Tag Archives: fashola

Nigeria’s President Buhari sets himself up for failure in second term

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This summary of Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari ‘s cabinet picks says it all:

With an extra five members, stuffed with party loyalists and an average age of 60, President Muhammadu Buhari‘s new ministerial team cannot be accused of exuding dynamism or imagination. Announced two days after about a dozen people were killed in the capital when Shiite protestors clashed with armed police, the composition of the new government reinforced the sense of a lack of executive urgency as the country’s national security crisis was spiraling out of control.

The list reinforces the view that President Buhari’s second term will be like his first: tortuously slow decision-making, a reluctance to sanction bad performance in the security services or in the ministries, personal loyalty trumping competence and a tolerance for politicians facing serial corruption charges.

…. The youngest nominee at 46 – five years older than France’s current president – is Ali Isa Ibrahim Pantami (Gombe), a world class technology expert and trained Imam who has led the National Information Technology Development Agency since 2016.

The median age in Nigeria is 17.9 years (which is not to say that cabinet ministers should be in their twenties).

The problem with having such an old cabinet is that ministers are likely to employ equally old lieutenants, with the outcome being that everyone in government ends up being either too tired to put in the much needed work or too busy with their personal “businesses”.

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely one of leadership.

The Choices in the Nigerian Election

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Alex Thurston over at Sahel Blog has an excellent take on the credentials of the two leading candidates in the Nigerian election – the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and challenger Muhammadu Buhari. Thurston, in particular, cautions against simplistic narratives about either candidate that only serve to distract from the universe of issues at stake in this election:

In much international coverage of the race, whether by non-Nigerian journalistsor Nigerians speaking to international audiences, the two candidates have been presented in crude and one-dimensional ways. The narrative at work in such commentaries says that Jonathan is a bumbler – a nice guy perhaps, but ultimately an “accidental president” who is in over his head, too incompetent to deal with problems like corruption or the violence caused by Boko Haram in the northeastern part of the country. Meanwhile, the same narrative tells us that Buhari is a thug – an essentially military man whose record is fatally tarnished by his regime’s actions in the 1980s, and whose prospects for winning the presidency have grown only because of Nigerians’ anxieties about Boko Haram. The narrative goes on to say that Nigerians face two very bad choices for president – perhaps implying that “the devil they know” is the better choice.

The rest of the blog post is here (highly recommended).

In related news Nigeria’s INEC on Tuesday announced that it had hit a 75% PVC issuance rate (or around 52 million people) to the almost 67 million registered voters. This included an average issuance rate of 76% in the three states worst hit by the Boko Haram insurgency (Yobe, Adamawa, and Borno).

On the upcoming Nigerian elections

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On February 14 Nigerians will go to the polls in what is arguably the most important election in the world this year. Here is a (small) collection of things you need to read before then:

1. Alex Thurston has a great backgrounder for CSIS on the upcoming Nigerian elections. Want to know about the coalitions angling for power in Abuja and state capitals all over Nigeria and how ongoing political maneuvers will impact the outcome of the presidential election? Then click here.

2. Earlier this month Nigerian journalist Tolu Ogunlesi wrote an excellent piece for FT that emphasized the fact that this will be Nigeria’s closest and most unpredictable election yet (a point echoed by Zainab Usman, a Nigerian DPhil Candidate at Oxford, over at African Arguments). The level of competition will no doubt put pressure on INEC, and the losing candidate, to ensure that the legitimacy of the process is not tarnished, regardless of the outcome.

3. Brookings has a nice summary of some of the key political and policy issues at stake in this year’s election.

4. In the only detailed forecast that I have seen ahead of the election, DaMina Advisors project that APC’s Rt. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari will win with 51% of the vote (and get 25% in at least 27 states). There have not been any reliable polling data coming out of Nigeria in this election cycle, so take DaMina’s projections with a Naija size grain of salt.

5. And lastly, here is an op-ed from the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Charles Soludo, on the economic dimension of this year’s election, as well as incumbent Goodluck Jonathan’s many failures.

If you have suggestions on interesting analyses ahead of the election please do share in the comments section.

Africa’s First City

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National Geographic has a fascinating take on Lagos. And since we are just under two months to the next Nigerian elections, here is my favorite paragraph:

When I asked Kola Karim if the federal government’s sorry reputation made Western investors wary of doing business in Lagos, the worldly CEO elaborately dismissed it as a nonissue. Companies partnered with companies, not with bureaucrats, he maintained. “What does government do for you anyway, apart from charging you more taxes?” he said. “Look, it’s not about who rules anymore. Lagos is a train that has left the station. And you can only slow it down—you can’t stop it. So it doesn’t matter who comes next. This is the fun of democracy! It’s not about [President] Goodluck Jonathan! It’s about progress! Forget politics!” [More here]

From a political economy standpoint, one of the most fascinating things to happen in Africa over the last decade or so has been the quiet property rights revolution. In Nigeria, and a few other African countries, millionaires and billionaires have come out of the woodwork, willing to have their estimated net worth published in Forbes and other similar magazines for all to see. Very few of them have been politicians. Yes, many made their money in no small measure because of their political connections. But the fact that they no longer feel the need to hide their wealth from the ever changing political class means a lot.

It means that entrepreneurship and politics are getting decoupled in Africa’s biggest and most important economies. This transition is important because it will allow the magic of specialization to flourish. For instance, Dangote must be a savvy entrepreneur. But I doubt that he would have created as many jobs across the Continent if he also had to worry about running Abuja.

Also, it matters that Forbes’ Africa list is increasingly dominated by politically relevant high net worth individuals, as opposed to “apolitical” migrant businesspeople. Dangote is Nigerian “through and through.” When the going gets tough, he is more likely to voice his concerns than simply exit. The chaps in Abuja can’t simply revoke his visa or work permit. His political views therefore matter a lot.

One hopes that at some point Nigeria’s Dangotes will start investing in higher quality political talent to ease the cost of doing business and improve human welfare through greater investment in public goods.  But of course there is another possible equilibrium path in which they decide that low quality political talent is what’s best for their business prospects.

Either way I hope to visit Lagos soon.