Category: Power

As tributes continue to pour in following the death of former President Muhammadu Buhari, many are reflecting on the sweeping economic transformations—both turbulent and transformative—that defined his eight-year civilian presidency from 2015 to 2023. Buhari, a retired Major General and one of Nigeria’s most consequential political figures, first ruled as military head of state from 1983 to 1985 before returning to power as an elected leader in 2015. His administration pursued an ambitious anti-corruption agenda, economic reform strategies, and efforts to combat insecurity—but it was the economy that bore the deepest marks of his tenure. Below is a summary of key economic events that shaped Buhari’s presidency: Nigeria’s Twin RecessionsBuhari’s administration saw two economic recessions, a first in Nigeria’s history under a single government.The first occurred in 2016, triggered by the global oil price crash and mismanagement of the naira exchange regime.The second came in 2020, driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted global supply chains and battered oil revenues. Pandemic Stimulus and Poverty Reduction EffortsIn response to COVID-19, the government launched a N2.3 trillion Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP) aimed at job creation and MSME support.Buhari also inaugurated a national strategy to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty over ten years—primarily through agricultural and economic diversification programmes. Treasury Single Account (TSA) ImplementationThough introduced under President Goodluck Jonathan, the TSA was fully enforced under Buhari in September 2015, consolidating government revenues under the CBN and improving fiscal transparency. Support for Nigerians in Global FinanceBuhari’s diplomatic push led to Nigerians occupying key positions: Border Closures and Food Security PushIn August 2019, Buhari ordered a partial closure of land borders to curb smuggling and promote local rice production.Critics argued the move exacerbated inflation, and borders were eventually reopened in December 2020. Oil Production Woes and TheftDespite Nigeria’s status as Africa’s largest oil producer, crude output plummeted during Buhari’s second term.In 2022, output fell below 1 million barrels per day, its lowest in decades.Rampant oil theft and pipeline vandalism cost the nation over $2 billion in losses in just eight months of 2022. NNPC CommercialisationIn a landmark reform, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was converted into NNPC Limited, a fully commercial entity in July 2022.Buhari described it as free from fiscal regulations and political interference, positioning it to operate more competitively. Debt Explosion and Fiscal DeficitsUnder Buhari, Nigeria’s debt profile skyrocketed.Total public debt rose from N42 trillion in 2015 to N77 trillion by 2023.External debt surged from $7.35 billion to $37.2 billion.Ways and means borrowing from the CBN exceeded N25 trillion.Debt servicing costs rose from N1.06 trillion in 2015 to over N5.2 trillion by 2022. Currency Volatility and DevaluationThe naira depreciated sharply: Controversial Naira RedesignIn late 2022, Buhari unveiled redesigned N200, N500, and N1000 notes to curb counterfeiting and ransom payments.The rollout was widely criticised as chaotic and cosmetic. Many Nigerians described it as a mere “repainting.” Fuel Crisis and Off-Spec Petrol ScandalIn early 2022, substandard petrol led to a nationwide fuel crisis.The NNPC blamed suppliers like MRS, Oando, and Duke Oil. A technical committee was formed to investigate, but disruptions persisted. Despite criticism of his economic management, Buhari’s defenders cite his anti-corruption drive, infrastructure investment, and efforts to restructure Nigeria’s fiscal systems as lasting legacies. As Nigeria reflects on his passing, the economic imprint of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency will remain deeply contested—and impossible to ignore. SourBy TheCable Staff | 14 July 2025

They are part of a new trend of anti-western sentiment, seeking to indigenise heroism. This new leader projects youth and vigour in his red beret, pullover and camo trousers. Above all, he exudes an African nationalism, as though he were a rebirth of the negritude movement with quite a few French thinkers, from Senghor to Diop, in its wake. Looking at once like an athlete and a soldier, he wants to claim a hero from a past. Thomas Sankara, that is. An untested Burkinabe leader, Sankara has grabbed myth out of martyrdom. Even then, he was a martyr of hope. That is, people dress him up as a martyr because of what many expected of him. He did not live long enough to be a hero or villain, or neither. In Sankara’s days, the boys of Karl Marx incarnated his profile. The idealist’s song grew dark when his fellow traveler and