How not to measure President Buhari’s legacy

The question of President Buhari’s legacy, of which we discussed last week, will remain long after he leaves office on May 29, 2023. Last week, we raised the question, not of what that legacy would be, but of the criteria by which it would be judged or determined, a far more important issue. Today, it is only fair that we should talk about how not to judge Buhari’s legacy, and give our reasons why.

I suggested last week that whatever happens, President Buhari’s legacy will be judged by at least two criteria. The first is the high expectations he created over 20 long years and five presidential election cycles. How has Buhari performed, not just according to any normal standards, but relative to his own insistence over 20 years and five presidential election cycles that he is simply the best person for the job?

Secondly, the president’s legacy must also be judged on the basis of the realised potential of those he appointed to help him deliver the job. Were Buhari’s appointees the best fit for the job in at least 50 per cent of instances? And to what extent did they deliver his vision for Nigeria?

I do not know whether President Buhari’s legacy would be judged favourably or harshly over time. But I believe that no meaningful consideration of it can escape these questions. This brings me to the real issue for today.

The legacy of a president must also be judged not just according to the vision he created or those he appointed to work with him, but also according to the conditions they met on the ground on assumption of power, or by the impact of epochal events that occur during their time in office. On this third criterion, Buhari is the least lucky of all among the four presidents Nigeria has had so far since 1999.

My point is that Buhari’s three predecessors had a largely smooth-sailing presidential terms with hardly no epochal global events. By contrast, Buhari’s eight years have been defined by three separate events in the global economy and politics that would have limited the prospects of even the ablest of Nigerian presidents to perform. For this reason, I think, Buhari is often judged unfairly without taking into account these three near-catastrophes that occurred during his term. Let me explain.

First, the 15-year period during which Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and Jonathan were in office has been like none other in Nigeria. Historically, Nigeria’s economic performance since the 1960s has tended to rise and fall only along with global oil prices, not as an outcome of local productive sectors or internal policy changes. This is why ours ranks among the most volatile economies in the world.

Between 1961 and 2021, for example, Nigeria’s economy fell into recession 14 times. Economic growth averaged just 3.7 per cent of overall GDP annually during the same period, according to World Bank data. All of this rise and fall was driven by the fortunes of global oil prices.

And that is why the years 2000 to 2014 were remarkable. Global oil prices, driven by increased demand from China and India began a steady upward trend from an annual average of $14.45 per barrel per day (bpd) in 1998 to $96.29 bpd in 2014, peaking at above $105 bpd throughout 2011-2013, according to OPEC data.

On top of these high oil prices during those 15 years, there were no major global events that had massive negative impacts on the local economy throughout.

Indeed, even the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 did not have too many negative impacts on Nigeria’s local economy, as then governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and now Governor of Anambra State, Charles Soludo, told the Senate at the time. The reason was simple: after a brief fall, oil prices actually continued to rise during 2008-2009, reaching above $100 per barrel by 2010. The banking crisis in Nigeria during the same period was driven, not by external exposure to the global economy, but by local unchecked greed and corruption in the sector.

Furthermore, the high oil prices throughout the Obasanjo-Yar’AduaJonathan years were complemented by expansion in other sectors like GSM telephony and the creative arts, as well as high daily oil production levels that often exceeded over two million barrels per day. As a result, growth rates averaged 7.14 per cent throughout 2002-2014, leading to the “rebasing” of Nigeria’s GDP to $546 billion in 2014, the highest on the continent then, and now still. A full account of what Nigeria has done with all that oil money has not yet been taken, and it should.

In contrast, the economy under Buhari could not have been more battered by external events, hit as it has been by three successive but still distinct global shocks in six short years: the crude oil slump of 2015-2017, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021, and the economic effects of the still ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

No Nigerian leader has ever had to face the cataclysmic effects of such global events at the same time during their administration. And as evidence of all these, many countries, both within Africa and around the world, are still grappling with the challenges these incidents have thrown up, and many are not even succeeding.

My argument, therefore, is that any consideration of the Buhari legacy must also take into account the effects of these incidents on the Nigerian economy, and the extent to which they limit space for governmental action, and by implication performance and legacy, of the sitting president at the time. Unfortunately, and quite unfairly, Buhari’s performance has tended to be judged without taking the nuances of these issues into account. And that, I think, is how not to measure a president’s performance or their legacy. But the rest, we must leave to proper historians.

Re: Buhari’s appointees:

Your write-up refers. Though they say, “journalism is history written in a hurry”, your analysis is disappointing because, it is completely devoid of, substance. Two examples:(1) 30-year development plan. Did you bother to find out how long it has been in the works? Any government is, work in progress and there is what is called, the doctrine of perpetual succession. Development plans are blueprints and governments all over the world, dovetail these into their, annual budgets. It is germane for policy consistency. It is now, up to the incoming government to adopt, review and implement as appropriate. (2) Your assessment of ministers was not based on any empirical evidence. What do 70 & 30 per cent mean? Give us an outline of how you arrived at your conclusions? How do you assess for example, the achievements of a technical ministry like: Communications and Digital Economy? How much revenues [sic] did it bring to the coffers of government compared with its predecessor(s)?

In education, the revenue generated by the current Registrar of JAMB was unprecedented. Despite being maligned as unqualified because, he was a professor of Arabic yet, his performance was, far better than his predecessor’s, a professor of Educational Measurement, who is now being prosecuted by the EFCC for alleged massive corruption while at the helm of affairs at JAMB.

No human institution is perfect and indeed, the outgoing administration is no exception. However, it has profound legacies that, historians will mention:(a) 2nd Niger Bridge. More than 40 years in the making, it has been finally delivered. (b) Oil exploration at final stages in Bauchi/Gombe and Nasarawa states. (c) Mambilla Hydropower projects would have taken off but for, sabotage by ‘sons of the soil’.

Give honour to whom it is due. Legacies can only be discussed with empirical evidence and not innuendos.

Yakubu Danfuloti