Nigeria: Buyer's Remorse

NIGERIA

Buyer’s Remorse

As Nigerian voters pondered who should receive their support in presidential elections on Saturday, Al Jazeera zeroed in on the question foremost in many minds.

“Has Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari Honoured His Promises?” the Qatar-based news agency wrote in a headline.

The answer to that question appears to be a resounding no.

Buhari, 76, vowed to improve the West African country’s stagnating economy when he defeated ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.

But Bloomberg warned that Nigeria faces a “lost decade” unless the oil-dependent country diversifies its economy. High inflation and a growing pool of unemployed youth are already making that job harder every day.

A former military dictator who led Nigeria in the 1980s, Buhari also pledged to crack down on corruption.

But the New York Times noted that Buhari’s critics accuse the president of moving more vigorously against corruption by his political enemies than against allies living large from graft.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Buhari swore he would destroy Boko Haram, the militant group affiliated with the Islamic State whose fighters have kidnapped, raped and killed people in the country’s north with varying degrees of impunity for years.

The United Nations Refugee Agency, however, recently issued a worldwide plea to help 35,000 Nigerians who fled to Cameroon to escape the jihadists.

“When Boko Haram militants stormed into her hometown, heavily pregnant Nigerian mother Mariam Adoum dropped everything and ran for her life,” a UN press release said.

Buhari, in short, is a flop, many say. Nigeria, which is Africa’s most populous country and the continent’s biggest economy, deserves better, argued the Guardian.

Some of Buhari’s setbacks were from events he probably couldn’t control. He suffered an “unspecified ailment” that required him to spend three months in Britain for treatment, for example, wroteReuters. But the president needs to be in good enough health to govern.

Buhari’s main challenger is former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party, whom some of the president’s critics see as a vital, energetic alternative to Buhari. But Abubakar could be hurt by past allegations of corruption, all of which he denied. In 2010, for example, US Senate investigators said he had transferred more than $40 million in suspect funds to US banks.

The race is growing ugly, especially as candidates have integrated social media and other technologies into their campaigns. On the positive side, however, Quartz reported, election authorities have more tools to stymie vote rigging and other hijinks than were common in the past.

When former President Jonathan lost the vote four years ago, he became the first elected Nigerian leader to concede defeat and willingly leave office. It was a big win for democracy and a lesson Buhari should keep in mind.