It’s the end of the year again, a year that began with so much promises but delivered little if anything at all. There was so much drama in the country, especially in the government. Let us take a short walk back into the year.
The year began with a real banger. In January we woke up to the news that the 2016 budget submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari had gone missing (I hope there won’t be a repeat). So the question hung everywhere, including memes by creative Nigerians: who stole the budget? You will think this was embarrassing enough? I thought so too until the embarrassing drama of the blame game and the subsequent budget padding episode. First the budget went missing. Then it resurfaced. And then, padding, with the President saying he’s never heard the words ‘budget padding’ throughout his life.
The budget drama took the longest to come to a close. It was one of Buhari’s most embarrassing moments of 2016. Ministers on budget defence duties at the National Assembly met with figures so unfamiliar some rejected their budgets outright, claiming the document wasn’t what was submitted during the president’s budget presentation to lawmakers a month earlier. So it was that Nigerians witnessed for the first time the biggest padding saga ever – I am sure that you still remember all about it.
2016 was a hard year, no doubt. The country slid into economic recession, its worst in over 25 years. Unemployment rate hit the ceiling while inflation rose consecutively month by month to a record 18.5 percent in November on food and energy prices.
And then came the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign Group’s visit to Aso Rock where with all the drama that ensued the president bluntly blurted out that he had no idea where the missing girls were.
Thankfully, in the course of the year some progress was made on that. At least 22 of the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls abducted from their school on April 14, 2014 regained their freedom in the course of the year. Amina Nkeki, who escaped from her captors, and the 21 girls released by the group after some negotiations are those who were counted as lucky. Others are still at large despite the recent successes of the military in the fight against the Islamic insurgents. The army announced last week that the Sambisa stronghold had finally been brought down.
In 2016, Nigerians started to complain about the President’s excessive junketeering around the world on taxpayers’ expense, trips most of which were needless to be honest. I did a piece, “Mr, President, Nigeria is everywhere”. While he was busy touring the world and familiarising with world leaders and new forums, the country was going from bad to worse. His media handlers took pages in newspapers to explain each of his trips when he returned. Eventually he cut down on those trips, for a while.
It is noteworthy that between May 29, 2015 and May 29, 2016 the President made 29 foreign trips to 22 countries. During those trips, Mr. President made the most revelations than he would when back home. While in Washington DC, Buhari announced he would not sign the budget until he has perused every line to be sure that there were no more padding surprises.
Beauty arrived at a wrong time, when the wife of the President chose to launch her book on the same day the that the BBOG group was marking the second anniversary of the missing Chibok schoolgirls at the gate of the Presidential Villa. And so began the love lost story between Nigerians and the administration. It got worse as the economy tanked and things spiralled out of control.
As things worsened, there was a time in the year when everyone including the pepper sellers learnt to sing the song, “budget has not been passed”. At the same point, there was the worst fuel scarcity in about a decade that saw people sleep in their cars at petrol stations to keep their place on fuel queues rather than buy at exorbitant black market rates. I will not forget in a hurry a scene I saw one of those nights I drove by a station – a group of men in their underwears lying on the bonnets of their cars conversing away. A few cars away, another man had put up a mosquito net covering his car. It was propped in a way that would allow him lie on the bonnet and still be protected from mosquitoes. It was a difficult period. Still, Nigerians found a way to get by. We lost hope in the promised Change.
Then came the currency swap deal which was signed during the state visit to China. You see, though there were misgivings, this deal was supposed to make some difference by reducing the pressure on our foreign exchange. Unfortunately, nothing has been heard as government officials keep mum on that subject when you ask, pushing it to the next official. What a loss and a waste of taxpayers’ money on that trip, I must say. Our naira has continued to nosedive and has weakened to as low as N492 to $1 in the black market.
The government finally liberalised the petroleum downstream sector, removing the subsidy on petrol and threw the importation of petroleum products open. This was a good move as the queues have since disappeared.
It was in 2016 that David Cameron, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, called Nigeria a fantastically corrupt country. You see, our President was scheduled to attend a function in the UK where he would make a case for the return of our stolen funds and he still went and, of course, reiterated that his people were actually corrupt. “It doesn’t matter, just give us our money.” If you think the President should have demanded for an apology, you are wrong, he didn’t. Rather during an interview with CNN’s Amanpour, he said, “What I will be demanding is the return of assets. This is what I am asking for. What will I do with apology? I need something tangible.”
On the other hand, when you think of it, Cameron’s remarks pointed to the hypocrisy of the West in matters of corruption involving leaders of developing countries, especially from Third World nations. The United Kingdom is a well-known destination for laundered money. At least a third of stolen funds from developing nations, including Nigeria, is stashed in London’s real estate market and its classy shopping centres. As we say here in Nigeria, “If a person steals and you help them keep their loot, what does that make you?” Ok, I rest that there.
If there was anything that thrived in 2016, it was the blame game. The President and his cabinet never missed an opportunity to remind Nigerians that his administration did not wreck the country. We all had some good news at some point, yes the trains returned. As expected, there was a debate of who brought back the locomotives, whether or not it was the Goodluck Jonathan-led government or Buhari’s. Thankfully, we survived that too.
War Against Indiscipline and Corruption tried to make a return, though with a new name, “Change Begins With Me”. After all the hype that came with it, please when last did you hear of it? Are we still changing? Maybe.
I may not be able to capture everything that happened during the year but I certainly wasn’t going to leave out the epic drama of the other room. Remember? Oh yes, you do. Wife of the President who was frustrated with the goings-on in her husband’s administration took to the media to tell her husband that if things continued the way they were going, she would not support him for the next electioneering year.
Unfortunately, the President who was in Germany at the time had also given a public reply stating that she belonged in the other room. I know you also remember all the criticisms and memes Nigerians put up for this.
Well, the year capped with the good news of the fall of the infamous Sambisa forest. A mere mention of Sambisa evokes so much sad memories, it has always sounded like this was another country. There have been so much hype and celebrations about the fall of Sambisa and we join them to celebrate too. Hopefully, now that the stronghold is down, the remaining missing girls will be found.
This is wishing you a happy New Year. Let us hope 2017 will be free of excuses and blame trading. So happy no-excuse year, where we get things done and return Nigeria to the path of greatness again.
Elizabeth Archibong
