What is the Policy Thrust of President Buhari’s Administration? Femi Ojo

 The year ending 2015 is very significant in the political economy of Nigeria. This is a year where the “transformers” lost elections to the “changers”. The period before the elections was coloured with many political dramas and our polity was over flogged with the hype of ‘change’ mantra. The transformers got dislodged from political power due to her inability to deliver good dividends of democracy, so the sixteen years of misrule of the transformers was broken by those who hyped the hope of change. At last, our polity has a new breath of change.

 Millions of eyes glued to the television and internet across the world, monitoring the elections results as they were being released.  That moment was hard, time was moving slowly with GMB leading while Jonathan was trailing behind with hope. Yes! At last President Buhari won. But before the official announcement of the election results, Jonathan swallowed his pride because it had become obvious to him and his supporters that one million Orubebes could not alter the election results. It was time for Mr. Jonathan to transform to Otuoke not Aso Rock and it became clear that GMB had to change location from Daura to Aso Rock. Yes the ‘change’ proximate actors have won. Congratulations messages started pouring- in all over the world and Nigerians jubilated like never before in the hope of seeing the new change.

Fast-forward, more than six months after the inauguration. Like the period before the elections, the over six months of this administration has been coloured with many political dramas. Politics is what we see but governance is what we want. The new ruling party at first struggled to handle well the euphoria of her victory with its many internal dynamisms. The politics of who would become the Senate President was one with its spill-over effect in the red chamber. Internal antagonism and divisions almost marred the administration in the beginning but somehow the ruling party managed the situation though not yet over.

Mr. Buhari is a no nonsense man and so he hates corruption and since day one, he has been fighting this menace, like he did when he was a military President. This is  good and well appreciated by well-meaning Nigerians. Dasukigate alone exposed how our national yams were sliced and eaten by so many political goats in the last administration. Indeed, it’s a floodgates of corruption and we hope that this will not be swept under the carpet like we have seen in the time past.

Now there is something missing or will I rather say that there is a place where many Nigerians are at a loss. Over six months down the line, Mr. President has not articulated the policy thrust and direction of this administration. As it is now, I don’t think anyone knows what the economic policy thrust of this administration is? The foreign policy direction of this administration is yet to be articulated and how the educational sector will be tackled in term of policy direction is still in state of obscurity? Indeed, we need the President to let us know how various policies in different sectors will be articulated so that Nigerians know clearly the direction of this administration.

AS the President presents his N6.08 trillion budget proposal for 2016, we expect not only to see the fiscal analysis of how each sector of our economy will spend the national cake but we will expect the various proximate political players to articulate the policy direction of each sector in a way that will reflate our dwindling economy. But why we wait to see that, some people say I may be wrong on my poser ‘What is the policy thrust of President Buhari’s Administration?’ Can someone enlighten my ignorance on this poser please? Please let the conversations start!

Compliments of the season to everyone!