Buhari's administration has failed in its management of the Nigerian economy. The only solution they have for Nigeria's economic problems is to blame the Goodluck Jonathan's administration.
The Buhari administration is good at apportioning blame. Since this administration came to power in May of 2015, all it has done is to blame the Goodluck Jonathan’s administration for Nigeria’s economic problems. My question is simple, when will this administration grow up and start accepting responsibility for their bad stewardship of the economy? Nigerians voted him because they believed that he had better ideas on managing the Nigerian economy. I had argued then as now that Buhari was selling them lies that were packaged by paid American campaign consultants. All these consultants care about are their fees and they are good at putting lipstick on a pig and making it look good. (Watch the movie, Our Brand is Crisis).
These consultants were able to sell a poorly educated and an unapologetic military dictator to Nigerians as their savior. They told Nigerians the biggest lie of the year, promising $1 to N1 (Naira). The Jonathan administration was also accused of depleting the foreign reserves to feed its massive appetite for corruption. Nigerians who believed these lies were not stupid. They were vulnerable as a result of the People Democratic Party’s arrogance and corrupt tendencies. For the time that Buhari has presided over Nigeria’s economy, the Naira has been on a free fall, dropping from $1=N200 to $1=N420. At the rate it is going, by the end of Buhari’s first term, the Naira might be N1000 = $1. He still would have fulfilled his campaign promise of $ = N1, only that you have to add three zeros to the one. Nigeria’s dollar reserves have also suffered under Buhari. They have dropped from about $29 Billion to $19 Billion.
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Despite the serious economic crisis Nigeria finds itself, the government has been unable to provide Nigerians with a vision of how they plan to rescue the economy. Buhari has surrounded himself with incompetent people who have no basic understanding of global economics. Both the Central Bank Governor and the Minister of Finance are clueless on what to do. Their economic policies are erratic and this has sown the seed of distrust in the economy, driving investors away and causing wealthy Nigerians to stockpile the dollar. The Nigerian Naira is heading towards worthlessness. People are already stockpiling the dollar and demanding it as a legal tender because they do not want a currency that cannot hold value. Though Buhari stubbornly insisted he was not devaluing the Naira because he didn't want to kill it, he is actually murdering it by torture.
In Buharinomics, it's all Jonathan's fault. His lack of economic vision for Nigeria is also Goodluck Jonathan’s fault! Buhari and his APC party is failing to realize that their own policies and lack of are responsible for Nigeria's current economic malaise. While the country is bleeding dollars, they are busy selling dollars to pilgrims at deeply discounted rates. The government has no business subsidizing the private religious quests of citizens. In the same way, the government shouldn't subsidize the medical bills or tuitions of Nigerians who seek medical care or education overseas. While Buhari has been busy selling discounted dollars to the Nigerian bourgeoisie class and their sons and daughters, the Nigerian proletariat are suffering. Under the false pretense of cutting cost, he raised the tuition of students in Unity Schools from about N22,000 to N75,000. These schools are populated by children of the working class who cannot afford the tuition charged at elite private schools. Many families who have children in these schools have monthly wages that are less N75,000. Where does he expect these parents to generate the revenues to keep their children at these schools?
Nigerians cannot remain silent in the midst of the economic and financial damages the Buhari administration is unleashing on them. If Nigerians do, they may never be able to climb out of the economic hole this administration has dug. If people are fed up with the status quo, rather than complain on social media, they need to be on the streets telling this government that they are tired of being 'drawers of water and hewers of wood.'
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