Now That Buhari Administration Admits Causing Economic Recession In Nigeria

Buhari

After severally blaming the past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan for causing the recession in the country due to its alleged failure to save for the rainy days and the 16 years corruption of the erstwhile Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has finally admitted that it was its policy in Niger Delta since May 29, 2015 that dragged Nigeria into recession in less than two years of running the country.

The admission was made when the vice president Yemi Osinbajo said that it was the Niger Delta militants that caused the recession through its activities of blowing up oil pipelines thereby disrupting export of crude oil from Nigeria. Speaking at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja during the Presidential Quarterly Business Forum, he said the destruction of oil and gas facilities in the restive region had impacted negatively on the 2016 budget and the economy more than the decline in the global oil price had done. Osinbajo said while the oil price fall was anticipated; the sharp drop in the oil production which was triggered by the attacks on installations was not envisaged.

The vice president regretted that the country was producing less than 1.1 million barrels daily as a result of destruction of oil facilities by the militants.

"Perhaps, it is important for us to understand the nature of this recession in which we have found ourselves. In discussing this issue of recession, there is tendency for people to generalise. A lot depends on what sort of recession and how we got here.

"If we did not have vandalisation in the Niger Delta as we are currently suffering, we will not have this recession today. Moreover, in looking at the solutions, we should try to focus on the type of problem we have and what instigated it, then we can begin to come up with better solutions," he stated.

Truth be told, it was the Buhari administration’s jettisoning of the amnesty programme and contract on surveillance of pipelines in the Niger Delta by militants which had worked well for the country since late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua that caused these disruptions that eventually snowballed to a recession. As a matter of fact President Muhammadu Buhari had always held the militants with contempt even before became president.

Speaking on June 1, 2013, at Liberty Radio Programme, Guest of the Week, in Kaduna, Buhari faulted the Goodluck Jonathan administration’s alleged differential treatment of Boko Haram members and Niger Delta militants. He accused the government of killing and destroying their houses while the Niger Delta militants were given special treatment by the government. He said that unlike the special treatment given to the Niger Delta militants by the federal government, the Boko Haram members were being killed and their houses demolished by government. He said, “You see in the case of the Niger Delta militants, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua sent an aeroplane to bring them, he sat down with them and discussed with them, they were cajoled, and they were given money and granted amnesty.

“They were trained in some skills and were given employment, but the ones in the north were being killed and their houses were being demolished. They are different issues, what brought this? It is injustice”. Read: Buhari faults clampdown on Boko Haram members, http://thenationonlineng.net/buhari-faults-clampdown-on-boko-haram-members/

Apparently Buhari had been unhappy about the alleged preferential treatment that the Niger militants had enjoyed and wanted to right the ‘injustice’ by dealing with them using the military option, once he got the opportunity as the elected president of Nigeria.

He imagined that Jonathan and Yar’Adua are ‘bloody civilians’ who can succumb to the antics of the militants. He wanted to show that he is a ‘civil war hero,’ like Olusegun Obasanjo, and thus see the militants as irritants that would be easily destroyed by the military. But he forgot that his fellow ‘civil war hero’ Obasanjo tried the military option and failed woefully and that it took ‘bloody civilians’ like Yar’Adua and Jonathan that applied the amnesty programme to increase the nation’s oil output to an unprecedented proportion even though there were still pockets of vandalism but it was not enough to affect the economy under their watch.

Has the government learnt its lesson? They say a problem identified is half solved. Therefore it is tempting to believe that having identified that the militants are the cause of the recession, the government is half way through solving the problem. The reality on the ground speaks otherwise. Instead of negotiating with the militants, the government is attacking and killing them under its Operation Crocodile Smile and the militants are in turn blowing up more pipelines and endangering the already comatose Nigerian economy.

Military experts including former military administrator of Kaduna State, Col. Abubakar Umar (rtd) has warned that the military option cannot work in Niger Delta, yet the government is still pursuing that option. Similarly the United States government is calling for dialogue but the government appears not to be listening. That is why I considered it as a huge joke the assurance by the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mr Godwin Emefiele that Nigeria would be out of recession by December, when the Niger Delta militancy has not been addressed and settled by the Buhari administration. If they want to end the recession in the next quarter, the government has no option but to solve the Niger Delta problem by negotiating with the militants. Except this is done Nigeria is definitely on the road to Venezuela. The signs are indeed starring us in the face. The minister of state for Agriculture, Chief Heneiken Lokpobiri has already warned that a bag of rice would cost N40,000 by December. That is almost three times the minimum wage.