Buhari right to say economy in crisis, but here is why he should share in the blame

President Muhammadu Buhari made a not too stunning confession Friday when he told a meeting of the thirty state governors that the Nigerian economy is in bad shape but he did not acknowledge that his government failure to reform the economy is largely to blame for the poor state of the economic wellbeing of the country.

Unemployment is rising in Africa’s largest economy with families finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet in a country that also now has the dubious appellation as the world’s poverty capital. Nigerian youths are voting with their feet by joining in the mass exodus to Europe and Canada.

Since Buhari made that statement to the governors 24 hours ago, there has been widespread social media frenzy with commentators saying the president and his government should not say the obvious thing about the economy but must be courageous enough to point to new policies capable of turning the tide.

At Friday’s vice presidential debate, the opposition candidates made a good show of aiming to turn the discussion into a referendum of the government’s handling of the economy.

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Buhari took six months after being sworn in before he could constitute his cabinet and with oil prices collapsing then, Nigeria was denied of the right policy response and unsurprisingly, the country was pushed into a debilitating economic recession from which several key sectors are yet to emerge.

However, the government’s inability or as some say unwillingness to embark on the far reaching economic reform that Nigeria needs means that the economy is lacking the catalyst it badly needs to grow and create jobs.

An absence of a sound PPP policy ensures that the government is struggling to raise funding for vital rail and road projects which the private sector should be building while the state focus on other social programmes.

Health sector leaders constantly lament the shallow health insurance scheme and poor management of the sector by the regulator.

The insistence on maintaining a cap on electricity tariff at a time the government should be incentivizing significant investment into power generation means that Nigerians have been badly starved of the power they need to run their lives and businesses.

Analysts have pointed to a number of public assets that should have been sold off or concessioned off since the government came to power and they include the Nigeria gas company, the airports in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, subsidiaries of NNPC, vital road projects across the country, several power plants littered across Nigeria and the government’s subsisting equity in power distribution companies, River Basin development authorities, the oil refineries, steel complexes and many others.

Nigeria’s regulatory agencies are better known for their extortion and dubious revenue generation credentials rather than in their ability to create level playing for the participants in the economy to thrive.

The much touted policy to change the manner of engagement with Nigeria’s oil joint venture partners that include the mainly largely western international oil companies, IOCs has yet to see light of day and there is no other place where this government’s failing has been more devastating.

As a result, the required investment into the energy sector is lagging considerably, meaning that Nigeria is neither enabling the sector to benefit from recent price adjustments nor prepare for the worrying era not too far from now when major democracies along with China will make the switch to electric cars.

The net effect of all this means that despite recent improvements, Nigeria remains one of the most difficult place on earth to do business.