Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari took
office a month ago on a wave of hope that he
would quickly deal with a deepening economic
crisis and an Islamist insurgency in the north.
So far, he hasn’t met those expectations.
While Africa’s biggest oil producer has been hit
by a 40 percent fall in petroleum prices in the
past year that has slowed economic growth and
weakened the currency, Buhari, 72, has
delayed naming a cabinet until September.
As the momentum of being the first opposition
candidate to win power at the ballot box fades,
critics are mocking him as a sluggish elderly
man, or “Baba Go Slow.”
Buhari has acknowledged the crisis, saying last
month that his government is facing severe
financial strain, with a Treasury that’s “virtually
empty,” and his party is calling for patience.
Yet his lack of urgency in tackling economic
woes could leave Nigeria badly adrift, said John
Ashbourne, an economist at Capital Economics
in London.
“Every week that Nigeria goes without a cabinet
increases the chance that it will face a
dangerous shock -- whether a revenue collapse
or a currency crisis,” Ashbourne said by phone
Tuesday. “Leaving the federation without a
finance minister would be a questionable
choice at the best of times; doing so during a
period of economic instability is difficult to
explain.”
Investor Displeasure
Nigeria’s currency, twice devalued in the past
year in an attempt to cope with lower oil
income, has weakened 7.7 percent against the
dollar this year on the interbank market. The
International Monetary Fund estimates that
growth will slow to 4.8 percent this year from
6.1 percent in 2014. The naira was trading at
over N200 against the U.S. dollar at 2.38 p.m.
in Lagos.
The Nigerian Stock Exchange Index hit its 2015
peak of 35,728.12 on April 2, the day after
Buhari was declared the election winner. Since
then it has fallen 8 percent.
The cabinet delay won’t please investors, said
Alan Cameron, an economist at Exotix Partners
LLP. They’re expecting tighter fiscal policy, a
currency devaluation and a greater focus on
tax collection after the drop in oil prices, he
said.
“There was initially some hope that Buhari
would be able to tackle these changes more
quickly and with more credibility, but the time
line has now been pushed back,” Cameron said
by phone from London. “It’s going to be a
difficult pill to swallow for foreign investors.”
Inertia Concern
The central bank has banned importers from
using the foreign-exchange market to buy
certain goods as it seeks to stabilize the naira
and hold on to external reserves, which are
down 16 percent this year to $29 billion.
“Even what little could have been achieved so
far, such as the nomination of ministers, has
not been addressed, and there is a sense of
inertia,” Folarin Gbadebo-Smith, managing
director of the Center for Public Policy
Alternatives, a Lagos-based research group,
said by phone Wednesday.
Buhari’s own party, the All Progressives
Congress, has recognized the growing public
disenchantment and pleaded for patience.
“Nigerians are right to demand even a faster
pace. Nigerians are right to ask that a
government be quickly put in place,” party
spokesman Lai Mohammed told reporters at a
June 30 press conference in Lagos, the
commercial capital. “All we ask for is a little
more patience, a little more understanding.”
Government Change
Buhari is facing a unique situation because his
victory over the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan,
ended 16 years of rule by the Peoples
Democratic Party, his spokesman Femi Adesina
said.
“This is not a normal changeover, it is from one
government to another,” he said.
Buhari, who previously governed Nigeria as
military ruler in the 1980s, has moved more
quickly in the fight against the Islamist militant
group, Boko Haram, which has waged a violent
six-year campaign in the north.
He ordered the army to move its headquarters
from Abuja, the capital, to the northeastern
city of Maiduguri, the scene of some of the
worst fighting, and has traveled to neighboring
countries such as Chad and Niger to discuss
cross-border military cooperation.
It’s the “one area in which the Buhari
administration has hit the ground running,”
Mohammed said.
Yet, while troops from Nigeria and Chad have
largely dislodged Boko Haram from its self-
declared caliphate in the northeast this year,
the insurgents have stepped up hit-and-run
attacks.
Corruption Fight
Buhari will also have to deal with shortcomings
in his own army, which Amnesty International
said last month should be investigated for war
crimes, including unlawful killings.
In a step toward meeting his campaign promise
to attack corruption that has crippled Nigeria
for decades, Buhari disbanded the board of the
state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.
The National Economic Council on Monday set
up a four-member panel to probe its accounts.
Even some opposition lawmakers say Buhari
needs more time.
“His approach may be different, but I am
patient, I will give him some time,” Ben
Murray-Bruce, a PDP senator, said in a June 29
interview in Abuja.
Where Buhari has come up short is
communicating a sense of engagement to the
public, said Gbadebo-Smith.
“He doesn’t say anything about anything,” he
said. “The public would be satisfied with
signals that say we are doing something about
this, we are on top of this.”
