“I stand before you honoured to assume the sacred mandate you have given me. My love for this nation is abiding. My confidence in its people, unwavering. And my faith in God Almighty, absolute. I know that His hand shall provide the needed moral strength and clarity of purpose in those instances when we seem to have reached the limits of our human capacity”
These were the words from the inaugural speech of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu after he was sworn into office as the 16th President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at Eagle Square, in Abuja on Monday, May 29.
For him, it was the proudest moment of his life. But will Tinubu remain proud after the completion of his tenure considering the challenges he inherited from immediate past president, Muhammadu Buhari?
The ex-president rode to power in 2015 on promises to respect the rule of law, to reclaim lost territories from Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria, to rescue the abducted Chibok schoolgirls who, at that time, had been in captivity of the Islamic terrorists for over a year, to improve the state of gender equality and work towards the elimination of s3xual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in the country and many others?
Now that he’s out of office, did he fulfill his promises? BattaFiles reports.
Eight years after Buhari was first sworn in as President, armed violence remains the norm in many parts of the country including some places that experienced relative peace before his administration.
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According to National Security Tracker, there have been over 11,700 incidents of armed violence, which is an average of 1,468 each year between June 2015 and May 2023. The administration did not only witness an increase in the rate of mass abductions, terrorists expanded their territories to the Southern region of the country.
On education, Buhari left more children out-of-school than he met as the UN revealed that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria has doubled and the country now has 20 million children of school-going age who are not enrolled into any learning institutions.
Also, the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) went on the longest days of strike in Nigeria’s history during Buhari’s government. The strikes, with a cumulative of 1,086 days, had been due to the government’s unwillingness to meet the union’s demands for better remuneration and improved infrastructure in the schools.
BattaFiles understands that the government allocated less than 7 per cent of the annual budget to healthcare, leading to the deteriorating impact on medical access and left health facilities in a deplorable state.
Buhari himself did not trust the health sector so much that he embarked on countless medical trips outside the country despite the heavy budgetary allocation and expenditure on the state house’s clinic.
Despite promising to adhere to the rule of law, there were human rights violations, attacks on the press, disrespect for court orders, and many other irregularities during the eight-year tenure of Buhari.
The press faced several attacks during Buhari’s administration despite the provision of the Constitution that mandates journalists to hold power to account. Since the controversial Cybercrime Act became law in 2015, many media outlets and journalists have witnessed attacks from authorities for doing critical journalism.
Also, suspect acontinued to face a series of media trials with “cross-examination” by law enforcement officials at crowded press conferences. Sometimes, journalists interrogate the suspects with a view to confirming their involvement in the criminal offenses leveled against them.
Though Section 33 (1) of the 1999 Constitution guarantees the right to life for all Nigerians, the manner security agencies, including the army, were deployed to suppress civil liberties was not different from what was obtainable during the military era. In some cases, they led to extrajudicial killings.
Under his watch, the SSS became notorious for disobeying court orders and he did not at any point publicly condemn the security operatives for disobeying the courts.
Buhari’s government also failed in the economy as inflation kept rising, making life more difficult for the people since 2015. The inflation rate hit a 16-year high amid an increase in prices and poor purchasing power, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics.
It however appears like Tinubu understands the many problems ahead as he vowed never to make excuses.
“Here is a country that has stumbled a number of times, but has never faltered. We can be squeaky like an old mama’s car, but we will never break apart. We are just a unique country.
“We must fight corruption, poverty, inconsistencies in policies and many other problems confronting us, but don’t pity me, I asked for the job, I campaigned for it, no excuses, I will live up to the bill delivered. I promise you,” he said on the eve of his inauguration.
