How Buhari’s administration fared in two years – Africa Check
A non-partisan fact-check organisation, Africa Check, recently released a report that appraised the two years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in line with his campaign promises.
The report authored by David Ajikobi and Stanley Oronsaye researched on whether President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) government were delivering on the promise of change halfway into the lifespan of the administration in accordance with the electioneering campaigns.
On social welfare, President Muhammadu Buhari promised to introduce free daily school meals for all primary school children.
The report described the national home grown school feeding programme as a critical part of a N500 billion social investment programme as an ongoing project as promised.
It said feeding 15 million primary school pupils (from classes 1 to 6) daily is expected to boost food production and create jobs and that a pilot phase started a few months ago in seven states including Anambra, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ebonyi, Zamfara and Enugu.
Another promise of the president was to create a phased social insurance scheme to assist certain groups in the population with social welfare payments.
It posited that the government had achieved this and that as part of a pilot scheme that started in January, people in nine states who registered as poor or vulnerable receive N5, 000 monthly.
The report listed the states as Bauchi, Borno, Cross Rivers, Ekiti, Kwara, Kogi, Niger, Osun and Oyo, quoting Laolu Akande, a special assistant to the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo.
On health, the president promised to ensure that no Nigerian will have a reason to go outside the country for medical treatment.
The authors said this promise was not kept as President Buhari himself went abroad three times to seek medical treatment in the past year alone.
“In June 2016, Buhari went to London to consult an ear, nose and throat specialist about an ear infection. Earlier this year, he spent 51 days in the British capital on an extended medical leave and returned on May 7 on indefinite medical leave. The details of his condition are closely guarded by his confidants,” the report said.
On employment, the president’s promised to; “Target the creation of three million new jobs a year through industrialisation, public work and agricultural expansion.”
But the authors said this had not been achieved as the country is in the midst of a recession, with the economy contracting for the fifth quarter in a row.
The report said: “Though 1,396,836 jobs were created between the 3rd quarter 2015 (the first full quarter Buhari’s government was in power) and the 3rd quarter of 2016 (the last for which data is available), this was not enough to keep up with the increase in the labour force.”
The report said the promise on national security to; “Ensure that under my watch, no force, external or internal, will occupy even an inch of Nigerian soil,” is of mixed progress.
It said northeastern Nigeria remained in the eye of the Boko Haram insurgency.
“Boko Haram still makes its presence felt with suicide bombings, though. In addition, in other parts of the country attacks and killings associated with Fulani herdsmen have increased, with attackers sometimes laying siege to series of communities,” it added.
It also said the promise on corruption is a “work in progress,” if the campaign promise of working with the National Assembly towards the immediate enactment of a Whistle Blower Act” is anything to go by.
On housing, the president’s promise to: “Create a mortgage market by reforming land ownership to give ordinary Nigerians easy access to title deeds” was rated as a failure without any progress.
“The Land Use Act of 1978 makes the Nigerian government (whether federal, state or local) the primary owners of all lands. People buying lands receive a certificate of occupancy which expires after 99 years. The certificate can be revoked at any time, but only under certain conditions.
“Commercial banks are therefore hesitant to issue mortgages and most Nigerian households finance their homes independently, with savings or non-mortgage credit, the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa said in its 2016 yearbook,” it said.
According to the report, the ruling party had promised to amend the constitution and the Land Use Act to create freehold interests in land but two years on, it is yet to be amended, though federal lawmakers announced in 2016 that they were working on it.
It said however that the minister in charge of housing shot down the plan, arguing that land administration is the exclusive preserve of states.
While describing the reducing the cost of governance as a mixed progress, it described the activities in the electricity sector as very slow.
The promise was: “The APC government shall vigorously pursue the expansion of electricity generation and distribution of up to 40,000 MW in 4 to 8 years”.
But the report said: “Though the Minister of Power, Housing and Works, Babatunde Fashola, claimed in January that the Nigerian government achieved an all-time high of 5,074 MW in power generation, this is not recorded on the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s website.
“Entries on the website, which only date back to November 2015, showed that the highest electricity generation took place on February 7, 2016, with 4,741 MW recorded. The latest entry showed that the country had a total daily generated power of 4,433 MW on May 29, 2017,” it said.