The Muhammadu Buhari administration would have left a worthy legacy if it had pursued its projects with utmost transparency and without undue politicisation.
At no time, since Nigeria’s return to civil rule in 1999, had citizens shown as much mistrust in government and governance as they have now.
The feeling of hopelessness is not just seen in one part of the country. It is everywhere. There is palpable fear, apprehension and despondency.
Although the administration has been able to show some sparks in the areas of fight against corruption, agricultural revolution, diversification of the economy, infrastructural development, and fight against insecurity, lack of transparency and the mindset behind such projects have been its greatest undoing.
The administration has pursued its projects on the “we-them” premise. The projects are considered as a favour to the people and not part of the raison d’etre of every well-meaning government.
The projects have some political coloration. Depending on where they are cited, they are meant to either taunt or punish some people or derive some political gain, not because of the desirability of such projects.
They are lop-sided and from day one of the construction of such projects, government knows they are meant to bleed Nigeria rather than contribute to the nation’s socio-economic wellbeing.
An anonymous commentator noted recently that many projects of the current administration have some tinge of ulterior motives.
He pointed to the replication of the Niger Delta Development Commission with the North-East Development Commission, into which a lot of money in foreign currencies was sunk.
“While the Niger Delta feeds the nation, and has suffered decades of environmental degradation and deaths, politicians in the North East fueled insurgency by widening the socioeconomic gap, mass-replication of poverty and illiteracy and allowing radical religious ideologies to grow unchecked for decades. It backfired but they turned around to use the Nigerian state to clean up their mess. Poverty and insecurity are the SI units of underdevelopment,” he noted.
He also called attention to the call for amnesty for terrorists and bandits, and the preachment by Sheikh Ahmed Gumi that banditry and incessant kidnapping in the North West were products of injustice. He believes that such rhetoric is being hyped to justify the call for the establishment of a North-West Development Commission.
“Will the bandits get the amnesty? I bet you they will. If you doubt it, then you are not paying attention enough. If the politicians whose actions led to the insurgency in North East, found a way to create a North-East Development Commission, banditry is also geared towards a North-West Development Commission, which will sap more money from the South to the North,” he added.
It bears mentioning here that the appointments of President Buhari since 2015 have continued to rankle.
“The administration has continued to use the wealth from the south to build an economically irrelevant railway to the Niger Republic,” he said.
He also deplored that “It is funny that Nigeria has not found a way to connect its economic clusters of Lagos, Aba, Onitcha and Port Harcourt with rail but has all of a sudden found a way to connect an economically arid Niger Republic whose GDP is not up to that of Anambra. The significance of this is profound. The North West has more affinity with the Niger Republic, Chad and Mali than the rest of the country. It is why under Buhari, railway, refinery, etc will get to Maradi. It is also why governors from the Niger Republic attend political campaigns in places like Kano and Katsina. It is why herders are imported from Niger down to Chad and the Central African Republic to cause mayhem all over Nigeria while Abuja turns the other way. It is why gas is channelled from Obrikom/Obiafu to Kaduna, Kano while Bayelsa has no stable electricity.”
When President Buhari announced the plan to build the Kano-Marafi railroad connecting Nigerian to Niger Republic, his publicity handlers were fighting hard to convince Nigerians on why the rail project was commendable when the country’s rail lines are dilapidated.
Then, the President noted that the $1.96 billion project would serve the import and export of goods for Niger Republic and other countries in the sub-region through Nigerian ports. But critics asked which ports considering the closure of businesses in Apapa, Lagos, due to the seeming unredeemable traffic situation in Apapa and the seaport environs.
As well, other ports in Nigeria have not been utilised to their full capacity due to poor facilities and ‘high level’ politics.
It also angered many that the President said the Nigeria-Niger Republic rail facility would also enable the people of Niger Republic to enjoy affordable transportation, when Nigerians do not enjoy any. That fact alone won more critics for President Buhari’s projects.
It would be recalled that on Thursday June 2, 2016, Yemi Osinbajo, vice president of Nigeria, flagged off the cleaning exercise of Ogoni land from hydrocarbon pollutions, which has impacted negatively on the environment, land, water and lives of people in Ogoni, River State.
That day, Amina Mohammed, the then Minister of Environment, described the cleanup exercise as a demonstration of the Federal Government’s commitment to creating an enabling environment for the people of Ogoni.
About five years down the line, there is little or nothing to show for the exercise, which has gulped over $360 million (N137 billion) since the flag off, rather re-pollution of the affected Ogoni communities by the activities of oil thieves in the area.
Stakeholders in the Niger Delta region and some politicians, including Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, have constantly criticised the Buhari administration over the continued stagnation of the Ogoni clean-up exercise.
Akinwunmi Oke, project coordinator, Strategic Partnership (SP), a lobby and advocacy programme, made up of various civil society organisations (CSOs), decried that the Federal Government is yet to implement the provisions of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report on how the cleanup process should be effectively implemented, while calling for the need to show value for the allocated funds.
Speaking on the delayed Ogoni clean up exercise, Magnus Ojeme, an environmentalist, decried that while the government is taking glory in training and engaging over 50 Ogoni indigenes in the exercise, majority of the people are yet to feel the impact as polluted water still abound.
