Professor Michael Ogueke
The Buhari administration battled two recessions, battled a worldwide total crash in the price of crude oil, battled total disruption of oil production by militants from 2.3 million barrels per day to less than 600,000 bpd, battled insecurities all over Nigeria, and battled the mother of all economic, financial, health, and social crises — COVID-19 — a worldwide pandemic that shut the world down for over seven months.
Yet, throughout these unprecedentedly difficult periods:
Buhari kept prices of food, fuel, goods, and services relatively down and stable.
Even during the COVID-19 period, when the world shut down for over seven months, he kept local production running, and there was no shortage of rice, food staples, fuel, and general goods.
He kept the value of the naira relatively reasonable and stable during this entire period while at the same time steadily increasing our foreign reserves and meeting up with Nigeria’s debt obligations without blaming the PDP administration for a debt of billion of dollars it left behind.
In these periods of total collapse in the price of crude, disruption of oil production by militants from over 2.3 million barrels a day to less than 600,000 barrels a day:
Yes, in these periods of two recessions and COVID-19, he never owed workers a single dime; instead, he increased the minimum wage from eighteen thousand to thirty thousand.
In this most difficult time, Buhari lifted the over ten-year embargo on federal employment, recruited regularly, and increased the salaries of policemen, soldiers, and teachers more than twice.
He also paid heaps of salaries, allowances, and pension arrears owed to workers.
He equally gave state governments hundreds of billions of naira to clear the ones owed to state workers.
In the same vein, Buhari cleared the severance benefits owed to thousands of workers of sold or liquidated government companies (enterprises) by his predecessors (PDP).
During the over seven-month worldwide pandemic lockdown, Buhari delivered the largest palliative and relief response this country and Africa have ever seen and paid workers to stay at home throughout this period.
In all these economic crises, two recessions, worldwide crash in the price of crude oil, and sponsored insecurity all over Nigeria, Buhari kept prices of food, fuel, and consumer goods relatively low and stable.
Buhari deliberately and heavily invested trillions into local production of food, vehicles, pharmaceuticals, and general manufactured goods that saw the country sustained by local production throughout the COVID-19 worldwide lockdown.
He equally delivered against all these odds the largest agricultural revolution and investments in agriculture and agro-allied industries (fertilizer, chemicals, machinery, irrigation, etc.) this country has ever seen.
He delivered against all these odds the largest Social Intervention and Poverty Alleviation Schemes (N-Power, Market-Moni, Trader-Moni, Conditional Cash Transfer, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Loans, etc.) that this country has ever seen.
Against all these odds, Buhari delivered the biggest infrastructural revolution (roads, multi-billion-dollar bridges, magnificent airports, railways, power projects, housing projects in all the thirty-six states of the federation, water and irrigation projects, as well as infrastructures in education, health, and human capital development, etc.) this country has ever seen.
He also made the biggest investments in the purchase of first-class military equipment in the army, navy, and air force in addition to the establishment of new first-class military formations, facilities, and military industrial complexes all over Nigeria.
Despite these crises, Buhari supported visionary individuals to establish private refineries, world-class and modular in Nigeria, and pumped funds into the nation’s public refineries, leading eventually to the resuscitation of the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries.
Again, tell me about your expectations and your own achievements.
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