence of previous leaders, there are a plethora of other reasons why we are in the bad state we are in today. Prominent among them is vandalism of oil and power installations. It would be taking two steps forward and three backwards to enhance supply without safeguarding installations. In other words, nothing would ‘change’.
The president being a distinguished ex-military officer who is not a novice in security matters, is expected to have taken measures at keeping our most vital assets safe after he was sworn-in if not for anything but for the threats by Asari Dokubo and his likes to wage war if Jonathan wasn’t re-elected.
With the Igbos only restricted to ‘unavoidable’ constitutional appointments, Kanu’s movement is bound to gain more sympathizers who wouldn’t kill their fellow Igbo brothers. They could go to extreme lengths at sabotaging the efforts of his government in delivering the dividends of democracy. We needed them guarded from the very day Buhari became President even if we considered guarding to ensure growth too routine a measure.
We would be at the mercy of these vandals no matter how much progress the government makes if nothing is done urgently. If vandalized pipelines don’t hinder gas supply to power stations, then vandalized power equipment are there to constitute a problem for us. The President has crossed the line and no amount of excuses on the bad hand he was dealt would absolve him of blame on certain issues. Yes, he started well but it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Umar Sa’ad Hassan is a lawyer based in Kano.