There is little to celebrate as President Muhammadu Buhari marks one year in office today. The government came on the premise of salvaging the bartered economy and made promises to Nigerians who were full of expectation. But one year after, it has been promises not kept as Nigerians are beginning to be disillusioned.
The President among other expectations clinched power on the promise of massive job opportunities but it would seem that instead what has been witnessed are job losses.
One year down the line, the promise of massive job creation is far from materialising. If anything, the last one year has seen massive job losses. While no sector of the economy is spared this ordeal, the oil and gas, manufacturing, banking, construction and the power sectors seem the worst hit, as thousands of jobs have separately been lost in these sectors.
This scenario is not peculiar to the private sector; the public sector has not fared better. Not only are most states of the federation unable to pay workers’ salaries regularly, a good number of states are under intense pressure to cut down their workforce. Within the last 12 months, labour has had issues with several state governments, notably Imo and Kaduna. Governors in both states have tried to use job cuts to reduce the wage bill.
For instance Amaechi Asugwuni, president, National Union of Civil Engineering Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW) says over 60,000 workers were laid off within the first four months of the Buhari administration.
In the face of this, the government partially deregulated the oil sector raising the price of fuel pump price to N145 per liter a development which was cautiously accepted by Nigerians as they did not riot to the degree witnessed in 2012 when the same oil subsidy was removed. In spite of all these, many Nigerians are hopeful and believe in the president whom they overwhelmingly voted for in 2015 to turn the economy around.
Unfortunately, as the president stepped into office, the price of crude oil, Nigeria’s mono product, crashed from about $65 per barrel to about $30 which has recently risen to about $50 perhaps making it difficult to meet certain promises and run the economy efficiently.
Though Buhari government has received disparagement on the economic front and his inability to set economic direction for local and foreign investors which stakeholders say is hurting the economy, but his government received commendation on security.
As a retired military officer, one of the earlier steps he took to achieving results in security especially dealing with dreaded Boko Haram is his strategic decisions in moving the military command and control centre to Maiduguri – the very location of the insurgency group.
After systematically eliminating or minimising the corruption in the defence and security architecture of the country that has compromised the ability of the military to successfully fight the insurgency and lowered morale and with morale at an all-time high, the military was giving the task of capturing all territories still under the control of the insurgents within three months. This they did.
On corruption, the president appears to be making impact against the fight against corruption but one year after, Nigerians are yet to see any successful prosecution. For instance, a good number of Nigerians including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Oby Ezekwesili and the international community believe the President’s anti-corruption war is progressing quite well and very successful.
Stakeholders say that the fight against corruption should involve more intelligence and broad based detailed investigations that yield results.
Daniel Obi & Obodo Ejiro
