When Olusegun Obasanjo described General Mohammadu Buhari, in his memoires – My Watch – as not being sound on matters of the economy, we all thought, like Wole Soyinka, that he was only “watching and preying” on everyone else except himself. We made light of that assessment and even dismissed it altogether when the same Olusegun Obasanjo later endorsed the candidacy of the same Mohammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential election. Justifying his endorsement of candidate Buhari, Obasanjo surmised: “He’s smart enough. He’s educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?”
Instructively, even an avowed opponent like the Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, who authored an acerbic piece on “The Crimes of Buhari” in 2007 in which he detailed the atrocities of the Buhari military regime concluding then that “to invite back into power a man who did so much to destroy a people’s self-esteem, dignity, and faith in law and justice, is a sign of self-abasement, lack of self-esteem, a slave mentality that dooms, not only the present, but succeeding generations” also endorsed the candidacy of Buhari without bothering to explain why he found it expedient to “return to his vomit”.
Well, the elections came and candidate Buhari won and is now President. But we are left with the burden of history, which we all ignored. Like a cruel mistress that fate is, it presented to Buhari the same circumstances and challenges as it did in 1984/85. The only difference is that, this time, he is operating under a democratic system and has no luxury of acting with military dispatch.
But he appears to have learnt nothing from his past mistakes. His responses and reactions to these challenges have mirrored those of 1948/85 and predictably the outcomes have also been the same. But if his responses in 1984 could be excused given that socialist ideologies were dominant especially among third world and developing countries, now they are dead and discarded as means of organising and managing economies. But alas, we have a president who thinks those outdated and archaic policies are still relevant in a modern world.
We may recall that in 1984/85, due to Buhari’s rigid socialist leanings and his refusal to adopt commonsense policies, the country’s economy virtually collapsed. The era was characterised by unpaid wages, shortages and scarcity of basic and ‘essential commodities’ like rice, bread, milk, sugar etc, loss of jobs and slump in manufacturing. Unable to convince multilateral agencies to advance lines of credit to Nigeria following the regime’s stubborn refusal to countenance even a partial devaluation of the country’s currency and due to the drying up of the country’s foreign reserves in the face of declining oil prices, the regime choose rather to engage in counter-trading (or more appropriately trade by barter) where the country bartered its oil cheaply for spare parts and other raw materials to escape from its economic immobilism.
Sadly, in the last one year, Buhari has completely frittered the good will and positive investor confidence that followed his election and inauguration as President by his inability to give a clear direction on the economy and his decision to maintain an unrealistic, command and control exchange rate policy that hurts the country on all counts without providing any discernable benefit other than the subsidy, corrupt and arbitrage opportunities it provides to government officials and those close to the administration.
Naturally, the country is reaping the fruits of such disastrous economic policies/management. The economy is now almost officially in recession, inflation and unemployment are sky high and scarcity of goods and essential commodities is looming. The regime got a taste of what is to come with the fuel scarcity of the past months. The government had to admit that it was unable to supply forex at the official rate to fuel importers.
It was vintage Obasanjo who spoke last week when asked to comment on the Buhari administration.
“…I know Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. He served under me in the military. His characteristics that I know, his behaviour that I know, he has not deviated from them. He was never a perfect man, he is not a perfect man and no leader can ever be a perfect man because they are human beings. But if you read my book, what I said about him is correct. He is not a hot person when it comes to economy. He is not a very hot person when it comes to foreign affairs. But he will do well in matters of military and he will do well in fighting Boko Haram.”
If Obasanjo knew all along that Buhari was bad with the economy and foreign policy, what did he do to ensure that the economy is not completely grounded like it is currently when Buhari becomes president before endorsing his candidature? Probably, his only concern then was just to get Goodluck Jonathan out by all means and not the economic prosperity of the country.
But this speaks more about our tendency to ignore history. Even in our schools, the teaching of history has almost been abolished. This experience will teach us all that history is very brutal and we can only ignore it at our own peril.
Christopher Akor
Chris Akor, a First Class graduate of Political Science, holds an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford and is Business Day’s Op-Ed Editor
