• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Nigeria: Assessing the Abubakar & Buhari policy documents

Buhari-Atiku

It is election season in Nigeria. Elections for the presidency and federal legislature are slated for mid-February. In early March, those for the governorship of each of the country’s thirty-six states and others would follow. Naturally, the greatest focus is on the presidential race. And while there are more than fifty contestants for the job, including a few internationally recognised technocrats, all eyes are on the two leading presidential candidates.

Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is seeking a second four-year term. His main opponent is former vice-president Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Both candidates hail from northern Nigeria, but from different parts. President Buhari is from the northwestern part of the country while Mr Abubakar is from the northeastern part. Whereas the northwestern geopolitical zone is quite peaceful, the northeastern part suffers from insecurity, with terrorists attacking key cities and towns now and then.

Incidentally, the insecurity in that part of the country is why Mr Buhari beat former president Goodluck Jonathan some four years ago. It also helped his chances that Mr Jonathan was a southerner. Northern voters did not have a difficult choice to make. Things are not so straightforward this time around. That is even as Mr Buhari still enjoys a cult following in the north. Inevitably, a significant portion of northern voters are likely to pitch their tents with Mr Abubakar; in the northeast especially.

Mr Buhari is thus likely to secure most of the votes in Western Nigeria and Mr Abubakar the East. Understandably, most forecasts point to a likely close tally. To change the dynamics and perhaps win comfortably, each of the candidates must demonstrate the superiority of their ideas. And in this age of social media, the voting public is able to easily assess them very quickly.

In view of this, the leading candidates have made a big show of their policy documents. Mr Buhari calls his the “Next Level” while Mr Abubakar’s is “Let’s Get Nigeria Working Again”. Nigerians are quite used to these well-packaged plans now. There have been many in the past. But since the problems they were meant to solve continue to endure, they would not be blamed if they are somewhat sceptical about these new ones. Still, what is probably uppermost on their minds is prosperity. Put simply: jobs. Both candidates promise as much.

Of course, the incumbent is probably best judged by his administration’s policy document: the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). In doing so, it is realised some gains have been made. And quite a lot remains to be done. In any case, renewed terrorist attacks in the northeast have yet again put security on the front burner. Even so, it is widely believed poverty is the root cause of insecurity in different parts of the country.

Clashes between cattle herders and farmers in the middle belt of the country have an economic rationale, for instance. Drought effects, like the drying of the Lake Chad, is believed to be one of the factors behind the relatively high poverty levels and consequent insecurity in the northeast. Thus, it is their economic visions that should matter the most. Does Mr Buhari plan to do anything differently to improve the economy? And what is Mr Abubakar proposing to do differently? New African asked three leading analysts for their views. 

Amaka Anku, Africa director & practice head, Eurasia Group

“So I think what’s really at stake for Nigeria is revenue growth and infrastructure investments – so that’s the paradigm through which I’m analyzing their policy documents.”

“My main criticism is that both documents are extremely ambitious (unrealistic perhaps) in their spending plans without much focus on generating revenue to implement those plans. Politically, I can understand why that is the case – talking about collecting or raising taxes isn’t exactly compelling for the general public.”

“I was surprised that Buhari’s document is completely silent on the oil & gas sector – does this mean his administration will not push any reforms in this area? Quite strange to simply ignore such an important sector of the economy.”

“For Atiku, I’m concerned about the grand plans for infrastructure spending ($90bn a year) with zero discussion of revenue growth or even foundational work that needs to be done to formalize the economy and move Nigeria towards better tax collection (like the national ID scheme).” 

Omotola Abimbola, Fixed income and currency research specialist, Ecobank

“We believe Nigeria could have its first presidential election campaign fought on ideological grounds in 2019, with the two major parties campaigning on ideologically opposed sets of policies and programmes.”

“At first glance, President Muhammadu Buhari’s “Next Level” plan appears to be a continuation of his administration’s existing policies and programmes such as social investment schemes, welfare spending on the vulnerable, deficit-financed infrastructure investment and public sector job creation.”

“On the other hand, candidate Atiku promises reforms and policies to increase private sector participation in the economy, particularly privatization of underperforming government assets in the oil & gas and transport sectors, liberalization of the downstream sector of the petroleum industry, reduction in corporate tax rates, lower regulation, PPP funded infrastructure investments and promotion of investment friendly policies.”

“In American political parlance, the PDP appears to be more conservative – smaller state, big business and low corporate taxes – while the APC’s plans bear close resemblance to the democratic-party agenda – big state and welfare spending to support the vulnerable. Ultimately, both candidates’ promises are ambitious vis-a-vis current fiscal realities and their policy documents are conspicuously light on revenue generating strategies to create more fiscal space.”

“President Buhari wants to continue current approach to creating jobs using government subventions and direct employment, a position at odds with increasing revenue pressures, already-high recurrent spending and a bloated CBN balance sheet. Candidate Atiku promised to create 3m jobs a year and double Nigeria’s GDP to USD900bn in four years, which is tall order with little consideration for age-long structural challenges limiting short term growth potential.”

“On the ERGP, we think the implementation is still standing on its first pillar of reforms (restoring macroeconomic stability), and implementation of the other four strategic areas (Economic Diversification and Growth Drivers, Competitiveness, Social Inclusion and Jobs, Governance and Other Enablers) will be further out due to administrative inertia in pushing through important structural reforms.”

Malte Liewerscheidt, Vice-president, Teneo

“Atiku’s stated aim to double the size of the economy by 2025 would require annual GDP growth rates to jump to 12%. This is highly unrealistic as double-digit growth rates over longer periods are historically unprecedented. While the plan is almost guaranteed to fall short of target, the liberal reform measures suggested are still likely to inject desperately needed new momentum into the economy.”

“Buhari’s re-election manifesto, on the other hand, essentially features more of the same. The state-centric approach to economic development has been preserved, while higher targets have been set. Yet given the weak economic performance, rising unemployment and a mounting debt pile over the past four years, there is nothing to suggest the old recipes would produce different results in a potential second Buhari term.”

 

  • An edited version was published by New African magazine in January 2019

Rafiq Raji

Twitter: @DrRafiqRaji