The ‘gains’ of 2015

The French emperor, Napoleon, once said that each time he appointed one person to a post, he would make nine enemies and one ingrate. This captures the general sentiment in northern Nigeria today, where millions of people who had stuck with President Buhari through thick and thin now overwhelmingly feel betrayed by his rather nonchalant […]

The French emperor, Napoleon, once said that each time he appointed one person to a post, he would make nine enemies and one ingrate. This captures the general sentiment in northern Nigeria today, where millions of people who had stuck with President Buhari through thick and thin now overwhelmingly feel betrayed by his rather nonchalant attitude towards the security of their lives, limbs and property.

Since 2003 to date, the president has stood in five presidential elections. In each of these, the majority of northern votes had gone to him, even where his opponents were fellow northerners, such as in 2007 and 2019 when Buhari came up against the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar respectively. For reasons that historians and political sociologists will take years to adequately explain, Buhari was always the preferred choice of northern voters.  

But what has been the returns of these investments? So far, there have been some modest improvements in the area of agriculture, particularly with respect to dry-season farming. The Kaduna-Abuja train would also count as one, even though, it must be said, that project was 80 per cent completed by the administration of former president Jonathan. A number of specialised tertiary institutions have also recently been established in some northern towns and cities here and there, as in other parts of the country, many of which have not in fact even fully taken off yet.

And then what else? It is really difficult to point to any areas where Buhari’s government has had significant returns in the lives of people in northern Nigeria. Of course, the president has appointed a lot of northerners to federal positions, but that is a benefit largely to the individuals, not to the voters, however indirectly. This is why many Nigerians from this part of the country are generally not interested in the criticism of the president about ‘unbalanced’ federal appointments. People know that in reality, they have been facing unbalanced everything, not just appointments.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has also dished out quite a lot of money to individuals and small businesses under the NIRSAL, TraderMoni and similar programmes, but given the existing structural problems in the region, these are also likely to benefit Nigerians from outside of the North than within it. Then there are the poverty alleviation programmes such as school feeding, N-Power and others. Finally, there are the infrastructure projects in terms of roads, bridges, railway networks, airports, and the like, an overwhelming majority of which have remained perpetually “ongoing”, after nearly seven years. Indeed, for most of these projects and programmes, it is easier to talk about the billions of naira spent than to illustrate their actual achievements on the ground.

So where else has Buhari’s government made an enduring difference not just to the voters who made his presidency possible in the first place but to the country at large? I will be interested to hear it, because, overall, it is easier to point to areas where he could have made a difference but didn’t than to those where he had. For example, in 2015, the president was well positioned to eliminate or at least reduce by half the nine million or so of Nigeria’s 13 million of out-of-school children that are in the North. The government could also have seen  to the full completion of the dredging of Baro to open up the whole region, and neighbouring countries to the global maritime traffic.

Certainly, given the overwhelming support the APC received throughout the North in 2015, the president could have built upon that to heal the wounds of the recent past even further and unite its various peoples. Instead, we are witnessing the rollback of peace in places like Plateau and Benue states. Above all, insecurity is now the order of the day across most parts of the North where banditry, kidnapping for ransom and insurgency have combined to make life unbearable for people.

But what has been the response of the president and his government to these most important of all concerns? Two things. The government has appeared completely uninterested in these matters. Until relatively recently, there was not even a coordinated military response to the bandits that terrorise several states, during which time the bandits gained in strength and might to the extent that they are able to impose taxes on communities or shoot down military planes. There has not still been even a televised address to the nation about these issues, certainly not in the way the president was quick to address the nation in the wake of the#EndSARS protests.

But the government’s main response is to dismiss the cries of the people or their rights to protest against killings by bandits and kidnappers. Several months ago, when people trooped to the streets in Katsina State, the president’s own home state, to protest against rising killings and kidnappings the president merely dismissed them as noise-makers who should count themselves lucky for living under a democracy. And just a few days ago, following the barbaric incident in Sokoto State, a small group of young Nigerians took to the streets in Kano and a few other cities.

The government, through the Department of State Services (DSS), responded by rounding up one of the leaders of the protesters, a young woman, for a ‘friendly chat’. At the end of that chat, the woman came out to denounce protests and called for ‘peace’. In other words, it is not only that the APC government appears unwilling to address the most urgent concern of its core voters, it insists that people must suffer in silence and offer not even a whimper of protests.  

I could go on and on to list the things Buhari’s government could have done for the North and for the country to lift millions out of poverty, to improve education and job figures in the region, to foster peace and unity, and to open up vistas of opportunity to many young people across the region and the country. But there is really no need because realistically speaking, the Buhari government is over. There is not much it can do in the next 18 months that it had not had the time to do in the past 78 months.

In explaining all these failures, the Buhari government and its apologists have employed two standard arguments: that previous administrations had done incalculable damage that cannot be easily undone and that the government took over reign of power at a time of economic crisis, occasioned by the massive drop in oil prices in 2014. These are empty arguments, however.

It is true that the PDP government had massively underperformed, but they still left behind a Nigeria solid enough for anyone with the will and ability to build upon, and at least to achieve much better than the current government has done in all areas. It is also true that Nigeria was plunged into an economic crisis in 2014-2015, but it is truer still that throughout economic history, some of the most enduring social and economic changes were made during one or other period of economic collapse, nationally or globally by leaders who turned crisis into opportunity.

So, this particular government’s non-performance since 2015 probably has more to do with a lack of will and ability than of resource availability. But if these are the ‘gains’ of the choice of 2015 and 2019, what are the lessons to be learned for 2023 and beyond, for the North and the rest of the country?