On the horizontal axis of this chart you will find the year. On the vertical axis, the price of crude oil. It is clear that crude oil peaked at around 110 dollars (Nigerian Bony Light was much more expensive than this, but for the sake argument, let us use this one as a proxy). For most of 2014, crude oil fetched more than 100 dollars per barrel. On September 23, 2014, a barrel fetched around 91 dollars. Credit for this chart goes to Macrotrends
Why did I shrink more than 40 candidates to just two? I have explained these in earlier posts: here and also here. In a nutshell, political networks win elections. Just as you can’t be Prime Minister in the UK except you are from either Labour or Conservative party, it is not possible to be President of Nigeria except you are from either APC or PDP.
So, who deserves to be our leader? Atikulate or Buhari?
Buhari chose to govern as an invisible leader. He paid little attention to explaining his policy and he comes across as lethargic and dictatorial. By the way, not much more dictatorial than Obasanjo. In an ideal situation, Nigerians should not be choosing between these two candidates, but we are where we are.
On security, I would not rate Buhari at all. Under his leadership, we have serious issues with the Fulani herdsmen. I personally know one person who was kidnapped in the South West by people whom he was certain were Fulani herdsmen. In my hometown, I know somebody’s property that was ransacked by Fulani herdsmen. Not only that, I know people from North Central whose homelands were ravaged by the herdsmen. The question is what will Atikulate do to correct this? It is not clear at all.
When it comes to the economy of Nigeria, there is no magic wand to wave by anybody. Just look at the chart of crude oil prices. Towards the end of Jonathan’s reign there was a collapse in the value of a barrel of oil. From over 110 dollars all the way down to 28 dollars in the early days of Buhari. Things have improved but at the end of 2018, the price of barrel of oil hovered around 55 dollars. Nigeria has to adjust to new realities and live on far less than what it is used to. Would Jonathan or anybody have done better? It is really hard to say. Atikulate loves to talk about what was achieved under Obasanjo. What exactly did they achieve, compared to abundance? Despite the huge inflow of resources during the 16 years PDP was at the helm, there is no infrastructure we can be proud of, the power problem remained unresolved. On what grounds are Nigerians expecting Buhari to perform miracles with far less money?
On corruption, I am not happy with Buhari’s pace at all: I will like to see him go after his party members but I do know he could be ditched if should try that. Furthermore, I am disappointed with the way he handled the CJN matter. I have written about that here. Having said these, I still think Buhari and his Vice President are the cleanest public officers we have had at the helm in many years. Atiku has serious questions to answer. A congressional committee of the US senate devoted 75 pages to allegations of corruption. Till today, he has not addressed the issue. I have written about this further here.
So what is my conclusion? Adverse selection is integral to Nigerian politics: the ill equipped to lead are more likely to run for the presidency. APC and PDP both have serious credibility issues. PDP, having spent 16 years in power, do not really have much to show for those years, most of those years being prosperous ones. APC has not covered itself in glory in its four years and has not delivered on promises on security. On corruption, APC is progressing at snail pace. I still think that of the two likely parties to win, I hope APC comes through. By choosing Atikulate, PDP has showed to Nigerians that it has no commitments to eradicate corruption. Also on the basis of its record over its 16 years in office, PDP does not convince us it can run our economy well. And we cannot forget that it was under PDP that hundreds of girls were kidnapped, so, it is difficult for the party to convince us it can solve our security problems.
I am not keen on Buhari, I don’t like his invisible style of leading, but I just can’t see how I can endorse somebody like Atikulate. An international newspaper described Buhari as a stingy right wing dictator and Atiku as a thief. Of course these are allegations. Yet, I will rather go for a right wing dictator than somebody like Atiku with all the well documented allegations around him. Hopefully one day in the future, our political system will not force us into these “least awful choice” situations.
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I like this essay although I’m not in agreement with the conclusion. I’m for neither men although that makes little sense since one has to be chosen.
Atiku is a flawed candidate and Bihari, despite coming aboard sith loads of goodwill and the chance to succeed, he’s become deeply flawed: sectionalism, inadequacy or unwillingness to secure the country from Boko Haram and the Fulani herdmen whose leadership hierarchy has Buhari (from before he became a civilian pres) as its grand patron. In fact, he once led the cattle owners – a member, BTW – to Oyo to ask the governor, late Alhaji Lam Adesina, for reparation to his association because the murderous Fulani lost a member or so who was killed in Oyo North. Lam addressed Buhari VERY RESPECTFULLY as a former military head of state and also explained to Buhari that he, Lam, was a Muslim like the delegation. He asked if the mayhem: murder, rape of farmers’ wives and destruction of crops are justified in Islam.
It’s on record that Buhari stormed out of The Gov’s place without honoring Lam at a luncheon organized for him and his Miyetti Allah group.
Twice Buhari has ruled as Military and civilian, and twice he has failed. Atiku, deservedly hated was vice to Obasanjo and there’s no way we can know what he would do if elected but left to me as you’ve read in our forum, I’d rather neither score the 25% in 2/3 of the states so that we finally have to go back to the drawing board of RESTRUCTURING but Buhari and the APC have demonstrated they are bent on winning at all costs.
Buhari and his APC have shown they have performed as best as they can: selective and even at that, inadequate prosecution of corruption, failure to secure the country, nepotism, religious preference …
Bro., you lose me on this important point.
Thanks very much for this.
TOLA.
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