2015: A Review

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

Andy Warhol

This time last year the nation was delicately poised between destruction or regeneration. The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan was staring clear prospects of a loss to a man and a phenomenon they were willing to do everything to avoid. Most Nigerians were preparing for a major change in leadership. In 2015, Nigeria went through an experience no one could have even remotely foreseen. It started the year with fear, uncertainty, excitement and faith in a mix that could all blow up, or settle into a license to re-invent the future. The year is ending with prospects for substantive change that will be made at great cost. These issues made 2015:

1.   INEC, PVC, Card Reader, Orubebe

Professor Jega’s INEC made a major difference between a nation that could go up in flames and sink into prolonged anarchy, or successfully resolve a major argument over its capacity to surmount dangerous obstacles. While the nation worried over poor governance, rampant insurgency and crime, INEC cleaned up the Voters’ Register, created a new PVC and Card Reader and built up the spine to resist the desperate onslaught from the PDP administration to break it. Every weapon was thrown at INEC to subvert it, including attempts to psychologically break down Professor Jega and manipulation of the judicial process and national security to weaken the electoral process. Somehow INEC stood its ground, and its trump card, the Card Reader did its bit more by scaring the PDP’s rigging capacities than by functioning efficiently. PDP approached the election as it would a war, complete with deployment of the National Security Adviser and a war chest made from plunder of the nation’s resources, to lead the assault. Its pathetic failure was captured in the childish tantrums of one of the PDP’s collation agents, Godsday Orubebe, as it became clear that it had lost its grip on a nation tired of its incompetence, greed and arrogance. As it is, it will be near-impossible for INEC to do worse in future than its stellar performance in 2015.

2.   Buhari/APC

The merger of opposition parties survived against cynicism and the triumph of egos over larger interests. If PDP had paid more attention to the political process and the history of the outings of General Buhari, it would have noted that its chances of defeating the APC dipped very badly on the day he emerged as its candidate at its Convention in Lagos late in 2014. The sheer weight of popular support in most parts of the nation was reinforced by a disciplined and focused campaign and massive dose of defecting PDP heavyweights, to create a momentum behind Buhari’s campaign that confounded even the candidate himself. Buhari won the presidency after three attempts, and opened the floodgates for APC  Governors.APC defeated an incumbent party that had no plans for a loss. The nation registered a historic first: the expression of popular will in the defeat of a colossus which had fed fat on crass patronage, routinized corruption and the weaknesses of the opposition. Buhari’s victory placed on his shoulders the burden of making a real and tangible difference in the lives of Nigerians. It was his choice. Now he has to deliver.

3.   PDP/Jonathan

In March 2015, President Jonathan was relieved of a responsibility he had shown every evidence of failing to shoulder. The PDP leaked its way into a humiliating and frightening defeat, a victim of the abuse to which it had subjected the nation for most of its life. Jonathan fought and scratched his way to resisting defeat, urged on by a desperate circle that found it difficult to contemplate a nightmare it saw in a Buhari presidency. Abandoned by many powerful people in his party who saw an opportunity to be part of a victory, an international community that watched as he run an important and strategic ally in Africa aground and Nigerians who got tired of scaremongering and thieving leaders, Jonathan opted to throw in the towel before the fight was concluded. He thinks he had bought himself a safe and free future for doing what he needed to do, but those elements in the rank he abandoned may be his undoing, as more and more of them now insist that he is responsible for their actions. How long will Jonathan’s amnesty last?

4.   The economy/governance

If Nigerians thought official corruption was their biggest problem, 2015 showed just how desperate it has made the nation. Facts and investigations now show why it was so easy for Boko Haram to make a mockery of the Nigerian state. We now hear of the open season on the nation’s treasury with hundreds of billions shared out for compaign and sundry purposes. Billions of dollars or Naira have lost that jaw-dropping effect among Nigerians, and access to them have been radically democratized by a PDP government. The quality of governance hit a new low, with barely any serious budgetary commitment met. The price of crude moved from over $100 this time last year, to its current level of $35, going down. Reserves have been depleted. The integrity of the public service as a gate keeper crashed.

If the PDP had an economic policy, it was basically to steal as much public resources as it could. Now the Buhari administration has to fashion out basic economic policy that will seek stability, growth and improvements in welfare with severely limited resources. It has neither the resources nor the time to satisfy an impatient population and a global investment community that wants to know how it fits into Nigeria’s future. It has to offer a lot more than excuses in the form of a terrible inheritance. 2016 will be a very testing year for an administration that said it can fix Nigeria. The elements appear to be conspiring against a quick fix, but the degree to which plundered billions are retrieved and culprits punished may assuage popular discontent. The past will be every inch a part of the future under the Buhari administration.

5.   Organized violence, crime, law and order

When it appeared as a potential electoral asset, the Jonathan administration finally unleashed the Nigerian military against Boko Haram. President Buhari’s new service chiefs and a bolstered military and re-engineered international support appear to have further degraded the insurgency’s capacity to successfully wage conventional war and hold territory. Even making allowances for some legitimate padding in its exploits, the Nigerian military has made major inroads into limiting the insurgency’s effectiveness, but it will not claim that it has put an end to suicide bombing and periodic forays by bands of insurgents for some time to come. The Chibok girls who have become the global symbol of the power of the insurgency are not home, free. A new chapter in the manner the insurgents operate may be in the making, and the intelligence of the security forces and nerves of the population will be severely stretched as they target and hit soft, civilian targets. The war against Boko Haram is not won yet. Kidnapping has developed into an industry. Biafra is becoming an issue, and the Shiites have been badly hurt, but not finished.

        2015 will be the year that will not come to an end, because it will be in our lives for a long time.