Buhari’s May 29 Speech
As has become customary, President Muhammadu Buhari delivered a nationally televised speech on the morning of May 29 to mark Democracy Day. It marked 19 years since the return of democratic rule in this country and three years since the advent of the Buhari Administration. The president said, “This administration came at a time that Nigerians needed Change, the Change we promised and the Change we continue to deliver. We have faced a lot of challenges on this journey and Nigerians have stood by us in achieving the three cardinal points of this administration namely Security, Corruption and the Economy.” He devoted most of the speech to mentioning the areas in which his administration recorded successes since 2015. Among the areas he mentioned were the fight against Boko Haram insurgency; catering for internally displaced persons, IDPs; internal security issues especially kidnapping and herders/farmers clashes; Niger Delta militancy and Ogoni clean up.
Still other areas that Buhari dwelt upon included the fight against corruption, including the Treasury Single Account, Whistle Blower Policy and Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme [VAIDS]. He also said EFCC and ICPC have recovered billions of naira from treasury looters through forfeiture of various assets. Buhari said, “We have retained the services of one of the world’s leading assets tracing firms to investigate and trace assets globally. This is in addition to the exploitation of provisions of existing Treaties, Conventions as well as Bilateral Agreements with Multilateral bodies and Nations.”
Still other areas that he touched in the speech include the Sovereign Wealth Fund, which he said got a recent injection of US$650m and is investing in projects such as Abuja-Kano road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, East West Road, Mambilla Hydro-electric Power project and Second Niger Bridge. He also mentioned social intervention schemes, road, rail and education projects. Controversially, Buhari said, “In the area of power generation, Nigerians from all parts of the country continue to report better power supply and less use of generators. This underscores the effectiveness of the methodical plan to deliver incremental and uninterrupted power supply to our homes, markets, offices and factories.The country achieved 5, 222.3 MW in December 2017…generation capability now exceeds 7,500 MW.”
It is not the consensus of Nigerians that power supply has improved since 2015. It is as epileptic, as chaotic and as frustrating as ever. We urge the president not to be misled in this matter because he still has a Herculean task in the power sector. Some Jonathan regime officials have also complained that Buhari claimed credit for some policies that were initiated by the former regime, such as TSA. Beyond that, we question the wisdom of using the May 29 speech entirely to recount the regime’s projects. Instead of reeling out these figures, some of them contestable, the speech should have been better devoted to addressing in a thoughtful and proactive manner the major concerns of Nigerians at the moment, namely insecurity and the approaching 2019 elections. Hearing the president’s thoughts, plans and reassurances on these two issues would have been more worthwhile than reeling out a list of projects, some of them overblown by his aides.
Instead of reeling out these figures, some of them contestable, the speech should have been better devoted to addressing in a thoughtful and proactive manner the major concerns of Nigerians at the moment, namely insecurity and the approaching 2019 elections