traitor swept him aside in a stab-in-the-back coup that squelched not only him but also his dream. Even his executioner, known as Blaise Compaore, also has eventually vanished in a blaze of populist revenge. Enter Traore. The man was nearly removed in a coup, and that set him into a fever. He has made himself a hero by default. When he and his French colleagues in Mali, Niger and Guinea fomented coups to power, they stirred up two contradictory emotions. They fed an anti-French imperialism. But a worldwide democratic impulse was up in arms against a military return to power. These two are resolving themselves in his favour for two reasons. One, the coup that failed to oust him but lionised him as a hero. Two, a charm offensive from Russia. Traore is taking advantage of a fear of the West. The French have looked down on their black West African for generations. They were their colonial subjects. During that era, they imposed a system known as assimilation. It was a racist ideology that meant the French did not govern but assimilated them into French culture and way of life. It was a delusion of equality, a throwback from the failed French Revolution. They assumed the French had a superior civilization and they planted it after using their colonial force known as the Senegalese Sharp shooters to mow down resistance from valiant kingdoms in the region. Their assimilation system guaranteed them free access to the wealth of the region. But it implied that the people were not capable of deciding anything for themselves.They treated them like children. Paris dictated every part of their life. Algeria resisted this in the days of De Gaulle. Guinean leader Sekou Toure, in the Loi cadre episode, also asserted Guinean independence.The average French has resented this post-colonial slavery but had done nothing about it. A set of soldiers, with no idea how to govern but how to hold on to power, saw their chance. They plotted a coup, and have used French tyranny as an alibi. It is a cynical view of power. It is them versus us. But they are heroes without spine. Rather than stand as African nationalist, they are switching one master for another. The Russians have seen their opportunity. They have swathed the social media with pictures, videos and narratives that brandish Traore as a hero. For them, the man lives in a humble home, whereas it is fiction. He turned down IMF loans, whereas it is false. That he turned down American offer of visit, another lie. Traore is making his myth on the go. They have turned the opportunist into who he is not. The Russians, on the other hand, have been doing deals and posting their outfit known as Wagner Group to provide army, materiel, and propaganda. The Russians are building schools, hospitals, etc as tokens of empathy. More like tokens of contempt. Immediately, after the failed coup, Traore signed a sweetheart deal for gold mining. This is the making of an exploiter, in the mould of cynics we saw during the Cold War when the Soviet Union and the United States carved spheres of influence in Africa. History has also told us that leaders tend to look to the past as a refuge. They hide in the shadows of men of quality. In Nigeria we have had small men who wanted to be like the big men. For instance we have had little Awolowos, little Ojukwus. In the United States, Ronald Reagan birthed Lilliputians known as Reagan Republicans. Reagan Democrats, the most unlikely, emerged as well. Napoleon lit up young passions all over Europe that Ralph Waldo Emerson described as Little Napoleons. Napoleon III arose and saw himself as Napoleon reborn. The novelist Victor Hugo wrote a pamphlet that put him in trouble. He mocked the fellow in the piece Napoleon, The Little. It was a writing that turned into a mathematical formula in showing how a people can be sold any lie. Hugo asserted that in trying to distort the truth about the stature of Napoleon The Little, two plus two equals five. It was an idea that other writers took up to poohpooh how leaders turn realities upside down, including Dostoyevsky, Samuel Johnson, and of course George Orwell in his famous Nineteen Eighty Four. In his short novel of ideas, Notes From The Underground by Dostoyevsky, “Two plus two is no longer life but the beginning of death.” It is indeed a battle to the death from a man like Traore, who must secure his position by subterfuge, by living in the disguise of a hero. What they are exploiting is, as Ebenezer Obadare demonstrates in a recent piece for The Council of Foreign Relations, a cult of personality. They are exploiting the hunger for a hero who would transform their lives. That yearning for a hero makes them easy preys to adventurers in power. They are not only exploiting Russia. They are turning their fellow African leaders who run democracies as foes of their good fortune. Yet, for us, the danger signal…