“In one of our meetings in Port Harcourt, Marvin Dekil, project coordinator of Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project (HYPREP), lamented that the progress of the clean up exercise has been hampered by land disputes, leadership tussles and communal clashes. If the federal government can send troops to invade creeks, they should send them to the 21 sites where the cleanup is going on to ensure the completion of the exercise and fulfillment of their promises to the Ogoni people, who are beginning to see the project as a scam to calm the anger of the aggrieved Ogonis”, Ojeme said.
The fact that the government has not put in place the needed interventions and the process of the clean-up has not been transparent, is a source of worry for Ojeme and reason to be critical of government projects.
Also, on March 10, 2014, when Goodluck Jonathan, former president of Nigeria, flagged off the construction of the second Niger Bridge, a gateway to the Eastern part of the country, he disclosed that the construction would cost N117 billion with a commitment of 25 percent of the total funds and a promise to complete the project within 48 months.
Though President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration continued with the project, it has dragged with variations in cost, date of completion, finance model, as well as redesigning of the bridge plan.
From 48 months, the date of completion has moved to 2019, to 2022, with many observers doubting the completion of the bridge during Buhari’s second tenure.
But the crux of the matter for Anderson Ohilam, a civil engineer with Julius Berger, is the redesign of the bridge by the present administration to now accommodate a toll facility; a development, which many people from the Eastern part of the country think is unfair of the federal government.
“The toll model is copied from Lagos and we are not surprised because Babatunde Raji Fashola, minister of Works and Housing, adopted that model from the Lekki Bridge in Lagos, which he built while as governor of Lagos State. But why is the federal government adopting that model, all the bridges across River Niger in the country are not tolled, why the new one in the Eastern part of the country?” Ohilam asked.
Toeing Ohilam’s line, some observers said that the Federal Government should remove the toll on the Niger Bridge plan, as that would amount to taxing people extra for a project it should ordinarily provide.
However, the recent commissioning of the Itakpe-Warri rail project and the Lagos-Ibadan phase of the Lagos-Kano rail are commendable.
But observers think that the projects are much shorter and that the commendation should be reserved until the Itakpe-Warri project finally terminates at Abuja and Lagos-Ibadan gets to Kano and Lagos-Calabar witnesses first passengers.
“It is not all about flagging off as the president has been doing, but completing the projects on schedule because delay can result in doubling the cost, abandonment or cancelation of the project”, Ademola Olapade, a public analyst said.
He argued that someone who cannot deliver on monorail for a short distance cannot deliver the Lagos-Calabar rail and not to talk of the 2044-kilometre Port Harcourt – Maiduguri rail line, across 13 states.
“If people are appointed in office based on their pedigree, then we will expect good results. But when it is based on political grounds or compensation level, then we expect projects being abandoned after the flag off. The present government has had some projects many criticised because they think those behind them lack the competence to deliver on the projects. You can recall that a former governor was given five portfolios and the superstar governor could not deliver on the portfolios because he lacked the competence,” he said.
Many critics also think that the plan of the Federal Government to restore the Port Harcourt Refinery will only stop at the announcement, especially now that Dangote Refinery is coming on board and refined oil products importers are in brisk business with the Petroleum Price Regulatory Agency as collaborator, helping to increase fuel pump price at will.
They argue that, in the past, the Federal Government had wasted a lot of money on turnaround maintenance of the refineries, noting that the fund would have been enough to build a new city like Abuja, or three new refineries or 10 universities across the country.
“For me, the Federal Government should lend the $1.5 billion to business people who have the capacity to build and run refineries. There are many with license, expertise, but lack the funds. I bet you, that amount will be shared before Buhari leaves office,” he said.
On a $2bn internationally-funded rail line connecting the country’s North to neighbouring Niger, Cheta Nwanze, partner at Lagos-based consultancy SBM Intelligence, said: “There’s a clear political imperative to apportion infrastructure projects on the basis of political and ethnic loyalty Most of the administration’s big ticket projects have been in the North: that’s far from a coincidence.”
But such criticisms have been countered by the Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) which dispersed any bias in citing of the project, noting that the administration was on track and that several of the rails and other infrastructure projects would help quicken the pace of urbanisation and economic development of some of the country’s rural areas.
“We know that there has been some controversy over the rehabilitation of the existing narrow gauge line that has since been laid to rest by Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi, but it seems like not many Nigerians know that the project will touch 13 states, that’s over one third of the country’s 36 states.
“It is clear that the economic multiplier effect would be massive, considering the over 20,000 direct and 50,000 indirect jobs that it is estimated to generate; that is aside from the economic activities that will be boosted at every station on the Eastern Corridor up to the North East region”, the group said recently in a statement.
But Public Affairs Analyst and National Chairman of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), Sanni Yabagi said the government had no excuse not to complete several of the abandoned projects after recent huge borrowing which was meant for such.
“I think there is no excuse why some of these projects should stall and not be completed because the fund had been approved for them. If you listen recently the National Assembly has approved so much money for this, which they are borrowing. I don’t know if they have not gotten it. I know the Covid-19 impact on the bad economy and paucity of resources is there, but they are also partnering with the private sector in some of these projects. So, I expect more speed in some of the projects except the will is not there,” Yabagi said.
He however, said: “I have concerns about the use of the money they are borrowing, if it would be properly used for such projects as promised.”
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