Nigerians assess President Buhari’s first 100 days in office

REUTERS: Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari will on Saturday mark 100 days since he took to the helm of Africa’s most populous country.

The former general and strongman ruler won his country’s tightly contested polls early this year in part by promising to restore security in the country’s turbulent northeast and fight endemic graft.

One hundred days into his tenure, Boko Haram has continued its deadly campaign by carrying out a string of attacks killing hundreds indicating the group isn’t backing down.

The president’s party has since said that no promises were made amid accusations from pundits that Buhari’s administration is reneging on campaign promises.

“When you look at the Buhari government, you see someone who has no agenda. If you check the APC manifesto through their website 8-point agenda, war against corruption, food security, road network, accelerated power supply, education, public health delivery none of them is going on,” said Ebun Adegboruwa, a political analyst based in Lagos.

A day after becoming the first politician in Nigerian history to succeed a sitting leader by ballot, Buhari promised to “spare no effort” to defeat Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

Boko Haram which has waged a six-year insurgency to carve out an Islamic caliphate has killed over 700 people since Buhari came into power and at least 1.5 million remain displaced in the restive northeast Nigeria.

The multi-national force, which includes Chad, Niger and Cameroon, launched a counter-offensive several weeks ago forcing the militants to scatter but the militants have since returned with a strategy of bombings and shootings in public places such as markets and places of worship.

“By the time (the) Buhari (mandate) was 85 days old, 850 people had died from Boko Haram attacks – an average of 10 to 100 people and just about three days ago 80 people in Borno and those are the ones people can count there are others that we don’t even have a count of. So there is greater violence, Boko Haram has assumed greater dimension and in fact as of yesterday, Boko Haram leaders were arrested in Lagos and Ogun states, they are spreading,” added Adegboruwa.

However, the 72-year-old general who first came to power three decades ago via a military coup and campaigned as a born-again democrat, still enjoys a lot of goodwill from the public and many say 100 days is too soon to judge his performance.

“100 days for him to start doing something? He is not God; we have to establish things with him…that is it. We should not rush him,” said Simohmoh Mathew, a Lagos resident.

“To a large extent I think Buhari will do, a single man cannot solve the problem of nation especially vast problems in Nigeria. Years of corruption, mismanagement, lack of commitment, lack of goodwill he will do his best but four years is a short time-he needs to start acting fast,” said Daniel, another Lagos resident.

Buhari replaced his defence chiefs and dissolved the board of the state oil company, but has not appointed a cabinet.

So far he has given little indication of his policy agenda and instead has focused on his main election pledges of tackling corruption and insecurity.

Buhari also says he believes officials have stolen around $150 billion from the public purse over the past decade adding that his administration would trace and recover money stolen from the oil sector, which provides about 70 percent of revenues of the government in Africa’s biggest crude producer.

According to Liborious Oshoma, a political analyst who has been following events closely in Nigeria, financial markets have suffered as investors wait for policy direction on key issues such as the currency and oil.

“The economy is in a standstill, there is power but people do not know really what to do with it. Banks are not lending because nobody knows the policy direction of the government in that light, the oil sector-today they will tell you they will privatize, subsidy or no subsidy basically people need to know where they are going except the mischievous ones that want Eldorado in 100 days but what some of us are saying is look, we believe that a lot of this things cannot be cleaned in 100 days but we want to see at least a step in that direction,” said Oshoma.

A ‘transition committee’ set up by Buhari in April submitted 800 pages of policy recommendations to the president last month.

The paper exposed the dire state of public finances in Nigeria, which has been hammered by a halving of oil prices last year. Nigeria relies on oil exports for 80 percent of government revenues and 90 percent of foreign exchange earnings.

Nigeria has arrears totalling 4.1 trillion naira ($20.6 billion), including 400 billion naira in unpaid salaries, 200 billion in arrears to fuel importers and 1 trillion naira to the oil industry.