Looking back, facing forward as Nigeria decides, By Azu Ishiekwene

It is very sad that the president elected to make life at least bearable by the state by rationing basic goods even in peacetime: gasoline, electricity – and even their own savings – while citizens queued outside the presidential villa to watch TV footage of meetings that were not handy. . If this is all about our long-term salvation, at this rate, we will all die in the long run.

It’s hard to imagine that it’s been almost eight years. This time in 2015, I am over the moon with the prospect of a general election that will surely end the reign of President Goodluck Jonathan, who is already gone.

People were so excited at the prospect of change that in the South-West, the Yoruba version of “February”, the month of general elections, was improvised as “Fe-Buhari”; means, “Love Buhari”, thus invested with the aura of Cupid, the Greek god of erotic love. That’s how over the moon we were. Not without reason.

Boko Haram’s violent extremism is at its worst. Life on the streets, school, and home is not safe. Corruption is rampant and bold. Jonathan claims he’s doing his best, but everywhere you go, it feels different.

His reign was clearly held by forces beyond him. It is a pleasant fact that he has publicly acknowledged it more than once, but it does not absolve him. Presidents are elected to solve problems, not make excuses.

When the wind finally goes out of the sails, Jonathan seeks the solace of failed leaders: the virtue of history. History, he said, would remember him well.

On the eve of another presidential election nearly eight years after those sad words, history may have been kind to Jonathan, the man he called Nigeria’s most “incompetent and ignorant” president. In a twist of fate, his successor, Muhammadu Buhari, is considered the most capable of tipping Jonathan’s political coffin, he may be the one who writes people into sainthood.

As Nigerians go to the polls on Saturday, February 25 to elect a new president, not a few voters think that the worst mistake is to let Buhari happen again.

Not because he was on the ballot. He has exhausted the eight-year period allowed by the constitution for two terms. But as his false promises of security, poverty alleviation and corruption drove voters to 176,606 polling stations across the country, the last thing he wanted was to cast a vote that repeated the mistakes of 2015.

Buhari is solving some old problems, of course. Boko Haram retreated significantly. More supplies and equipment are reaching the soldiers on the front lines. In addition, greater efforts have been made to provide infrastructure, stimulate agriculture and restructure the super-opaque oil and gas industry.

But new problems have replaced old problems. The most shocking thing is the absence of the Buhari disaster. No one should disturb his subordinates once they have been appointed, on the last day of their tenure, the situation worsened. They exist only in name, from the delegation of authority to the audience and from the audience to surrender. The next dedication? The cat is far away and the mouse party is never too crowded.

If the voters remember Jonathan as a president who always seems too confused to hold his government and also besieged to realize that he is a leader, they will remember Buhari as a president who loves his office so much that he forgets why he is president. choose in the first place.

In Buhari’s eight years in office, nothing has summed up his unfortunate isolation and aloofness from public suffering like the current crisis over the redesign of three of the country’s eight bank notes. Not many argue about the merits of the redesign or the power of the Central Bank to carry it out, if necessary.

There are reasonable suspicions that big cash can lead to corruption, and especially kidnapping and banditry – Boko Haram’s new franchise. Although there have been cases of kidnappers and robbers dragging their victims to ATMs to sell them cash, withdrawal limits and fear will reduce the amount of money they can take away.

Moreover, the Central Bank can hardly guarantee a stable monetary policy if the country is floating in cash.

Also, politicians who may have stockpiles to distribute during the upcoming elections will find the current redesign and restrictions uncomfortable.

However, like every currency, this whole redesign business has two sides. Whatever the benefits in ease, convenience or philosophy, it has so far been implemented with callousness that makes the ransoms demanded by kidnappers and bandits appear as freewill sacrifices. The state’s governor called the supply crisis a “currency seizure.” It’s a catch, actually; the lazy scramble that made India’s catastrophic example seven years ago, look like child’s play.

According to Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), mopped up N2 trillion in old notes, but printed new notes of only N300 billion; that is, N1,000 new notes for every N7,000 old.

But in a country with a ratio of commercial banks from one branch to 100,000 adults, according to IMF data 2021, the CBN expects that in three months that cannot be changed, Nigerians will have to approve the outstanding shortfall in their bank records and create more. from that digital wallet, or perhaps using tissue paper?

This week, commercial banks with over 120 branches and 150 ATMs nationwide, for example, were given about N30 million in new currency for the day. Under the N20,000 withdrawal limit, the supply may not serve more than 10 customers or possibly more per branch, for that day. This is a recipe for chaos that makes bank tellers the target of violent attacks by angry customers.

A statement by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) was after a futile attempt to ask Buhari to consider or even comply with the interim order of the Supreme Court, saying that the CBN data does not support the premise of the redesign, not a crazy rush to implement.

“According to the CBN,” the statement said, “the currency in circulation increased from N1.4 trillion in 2015 to N3.23 trillion in October 2022. The bank does not seem to consider the increase in the country’s nominal GDP over this period, doubling of prices consumers, rising population, and the impact of humongous ways and means advanced to the federal government through this period.

And during this period, the governors might add, the same central banker, Godwin Emefiele, was also the governor of the Central Bank.

To be fair, when the governor announced the policy last October, he said the bank would not release more than 20% of the bank notes it seized. But he stopped short of saying the bank would not print notes unaffected by the redesign to make up for the shortfall.

It is not Emefiele’s fault that the okra tree is taller than the farmer. It is Buhari’s style to make his appointees run amok. Sometimes, it produces geniuses like the Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola or mavericks like the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami. But more often than not, it produces monsters that threaten the system.

Isn’t that why the voters condemned Jonathan, lock, stock and barrel, to the electoral cross eight years ago after just one term? Why did the voters who saved Buhari from despair, after four failed attempts at the presidency and, after receiving promises of repentance and change, gave him two eight-year terms, rewarded with preventable hardships?

Of course, Nigeria must do away with distributive politics; but it is not the job of Buhari or the Central Bank to fight vote buying. The police, election management bodies, parties and other law enforcement agencies are required to do this.

It is very sad that the president elected to make life at least bearable by the state by rationing basic goods even in peacetime: gasoline, electricity – and even their own savings – while citizens queued outside the presidential villa to watch TV footage of meetings that were not handy. . If it’s all about our long-term salvation, at this rate, we’ll all be dead before long.

If Buhari doesn’t care because unlike Jonathan, he won’t participate in the polls this time, and that’s why he won’t bother what will happen and maybe whoever will succeed, won’t he care about him. consciousness?

It’s amazing how in eight years it has come full of Fe-Buhari for Le-Buhari (‘Chase Buhari’ in Yoruba; and in Igbo, a mocking variant, ‘see Buhari’). Even Jonathan’s fantasy of redemption couldn’t script this ending.

Azu Ishiekwene is the Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP.