Is Nigeria moving towards progress?

In junior secondary school, one of my teachers used the following example to illustrate the difference between potential and kinetic energy: potential energy is the energy a ball possesses when it’s on the edge of a slope, about to roll down while kinetic energy is the energy it possesses when movement has begun and the ball is rolling freely, down the slope.

It was a very vivid description that let me fully understand the concept; it’s also a description that has remained with me for years.

Nigeria can be likened to that ball, brimming with useful, potential energy, ready to convert that energy into its kinetic form. In the case of Nigeria though, the ball has never really rolled. It has teetered on the brink for decades, held back mostly by internal forces.

To say there hasn’t been much “movement” for the Nigerian ball implies that there isn’t much progress or prosperity in the ball. Ironically, there is prosperity in Nigeria, for some of the people.

There is true affluence in Nigeria but that affluence sits side by side with impoverishment on the same bench in the village square. It’s a twisted juxtaposition.

Nigeria, which has been declared as the happiest country in the world on more than one occasion, is a peculiar place. The well-to-do folks smile grandly while the folks at the bottom rungs of the ladder, who you might think have no reason to smile, smile anyway. As described by late Afrobeat legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Nigerians have perfected the art of “shuffering and shmiling”.

Unfulfilled Promises

For years, whether democratic or civilian, the effects of the government of Nigeria on many of its citizens seemed to be the same: tough economic situations and living conditions with a promise of better days that never seemed to be fulfilled.

In 1999, Nigeria started a democratic dispensation. A military ruler handed over the reins of the country willingly to a new civilian ruler. The gesture was symbolic enough to generate high hopes round the country, but over 15 years passed and it seemed nothing had changed.

Present-day Blues

In early 2015, in a quest to change the status quo and smile without suffering, Nigerians sought to change the people at the helm of government. After about a decade and half years of being governed at the Executive level by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), majority of Nigerians voted in President Muhammadu Buhari of the leading opposition party, the Alliance for Progressive Change (APC). He assumed office on May 29, 2015 and 10 months later, the situation of the country seems to have slid further downhill.

In Nigeria of 2016, the originally below-average power generation has become abysmal, the price of petrol has hit the roof, and the naira has been weaving in and out of an uncontrolled freefall. The budget is also just about to be passed after a particularly scandalous case of budget inflation.

The budget incident started with a hopeful pegging of the country’s oil at $130 per barrel. This happened close to the end of 2015, more than six months after the new administration had been sworn in and also at a period when crude was selling at about $30 per barrel. Those prices were hopefully expected to rise before the end of the year but the New Year arrived, and the price of crude on the international market continued to plummet.

Seeing that waiting in limbo would not solve the problem, the president visited the UAE to speak with his counterparts on a possible solution to the price problem. In the meantime, the budget was compiled with readjusted prices for the president to return and approve it. Then followed an elaborate case of price exaggeration and budget padding which included the creation of two budgets: one with reasonable figures just to get the president to sign and another with bloated figures. After the president’s signature was received, the page with the endorsing and approving signature was detached and re-attached to the ridiculously padded budget.

Questions were asked, multiple reviews took place, and when the deceit and brazen overture came to light, the Director-General of the budget office and 184 other involved officials were fired.

Hope Reconsidered

There was a lot of hope in Buhari before the election and even those who weren’t exactly supporters felt he would do better than the outgoing Jonathan administration. The PDP had their staunch supporters but they were silenced by the election results and accusations that their party couldn’t do much for Nigerians in their 15 years of occupying Aso Rock. But in the light of recent developments, they are beginning to be more vocal. It’s not just them; some Buhari supporters are now second-guessing their decision.

The general feeling is that the President is never at home and that he jets across the world too much to be in touch with the situation at home. According to them, if he was more at home, he would feel the need for urgency in his actions.

The slogan of Buhari’s party is “Change” and this phrase was chanted fervently by party stalwarts and adherents during the campaigns. That phrase, along with Buhari’s promises to right the several wrongs meted out to Nigerians, was at least partly the reason most Nigerians decided to do away with the PDP.

A question lingers these days in many Nigerian discussions: “where is the change?”

“Coming soon.” the presidency says.

The Reason for the Slow Pace

Buhari’s camp has an explanation. Firstly, before the former General became president, he had sworn to root out corruption, said to be the single biggest problem Nigeria faces. His bold pronouncements on the soon-to-be commenced war on corruption got some politicians and public officials shaking in their boots and “borrowed” funds started to magically return.

At the moment, the administration says Buhari is in extensive talks with several countries to discuss the retrieval of billions of dollars of public funds stashed away by corrupt officials. It’s not just to fight corruption, official reports say, it’s also because Nigeria is in desperate need of funds. This brings us to another official statement: Nigeria’s treasury is practically empty.

The presidency insists that the reason it cannot do all it promised as fast as it promised is because the expectations they had before going in are very different from the reality they found. The true economic situation of the country, they say, was deliberately veiled from the eyes of the citizens. With Nigeria virtually oil-dependent and crude prices crashing daily, the first point of support would be the country’s foreign reserves. According to The Presidency, not much was in the treasury when they resumed office.

Surgery and Recovery

It’s hard to be on the fence in a situation such as this. To be non-partisan almost seems impossible but the blame game never got anybody anywhere.

Regardless of where you stand, it’s easy to point out two things: Firstly, Nigeria has relied on oil for too long, multiple decades too long. If it hadn’t, it would have multiple streams of incomes and while stashed money was used, it would still have some funds back home to put plans in motion.

Secondly, patching things up is what got Nigeria here in the first place. Surgery should have been performed on Nigeria’s cancer years ago, but instead she was given plasters regularly along with a heavy dose of medication, mostly placebos.

The statements from the presidency can be paraphrased thus: survive the night and the morning will be glorious.

This period has been particularly grinding for most Nigerians, but the country can still emerge from this bleakness into prominence. Nigeria’s potential energy can still become kinetic.

Photo: Chatham House/Creative Commons