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Deji Elumoye examines the achievements and expectations of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration as it clocks seven today
Today, May 29, 2022, marks the seventh anniversary of President Muhammadu Buhari as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Buhari was elected into office in 2015 on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) after defeating then the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). In his inaugural address, he had promised Nigerians that his administration would focus on the economy, corruption and security.
Security and Justice Reform
The security challenges facing the nation have been a major concern to the Buhari administration since it assumed office seven years ago. The growing security skirmishes in different parts of the country became an embarrassment to government at a particular time that it had had to rejig the security architecture leading to the sack of the service chiefs and the Inspector-General of Police in 2021.
According to the Global Terrorism Index 2022, deaths caused by Boko Haram dropped by 92 per cent from 2,131 in 2015 to 178 in 2021. The report acknowledged Nigeria’s “successful counter- insurgency operations targeting Boko Haram” as a leading cause of the reduction in terrorism deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa. Before Buhari came to power, lack of adequate weapons was the major challenge facing the Armed Forces. To address this challenge, the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has acquired 38 brand new aircraft since President Buhari assumed office in 2015. These include (10 x Super Mushshak; 5 x Mi-35M Helicopters; 2 x Bell 412 Helicopters; 4 x Agusta 109 Helicopters; 2 x Mi-171E Helicopters; 12 x A-29 Super Tucano; and 3 x JF-17 Thunder). NAF is expecting another 36 new ones (12 new AH-1Z Attack Helicopters and 24 M-346 Fighter Attack aircraft), which have already been ordered.
The Nigerian Navy has also acquired more than 400 new platforms since 2015, including 172 Riverine Patrol Boats (RPBs), 114 Rigid- Hull Inflatable Boats (RHIBs), 2 Seaward Defence Boats (SDBs), 12 Manta Class/Inshore Patrol Craft (IPC), three Whaler Boats, four Barges/Tugboats, 22 Fast Attack Boats, 14 Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), four Helicopters, 14 River Town Class, 14 House Boats and four Capital Ships. Nigerian Navy has also established a Naval Base Lake Chad in Baga, Borno State, as well as received Presidential approval for new Naval Bases in Lekki, Lagos, and Oguta, Imo State, and Kano, Kano State.
Ongoing major security operations nationwide include: Operation Hadin Kai (North-east), Operation Lake Sanity (North-east), Operation Desert Sanity (North East), Operation Hadarin Daji (North-west), Operation Sharan Daji (North-west), Operation Safe Haven (North-central), Operation Whirl Stroke (North-central), Operation Delta Safe (South-south) and Operation Dakatar Da Barawo (South-south).
As part of Criminal Justice Reforms, President Buhari in 2020 granted amnesty to 2,600 prisoners nationwide, representing about 3.5 per cent of all inmates, in a bid to decongest Nigeria’s prison population.
Legislative Reforms
Under President Buhari, several landmark bills have been passed or amended in the last seven years, including the following: Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2022, Money Laundering (Prevention and Prohibition) Bill, 2022, which repeals the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended, and provides a comprehensive legal and institutional framework for the prevention and prohibition of money laundering in Nigeria. It also confers on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the legal status of the Special Control Unit Against Money Laundering. Also passed is the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Bill, 2022, which repeals the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, 2011 as amended in 2013, and provides for the effective implementation of international instruments on the prevention and combating of terrorism and suppression of the financing of terrorism. Proceeds of Crime (Recovery and Management) Bill, 2022, which makes comprehensive provisions for the seizure, confiscation, forfeiture, and management of properties derived from unlawful activity. Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contracts Act, 1993 (Amendment) Act, 2019, which will deliver increased revenues to the federation, was also passed. Also passed is the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) Amendment Acts of 2019 and 2021. An Act establishing the Police Trust Fund, which will significantly improve funding for the Nigeria Police Force (2019), was also passed. The Nigeria Police Act, 2020 is the first comprehensive reform of police legislation since the Police Act of 1943. The country has also witnessed the repeal and Re-Enactment of the Companies & Allied Matters Act (CAMA), 2020 – the first comprehensive reform since 1990. Also enacted is the Not Too Young to Run Bill (2018)–a Constitution Amendment Bill, to reduce the age of eligibility for running for elective office in Nigeria. Bill to grant financial autonomy to states’ Houses of Assembly and states’ Judiciary (2018); Finance Act 2019 and 2020; the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018, among many others, were also passed.
Infrastructure
President Buhari’s administration has also embarked on ambitious federal infrastructure programme. The Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp) was established by in February 2021, with initial seed Capital of N1trillion, provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). InfraCorp’s goal is to “to catalyse and accelerate investment into Nigeria’s infrastructure sector by originating, structuring, executing and managing end-to-end bankable projects in that space. In addition to the N1 trillion equity seed capital, InfraCorp is expected to mobilise up to an additional N14 trillion of debt capital.
Rail Services
It is unfortunate that much as the present administration tried as much as to provide rail transportation to thousands of commuters across the country, the coaches are not safe which informed the attack in April, 2022, on a Kaduna-bound train by terrorists, resulting in the death of some passengers, while several others are still being held captive by the terrorists. The Buhari’s administration should as a matter of urgency secure the release of the passengers in the terrorists den as well as ensure that necessary security are provided for the railway coaches plying all the routes across the country.
