As the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari takes the oath of office today, May 29, 2019 for a second term, it is imperative for him to know that it is no longer business as usual. This is the only opportunity in his lifetime as President to get things right, and this will be the one critical opportunity humanity will avail him to translate his well-advertised pulsating desire to transform this country and jumpstart it from the state of stagnancy to the state of economic viability as a country and aid it live the slogan of the ‘Giant of Africa’.

 

His first tenure was characterized as a tenure for testing the waters; first, it took the President six months to assemble his team of ministers that will help him in achieving his plans. Economic analysts posited then that the government lacked economic direction. We had in the history of Nigeria when the foreign exchange rose N150 to nearly N400 per Dollar due to the fall of crude oil price at the international market. This resulted to the hike of more than 100 per cent in the prices of goods and commodities in the market, just as the prices of imported goods skyrocketed to an all-time high, thereby unleashing hardship on the low and middle income earners in the country. Interestingly, efforts were made by the Federal Government through the Central Bank to bring down the price of the dollar to reasonable rate of N350 to the dollar and stabilize it there.

 

Politically, it was not a rosy affair with President Buhari’s party members; Nigerians witnessed principal members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) decamping to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as the elections drew nearer. Many of them, like the Senate President told his supporters in Kwara State, were left hungry and unable to fend for themselves due to the harsh economic climate. Dispensation of patronage by the Buhari led government was generally not favourable to his supporters and members of his party, the APC.

 

On security, the country has continued to witness its share of debilitating security challenges in the country where the nefarious activities of suspected Fulani Herdsmen took a toll on farmlands across the Middle Belt, in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa, Southern Kaduna, and down South in Ekiti, Delta and Anambra States, destroying crops and taking innocent lives, attacking communities and sacking members of communities from their ancestral homes and lands.

 

In keeping with his statement days before his second inauguration today that those who called him Baba Go Slow will be shocked in his second term in office, the President should immediately address the menace of insecurity in the country. He should appreciate the fact that have been too many avoidable deaths, already, and too many innocent blood have been shed. He should, as a matter of urgency, muster all hands on deck especially, the service chiefs and their respective security agencies to ensure that incessant killings and kidnapping, herdsmen attacks, armed banditry, and all other forms of criminality in the middle belt region and other parts of the country are stopped. And the perpetrators of these heinous crimes are arrested and prosecuted to serve as deterrent to others who are planning to emulate them.

 

Against the backdrop of the President having the power and constitutional authority to fire any service chief who performs below expectation, it becomes curious why he has chosen to retain them inspite of their abysmal performance and failure to halt the drift in the security situation across the country.

 

It is also trite to state that his economic policy and roadmap for the next four years must be clearly defined and spelt out, and capable technocrats with a good understanding of global economic dynamics should be appointed to help achieve his objectives.

 

As critical as the power sector is to the economy, it has not significantly improved over the past four years. It is still in an abysmal state. Just because there is improvement in a state or two in the north does not translate into a complete improvement across the country. The power sector is still lagging behind today due to the curious provision of the constitution that locates power supply issues in the exclusive list making solely the preserve of the federal government. This consequently makes it mandatory that every power generated goes into the national grid. It is long overdue for that aspect of the constitution to be amended so that State Governors with the wherewithal can be allowed to generate their own power for their respective states, and thus reduce the burden of power generation, transmission and distribution on the Federal Government.

 

Power generation and distribution should ordinarily be in the concurrent or residual list and thus an open policy for all. The government needs to fashion out ways to achieve alternative sources of power. If the conventional way of generating electricity has not been able to meet the demands of the population there are alternative sources of energy, the federal government can leverage to address this critical factor in the optimization of the economy. In fact, government at all levels should start thinking in the direction of taking advantage of green energy; which includes using solar power as alternative source of energy.

 

Many promises have been made by previous administrations to revamp the oil sector by making our refineries functioning again. This is rather debilitating. PMB should prioritize making our refineries work thereby providing thousands of job opportunities to our teeming jobless graduates in the country.

 

There is also infrastructural deficit in the country; the rail system is gradually picking up in the North, other regions should not be left out in this project. We cannot really boast of being the Giant of Africa if at this age we don’t have a national carrier. Countries like Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda and the rest all have national carriers; our case should not be different. The aviation sector needs a touch across board, our local airports needs to be upgraded to international standard.

 

During the signing of the 2019 budget, the President was alleged to have mentioned that some principal officers of the National Assembly were not patriotic in their approach to the national interest. The President too has a share in the blame as regards how most political appointments were done. It is important that appointments and other forms of patronage being dispensed by the federal government are done across board so that no region or zone in the country feels cheated.

 

The agricultural sector has significantly improved in his first tenure but more efforts should be concentrated on empowering rural farmers by granting them credit facilities to boost their farm produce. With the rising unemployment rate in the country, the Federal Government should match action with words with regards to its announcement days ago that it will create 20 million jobs in the next four years.

 

The people of this country cannot be moved with mere figures that do not reflect reality. The government needs to explore collaborative approaches with the private sector geared towards setting up manufacturing and other industries across different regions. For instance, garment factories in the North, petrochemical plants in the South-South, and beverage industries in the South-West, among others. These partnerships with already established manufacturing companies would boost production of local commodities for exportation.

 

We believe more can be achieved by President Muhammadu Buhari in these next four years if those he will appoint as Ministers are of the best in the country. He can do better by making that Change a reality!