A ray of hope, perhaps change is on the horizon

Last week witnessed some positives for Nigerians, a ray of hope despite the persistent fuel scarcity that is threatening to shut down the economy.
For some, the passage of the 2016 Budget marks a new course for the Muhammadu Buhari administration and by extension for Nigerians – though cynics call it “the same old story”.
It was refreshing news when the National Assembly finally passed the long-awaited record N6.06 trillion budget after it was held down for months because of errors, inconsistencies and wasteful provisions in certain line items. There were even insinuations that the NASS was using the budget as a bargaining chip for the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, whose trial on corruption charges will now start April 5 at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).

Whatever the case, the budget has been unique in many ways besides the obvious fact that it is a record largest spending plan for the Africa’s largest economy. The budget was stolen or hijacked, padded and padded again. Then followed a major reshuffling in different agencies linked with its preparation before finally scaling through and would now be signed into law by President Buhari in a couple of days.
We pray that Nigeria never gets to see this level of embarrassment again.
It is expected that the economy will gradually begin to take shape by next month when money begins to make its way around the system (just maybe, this time, it won’t stay in the hands of a few). Buhari has announced through Kemi Adeosun, his finance minister, of plans to inject up to N350 billion into the economy in the next few months.
The long-awaited National Economic Council (NEC) retreat finally held last week with the aim to generate immediate, medium and long-term viable policy solutions to the economic challenges facing government at both the Federal and State levels. At the opening session, the President enumerated four areas of his administration’s focus. Agriculture, Power, Manufacturing and Housing, will get immediate attention. The state governors were also supposed to focus on those four areas- ‘Same old old stories’, cynics also called it. According to Buhari, other areas like Education, Science and Technology required a whole retreat to fix.
For power, the President said this had become the talking point and butt of jokes for Nigerians. “But, ladies and gentlemen, it is no longer a laughing matter,” he said.
But seriously, power is still a major issue for Nigeria despite all the ‘acclaimed’ reforms. It continues to amaze me how the power situation is still not being fixed in Nigeria. My childhood days, like for many, were days when we shouted “up NEPA” when they brought light. We also found an expression for the four letter word to be ‘Never Expect Power Always’, when they took light and that has still not gone by, yet, our country is well over fifty years old.
It’s so amazing that there is never a time when something or someone is not blamed by the government for the continuous power outage, even with all the privatisation hype. Who do we then hold accountable? It is time to sort out the major issues (majorly transmission) besides adding up megawatts that still does not translate to power in my house.
So while we are facing “the classic dilemma of privatisation” as the President chooses to put it “Public interest Vs Profit Motive” what is the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the regulatory authority, doing to ensure that consumers get value for money?
Well, Buhari told participants at the economic retreat that the government would fast-track the completion of the pipelines from gas points to power stations and provide more security to protect gas and oil pipelines, this is what Nigerians say they have been hearing from way back in the days. Nothing new!
On housing, the President said, while delivering his speech that in achieving one of his campaign promises, his administration intends to build one million housing units per year but will be “a tall order” unless it is shared between the Federal Government and the states. Two hundred and fifty thousand units will be built by the FG while the 22 APC states would manage another two hundred fifty thousand. That will be five hundred thousand units per year. As he tried to woo foreign investors in this regard, he urged locally domiciled big construction companies to enter into commercial housing building and pick up the rest.
The remaining states governed by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), and the private or foreign investors are expected to build the remaining five hundred thousand units.
The concerns now are that this is one of those promises made to curry the votes of Nigerians and may now come in half measures. Well, if the realities on the ground are worth reading, one may conclude that many other campaign promises may not get the chance to even see the light of day.
We may wish to give the President some more time as he has twice reminded Nigerians in the last week that he still has three years in office. After all, miracles they say, still happen.
Speaking of promises, fuel queues were supposed to have disappeared from the gas stations, following back and forth promises by the oil ministers, (the Petroleum Minister and the Minister of State). Nigerians are groaning under the weight of fuel scarcity. The minister of state, Ibe Kachikwu said it may take another two months, (he denied it later, though) to fully fix the issues of scarcity. Before that, the NNPC had said in a few days.
Talking about hopes for better days ahead, the President apologised for dissolving governing councils of universities along with the boards of parastatal and agencies. He tendered his apology during the National Executive Council meeting of the All Progressives Congress in Abuja last Thursday.
After discovering that he had fired them in error, he said: “We had to go back and lick our vomit in terms of universities’ councils” seeing he had acted against their laws.
“So, we said sorry and allowed all the universities to continue with their councils. So, please, try to bear with us as we reflect on where we found ourselves,” the President said in part.
The President’s new turn must not be taken lightly, considering his military background. A step in the right direction is apologising when wrong and taking steps to fix things. Well, for the economy, apologies will not work, it needs outright fixing.
But not on a ‘not so lighter note’, was the attendance of the PDP governors at the NEC retreat. Most surprising of the governors was Fayose, the Ekiti state governor, who ofcourse came with his loads of bombshell. While the other governors who sometimes boycott the monthly NEC meeting are not as loquacious and audacious as Fayose, it was surprising to see him arrive at the venue of the meeting. And of course, he did not disappoint! His governor colleagues tried their best to be formal but couldn’t hide the fact that they wanted to distance from the governor who has successfully created a controversial niche for himself.
Fayose has no fear at all, coming into the Villa and daring the President to declare a state of emergency in his state. He did not tell the President that directly to his face but in an interview with journalists. As if that was not enough, he said God is angry with the President because he lacked the technical competence to solve the country’s numerous problems. While his colleagues were trying to understand how to generate money for their state he left. Fayose did not sit through the first technical session after the opening ceremony by the President.