The editorial by The Punch newspaper on the achievements of President Muhammadu Buhari amid economic hardship, insecurity and mass despondency and the self-congratulatory effusions by the cabinet members and aides is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Punch reports that amid economic hardship, insecurity and mass despondency, Nigerians have recently been treated to self-congratulatory effusions by the President Muhammadu Buhari, cabinet members and aides.
From a televised documentary, a stock-taking retreat, and ministerial briefings, to media interviews and advertorials, the regime is touting its “achievements,” recycling its promises and posturing as a benevolent caretaker that has outperformed all its predecessors.
Beyond its narrow circle of operatives and supporters, however, its claims have failed to douse widespread disaffection, reduce tension, or inspire hope in the traumatised population.
Indisputably, given the crushing weight of adversity afflicting most Nigerians, Buhari’s claims of exemplary service delivery appear decidedly extravagant. Opening a Mid-Term Ministerial Performance Review Retreat, he recounted achievements in infrastructure provision, security, the economy, and job creation.
He has been similarly upbeat at various fora at home and abroad. “No government since 1999 has done what we have done in six years to put Nigeria back on track,” he declared, citing improved railways, roads, and security. As usual, he blamed previous governments for the country’s woes, insisting that he had stabilised the economy, piloted it through the recession and the COVID-19 pandemic and improved the health services.
In a documentary, ‘The Buhari Effect: Undeniable Achievements’, ministers and other officials enumerated “unprecedented” highway reconstruction and railway projects, improved security, governance, and housing.
Undeniably, the government is entitled to burnish its tarnished image, but its self-appraisal in several respects not only flies in the face of lived reality for most Nigerians, but raises concerns that Buhari and officials are disconnected from objective reality. You cannot solve problems you fail to acknowledge. With less than two years left in his second and final term, Buhari must stop living in denial.
To be blunt, Nigeria is in dire straits and as this newspaper boldly declared in an editorial on January 24, 2018, titled, ‘Buhari, your best is not good enough,’ when three years into his first term, he was similarly engaged in self-praise, his six years in office have been disastrous. True, the regime has struggled with inherited problems, was welcomed by lower oil prices, and hit by the COVID-19 scourge, but its exertions have been inadequate, lacking in profound strategies and often uncoordinated.
Nigeria has since 2018 become the World’s Poverty Capital. Health services are in chaos and about $2 billion of scarce foreign exchange is incurred annually through Nigerians seeking medical treatment abroad. Industrial disharmony has spiked with an estimated 552 days lost to strikes by medical doctors and lecturers alone in the last six years.
The Guardian says that besides authorities’ resistance to activities commemorating one year anniversary of #EndSARS protests this week, the Federal Government appears to be haunted by worries of social resistance in implementing certain policies that can reduce its dependence on borrowing and expenditure on subsidies.
Government’s challenges are coupled with the fact that many Nigerians are currently struggling to sustain daily living due to rise in food prices and inflationary trend on basic household essentials, amid dwindling incomes.
While the #EndSARS crisis was primarily a fall-out of demand for the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and other police reforms, it later became an agitation for governance overhaul.
Indeed, the level of carnage that was witnessed as a result of the social unrest last year remains unprecedented with the effect still visible on the morale of policemen. While the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) estimates about N700 billion as losses in economic value to the mayhem, other economists put the loss above N1 trillion.
One year on, many businesses are yet to be compensated while the insurance industry has not extended its coverage to the impact of disasters from the unrest.
In August, the Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA) said insurance companies had paid over N5.4 billion in claims settlement arising from #EndSARS losses.
The NIA Director-General, Yetunde Ilori, said: “There is a privacy policy regarding insurance. For the #EndSARS period, we have paid over N5.4 billion in settlement of claims. As an umbrella body, we would summarise what we are doing in terms of insurance claims payment later.”
ThisDay reports that the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has provided a $350,000 Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP) to the federal government to help promote the drip irrigation system at selected irrigation schemes in the country.
The Country Representative of FAO, Mr. Fred Kafeero, at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the organisation and with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, said the gesture aimed to strengthen sustainable and inclusive food and agriculture systems in the country.
He said as a specialised agency of the United Nations, FAO had the mandate to ensure food security and nutrition in all its member countries across the world through sustainable management of natural resources including water. Drip irrigation or trickle irrigation is a type of micro-irrigation system that has the potential to save water and nutrients by allowing water to drip slowly to the roots of plants, either from above the soil surface or buried below the surface.
Kafeero said the FAO remained committed to supporting the country’s economic diversification agenda and promotion of decent employment for youth and women in the agricultural value chain.
The newspaper says that the UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Nigeria, Helen Grant and Nigeria’s Minister of Industry Trade and Investment, Mr. Adeniyi Adebayo, recently held a virtual meeting, which was the sixth meeting of the United Kingdom-Nigeria Economic Development Forum (EDF).
The meeting was joined by the Acting Trade Commissioner for Africa, Alastair Long, the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd) and other senior government representatives from Nigeria and the UK.
The agenda outlined opportunities for a wider UK-Nigeria partnership as discussions centered on the state of bilateral trade, challenges and priorities ahead, opportunities to ‘build back better’ from COVID-19, the Nigeria Government’s preparations to attend the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), and plans to implement the revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
Confirming the strategic importance of the economic development forum, both the UK and Nigeria representatives agreed that in the post-COVID era, there is a need to increase Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in non-oil sectors in Nigeria.
The Sun reports that three years after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) signed a currency swap deal with the People’s Bank of China (PBoC), Nigerians are yet to feel the impact of that arrangement, especially as the free fall of naira, currently standing at N570/$1 at the parallel market persists.
In April 2018, the CBN issued the regulations for a US$2.5 billion currency swap agreement in June same year; designed to facilitate trade between the two countries and enhance foreign reserve management. But tongues have already started wagging that the N720 billion swap deal for at least 15 billion Yuan (Renminbi) (equivalent of $2.4 billion in June 2018) between the two countries has failed to achieve its purpose since it was sealed.
The Bilateral Currency Swap (BCS) agreement was inspired by trade facilitation. It was to allow importers of goods from China to conclude their transactions in Yuan instead of the US Dollar) and vice-versa.
This was done to reduce the demand of the US dollars, lift the undue pressure on the naira at the time, consistent with the CBN’s naira management strategies.
GIK/APA