Be that as it may, the Buhari administration has focused more attention on the completion of rail line projects it inherited from the Jonathan government.
It included the156-kilometre Lagos-Ibadan Standard Gauge Rail completed and commissioned, within a record-time of four years (2017 to 2021); 8.72km extension to Lagos-Ibadan Rail Line, to Lagos Port Complex, completed in 2021.
The 186km Abuja-Kaduna Standard Gauge Rail Line, completed and commissioned in 2016 while the 327km Itakpe-Warri Standard Gauge Rail was also completed and commissioned in 2020, 33 years after construction began. As part of this project, there was the full rehabilitation of the Railway Village, Agbor, as well as construction of a Railway Ancillary Facilities Yard, also in Agbor. In 2021 the Line commenced commercial freight haulage, transporting pipelines for the AKK Gas Pipeline project.
Construction has commenced on Kaduna-Kano Standard Gauge Rail Line, following the ground-breaking by President Buhari in July 2021. Ground-breaking has also been performed for the construction of 284km Kano-Maradi Standard Gauge Rail (with branch line to Dutse), while preliminary works started 2021. Ground-breaking has also been done for complete revamp of Port Harcourt–Maiduguri Narrow Gauge Rail. Work has kicked off in 2022. 377 Wagons, 64 Coaches, and 21 Locomotives (including DMUs) purchased for the Standard Gauge network, between 2016 and 2021.
On jobs, training and capacity building, more than 11,000 new jobs created from the on-going rail modernisation projects in the country. More than 100 qualified young Nigerians were awarded full international scholarships for undergraduate/graduate courses in rail engineering and transport in China, from 2018.
In addition, dozens of Nigerian Engineers have been trained as part of the railway modernisation projects. This administration has also embarked on the establishment of a new Transportation University in Daura, Katsina State, and a new Rail Wagon Assembly Plant in Kajola, Ogun State – both nearing completion of construction.
Already, 3,000 tonnes of cement are transported monthly through train freight service from Lagos to Kano.
Roads
The massive road construction projects of the present government resulted in the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), investing over $1 billion in three flagship projects namely Lagos-Ibadan Expressway (for completion in 2022), Second Niger Bridge (for completion in 2022), and the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Expressway (first phase for completion in 2023). The Executive Order 7 of 2019 Issued by Buhari on January 25, 2019, on the Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme, allows companies that are willing and able to spend their own funds on constructing critical roads, to recover their construction costs by paying reduced taxes, over a period of time, and in a transparent manner.
So far, more than N1 trillion has been mobilised through Executive Order 7, for road projects across all six geopolitical zones of the country, like Bodo-Bonny road in Rivers and Apapa- Oshodi-Oworonshoki-Ojota road in Lagos.
Education
In the area of education, the recurring strike by both academic and non-academic staff of public universities in the country appear worrisome. Members of both the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities (ASUU) and Non Academic Staff of Nigerian Universities (NASU) are on work-to-rule action over unresolved issues with the federal government. For several months, the public universities have been under lock and key with the students staying idle at home.
The federal government needs to ensure that all outstanding issues on the past negotiations with the university workers are resolved and quickly too so that the university system can become functional again.
It is, however, noteworthy that the administration has committed more than N2 trillion of capital intervention to Nigeria’s tertiary institutions, through various means, including TETFund – with the universities taking the lion share of the total amount.
The federal government has also disbursed more than N240 billion in UBE Matching Grants to States and the FCT since 2015, and N24 billion from the Teachers Professional Development Fund to States and the FCT.
It is on record that government launched the Alternate School Programme (ASP), designed to ensure that every out-of-school child in Nigeria gains access to quality basic education, irrespective of social, cultural or economic circumstance, in line with the aspirations of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG-4).
There was also presidential approval for a new (extended) retirement age of 65 and length of service of 40 years for teachers in Public Basic and Secondary Schools in Nigeria (both effective January 1, 2021), a new Special Teachers Salary Scale (effective January 1, 2022), a new Special Teachers Pension Scheme and the Establishment of the National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC) to regulate secondary education in the country.
Reduction in number of out-of-school children, by 3,247,590 as of December 31, 2020, achieved through a World Bank-financed programme known as ‘Better Education Service Delivery for All’ (BESDA). About 1.79 million of that number was achieved through formal schools while 1.4 million are through non-formal interventions such as Almajiri, Girl-Child, Nomadic/Migrant and IDPs Education).
Support to States
The present administration also assisted the 36 state governments and the FCT. It has extended more than N2 trillion in bailout packages to state governments, to enable them to meet their salary and pension obligations, especially in the face of dwindling oil revenues in the first three years of the administration.
The support was in the form of the following: Budget Support Facility (total of N614 billion extended to the states. Paris Club Refunds ($5.4 billion) Infrastructure Loans and Refunds. More than N700 billion for Federal Road projects embarked upon by state governments was refunded to the states. On loan restructuring for facilities with commercial banks, the DMO had in 2015, restructured commercial bank loans with a total value of N575.516 billion for 23 states to reduce the debt service burden on the states. In exchange for their loans to state governments, the banks were issued 20-year FGN Bonds at a yield of 14.83 per cent yearly.
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