On Wednesday, March 1, 2023, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, was declared president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission in Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital.
That declaration marked not just the conclusion of a contentious presidential election process, but also the culmination of one man’s long and difficult march to the pinnacle of his country’s political power.
In the most wide-open presidential election Nigeria has witnessed since 1979, Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat 17 other candidates.
Tinubu will have to confront several socio-economic battles as he takes office today, May 29.
The former governor of Lagos State is inheriting an economy plagued by weak growth, surging inflation and the effects of a chronic cash shortage and rising debt burden.
Tinubu will also inherit a soaring petrol subsidy bill, cost of living crisis, and insecurity facing Africa’s biggest economy.
In his manifesto, he pledged to “give economic opportunity to the poorest and most vulnerable among us, tackle insecurity, expand public infrastructure and fight corruption.”
The strategy is quite promising and optimistic.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that Nigeria recorded annual Gross Domestic Product growth of 3.1 percent in 2022, down from 3.4 percent in 2021.
A closer look at the NBS’ data showed that outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari holds the worst record out of the four presidents who have headed Nigeria since it returned to democracy in 1999.
While President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) can boast of an average growth rate of 6.9 percent during his eight-year tenure, his immediate successor, late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua (2007-2010), did even better in a few years as president with an average growth rate of 7.1 percent.
Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (2010-2015) delivered 6.07 percent growth in his four-year term as president.
However, under Buhari’s watch (2015-2023), the economy grew by an average growth of 1.40 percent.
Data from the Budget Office of the Federation equally show that every year since 2015, the Federal Government has spent more money servicing debt, and the trend is set to stretch for the ninth straight year, according to the 2023 budget.
The outgoing government has budgeted to spend N6.31 trillion on debt servicing this year, 75 percent higher than the amount in the 2022 budget and 50 percent more than the actual amount spent in 2021.
For many years, Nigeria has struggled to meet its revenue target in its budget, and the variance keeps getting wider ever since the 2014 global collapse in oil prices that sent the nation to its first recession in a quarter of a century.
Prior to 2014, the Federal Government’s revenue shortfall – that is the variance between actual and budgeted retained revenues – was in the billion-naira range but with the collapse in oil prices, the difference has stayed within the trillion-naira range.
“A closer look at the NBS’s data showed that outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari holds the worst record out of the four presidents who have headed Nigeria since it returned to democracy in 1999”
The country plans to spend N21.8 trillion as against revenue of N10.5 trillion, according to the budget signed on January 3, 2023 by Buhari.
The deficit of N11.3 trillion will be plugged largely by borrowing. The government said N7.04 trillion will be sourced from the domestic market and some N1.76 trillion will be borrowed from foreign sources while an additional N1.7 trillion will come from existing bilateral and multilateral facilities.
In the 2023 budget, the fiscal deficit to GDP amounts to 4.78 percent, and according to Section 12 (1) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (2007), the fiscal deficit should not exceed 3 percent of the estimated GDP, except there is a clear and present threat to the national security and sovereignty of Nigeria.
Another major challenge that Tinubu will face is the decision of a cash-strapped Federal Government to spend N6 trillion on petrol subsidies in 2023.
Buhari, who came to power claiming that there was nothing like subsidy, presided over the biggest jump in the nation’s subsidy expenditure.
The 2022 Macroeconomic Outlook report by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group showed Buhari’s payment for petrol subsidy grew from N307 billion in 2015 to N1.77 trillion in 2021. This represented a 477 percent increase within seven years.
It is appalling that Buhari did nothing to arrest the collapse of Nigeria’s fiscal buffers on account of the relentless surge in subsidy expenditure, and now he is passing on the burden to his successor.
On account of Nigeria’s growing insecurity, the country has been unable to attract the foreign investment it needs to boost its economic activities, and many farmers have been unable to go to their farmlands to produce exportable crops.
Under Buhari, Nigeria overtook India as the world’s poverty capital with half of its estimated 200 million people now living in abject poverty.
The naira also lost 70 percent of its value to the dollar as Africa’s largest economy experienced two recessions.
Certainly, Buhari is leaving the country worse than he met it, but it is just the expectation of Nigerians that Tinubu will be able to perform as he promised.
Tinubu is often credited with increasing Lagos’s internally generated revenue. From a paltry N600 million pre-1999, Tinubu’s government jerked up the revenue of the state to almost N10 billion by the time he handed over in 2007. The Lagos IGR today is over N753 billion, a testimony to the vision and foresight of Tinubu.
Before Tinubu can start fixing these pressing problems facing Nigeria and the economy, he will need to secure public support for painful decisions.
Getting Nigerians to stomach painful reforms hinges on convincing them that they will make life better – and that will be a tough sell.
Life is tough for the citizens of Nigeria, and a tangle of protectionist economic policies and foreign currency interventions have startled investors.
Now, businesses, international investors and citizens are hoping Tinubu can use his experience as governor of Lagos state to recharge Nigeria’s struggling economy and finally confront its most difficult challenges.
It is our expectation that Tinubu and those who were declared winners by INEC at all levels understand the immense responsibility at hand and also need to make haste to fix Nigeria from a sacrificial perspective.
