The writer is director of the executive vice president’s office at the Open Society Foundations
Nigerian Muhammadu Buhari started his presidency with tremendous goodwill. Like millions of Nigerians, I jubilated when, during his inauguration in 2015, he said: “Insecurity, pervasive corruption, hitherto interminable and seemingly impossible fuel and electricity shortages are the immediate concerns. We will face them head on.”
These turned out to be empty words.
Today, with Buhari preparing to step down later this month, insecurity has worsened. In 2015, Boko Haram was the main security threat, largely contained in the northeast of the country. Today the insurgency has spread northwest and down towards the capital, Abuja. Across the country, criminal policing, extortion, banditry and communal violence make Nigerians insecure at home, school and travel. Kidnapping for ransom is a booming industry.
Much of Nigeria is ungoverned, despite Buhari funding the military more than any other president since 1999. The military tradition of underfunding the police has continued under Buhari, despite the “EndSARS” protests against police brutality in 2020.
Corruption scandals are still common. The 2022 pardon of two former governors, who coincidentally were members of the same party as Buhari, convicted of stealing billions undermined the president’s claim to the title.”never gaskya” (honest).
Buhari’s tenure was also economically ruinous. He closed land borders to increase agricultural and manufacturing production, but ended up starving industries and closing entrepreneurs. Dollar trading became the hottest rentier gig in the city as the value of the naira plummeted. And last month, the National Bureau of Statistics announced, unsurprisingly, that foreign direct investment had fallen to its lowest level in nine years: from $3 billion in 2015 to $468 million. Weak investor confidence has gone hand in hand with declining purchasing power, with more than 13 million Nigerians expected to fall below the poverty line between 2019 and 2025.
The theft of crude oil on an industrial scale has reduced the production of almost half, forcing Buhari to cut a deal with a Niger Delta militant he had previously tried to prosecute. Fuel subsidy payments and fuel consumption have soared, but fuel shortages prevail.
Meanwhile, the national debt has increased significantly over the past five years. Part has been invested in transport infrastructure. The main advantage of financing roads is to be found in the impulse it gives to the movement of people, goods and services. But insecurity, closed borders and an uncertain regulatory environment suffocated it.
Real progress, such as the enactment of important pieces of legislation, including the Petroleum Industry Act of 2021, has been hampered by cumbersome processes and poor implementation.
Buhari said his legacy would be defined by overseeing free and fair elections in 2023. He failed. No election since 1999 has divided Nigerians like the last one, held on February 25th. The Independent National Election Commission failed to upload presidential results as promised, even as Nigerians had pinned their hopes on technology, ending a long history of compromised elections.
As President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu prepares to take power, perhaps it is only fitting that they inherit the mess created by the man who helped become president in 2015. They are each other’s legacies.
The lesson from all of this is that changing faces and rotating political positions is not enough. Nigeria needs systemic reforms that only its intellectuals and politicians can lead, but that’s another story.
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