Without doubt, the year 2022 will go down as one of the turbulent years for Nigerians, after the excruciating civil war from 1967 to 1970. Nigerians have been enduring economic, security, food security, social, political, and ethno-religious challenges in recent years.
It’s sad that despite the President Muhammadu Buhari’s acclaimed good intentions towards the country, his indecisive actions on some issues of national importance are alarming, and this has had dire consequences on the nation.
It is disappointing that despite the avowed integrity of the president, his administration will be leaving the country in a more horrible and sorry situation than it met it.
There has been no government in Nigeria’s history that has enjoyed the citizens’ goodwill like the present administration. But disappointedly it has reciprocated the trust bestowed on him by Nigerians in very painful manners.
This goodwill has been badly raptured. We never expected the country’s lucrative NDA would only offer employment to the sons and daughters of those close to the corridors of power secretly. This is even when commoners’ sons and daughters sacrificing a lot and spending hours under the sun to vote for you in the 2015 elections. To be fair, it will be the highest injustice for anybody not to appreciate the administration’s gains on infrastructural development, even wailers cannot deny it.
Cost of living, Nigerians are languishing in extreme hardship; daily survival has become an uphill challenge and what people are going through now in the country is reaching the highest apogee since the late 80s. All these have happened under Baba Buhari’s corrective administration. Despite the administration having a genuine intention to restructure the agriculture sector, the policies are not being implemented with a human face because the administration did not feel for Nigerians in this kind of hardship.
Why should Nigerians be talking about daily survival in the 21st century when in normal circumstances there is no reason for Nigerians crying about food prices which are beyond their affordability? In October, a report by Global Hunger Index was jointly published by the German-based Welthungerhilfe and Dublin-based Concern Worldwide. Nigeria ranked 103 out of 121 countries in the 2022 Global Hunger Index, a position that signifies the nation “has a level of hunger-stricken country which is serious. inflation reached unprecedented heights; workers” purchasing power declined precipitously.
Electricity declined, like many other promises, the promise to improve power to 10,000 megawatts but the nation’s grid collapsed many times. Power generation fell by 981.8 megawatts between 2015 and August 2022 despite over N1.51tn intervention in the sector by the federal government since the current administration came on board in 2015. A document on Power Generation Trend (2013 – August 2022), obtained in Abuja from the Association of Power Generation Companies, the umbrella body of electricity producers, indicated that while power generation capacity was 6,616.28MW in 2015, it dropped to 5,634.47MW as at August this year
With poor economic policies, Nigeria has become a beggar and debtor nation. Citizens caught a glimpse of poor economic management as the country is paying heavily for the inebriation. Interest charges on domestic debts will drain N4.5 trillion from the 2023 budget, an increase of 243.51 per cent from the N1.31 trillion proposed in 2016. Debt servicing consumed N16.6 trillion in the 16 months period, January 2021 to April 2022. The administration came into office promising fiscal discipline and a departure from profligacy.
Even though successive Nigerian governments had a bad track record with debt, the Buhari regime is by far the worst. The Economist Intelligence Unit declared Nigeria’s revenue-to-debt service ratio as “the worst in the world” (January to April 2022), when up to 92 per cent of all revenue went into servicing debt. It is expected to reach 116 per cent in 2023, projects the IMF and on current trends, 160 per cent by 2027. Data from the Debt Management Office showed that the government’s domestic debt stock was N19.24 trillion by December 2021. By September 2022, it had risen to N21.55 trillion, an increase of 2.31 trillion in just nine months. Insecurity, 2022 has been an eventful year in Nigeria. 28 March, terrorists ambushed and attacked a passenger train en route from Abuja to Kaduna. They killed some passengers and abducted scores.
Every region in the six geopolitical zones is affected. But the nature of the violence and insecurity differ somewhat from place to place within Nigeria. The 2022 Global Peace Index has ranked Nigeria 143 among 163 independent nations and territories, according to the level of peacefulness. Nigeria moved three places up on the log from the 146th position it was ranked last year. The Global Peace Index published by the Institute for Peace and Economics ranked Nigeria at 146 out of 163 countries, only better than countries like Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Russia, which are typically known to have been conflicting areas for a long time. The security challenges are continuing to spiral into general anarchy.
Nigerians thought corruption would be fought by the administration but the menace has become a monster and sadly, the National Council of State endorsed the pardon of Dariye, Nyame and 157 other convicts. The administration pardoned people who are still serving jail terms despite their failed appeal at the Supreme Court in 2021. In spite of Mr President’s well-known credential of being incorruptible and honest, his anti-corruption campaign has not fared any better than its predecessors because of a lack of political will to match the fight with actions.
As the country inches towards the 2023 general elections, there is little or no interest from electorate on who will emerge as the next president because Nigerians voted for PMB in the 2015 and 2019 elections to sanitise the system after spending hours under the sun all in vain.
To vulnerable Nigerians, the only hope for them is wishing for Allah’s blessing, protection and to spare their lives to witness the end of this administration alive. We now bow our heads to seek Allah’s forgiveness for believing only GMB can change the country without seeking Allah’s guidance for him. As we go for the presidential election next month may God guide us to vote for a good leader not a ruler who will add more hardship on us, a leader who will not run anti-masses policies in the country. May Allah protect our country from more harm, eradicate anything that will disrupt our peaceful coexistence, aid our incoming leader in the next 150 days to improve the country’s economic progress and forgive our wrongdoings and accept our good deeds. Happy new year to millions of vulnerable Nigerians.
Dukawa writes from Kano.
