PMB: One Year After

President Muhammadu Buhari anchored his election on the tripod of security, incorruptibility and job creation. Like the old cliché, it is not yet uhuru, but despair is vacating the centre-stage for hope and, by this weekend, the world will dissect his second coming. Like the envisaged second coming of the Messiah, which Buhari is not, the man at the centre of governance in Nigeria is proving to be an improvement on his 20-month reign as military Head of State.


While he has been accused of going at snail-speed in his reforms, no one faults his credibility, forthrightness and ability to bring the country’s economy from the precipice. Without doubt, he is no book economist, but his knowledge of street economics has saved the nation trillions as money stolen from the oil and gas sector, as well as the Nigeria Customs Service are now accounted for.

The NCS quadrupled its revenue base within the first seven months of the ouster of the erstwhile Comptroller-general and under a new CG. The second coming of PMB may also have seen more than change in style. His unusual diplomatic shuttles, though criticised, has reconnected Nigeria back to the world. It has restored international confidence in the nation’s leadership. The perceptions are changing that Nigeria is a country worth doing business in and Nigerians worth dealing with, because of the man’s incorruptibility.

The people’s fortunes are also changing. While the corrupt public officers are being forced to vomit their loots and return them to the national treasuries, hardworking public officers will remember how the N700bn relief package given to debtor states changed their welfare and those of their dependants. Most of the states owed workers upwards of 10months salaries before PMB was sworn in as president.

Different but unchanged in his thriftiness, the president turned down five armoured cars worth N400m for him. He saved the government money and expected national legislators to follow suit. It was an act that really made a good impression on many, but the lawmakers aren’t on the same page.

The changing model of Buhari has done little to sway hate campaigners, who would not see the merit of the thoroughness in dealing with the 2016 budget. It is a reason one will wonder why government is a continuum. For me, Buhari’s focus is different from those of his predecessors, except in the sense that he cannot exculpate the nation immediately from the treadmill and mountain of debt she never envisaged owing.

I believe that if PMB had the premonition that the Jonathan administration had sold Nigeria off as a debt slave, he and his party would not have made the promises they made.

Now, the many promises are looking like a pipe-dream, even as the government struggled to extricate itself from the bondage of profligacies of the past. PMB’s efforts are, also, not aided by a vibrant opposition. The parties, especially the PDP, are so adrift and bereft of ideas that cannot be explained.

Rather than face the business of opposition in democracy, they evince cowardice and acquiescence. But the new Sheriff in town should act more pro-actively on treasury looters and re-inflate the economy. It is the only way to clean the 16-year-old mess of the PDP. His exemplary conduct, doggedness and an unpopular but necessary use of state instruments to fight corruption should be without apologies. After all, it is a departure from the situation where those who pillaged Nigeria’s resources are treated with either kid gloves or impunity.