‘Baba Go Slow Hurry Up Before It’s Too Late,’ Bloomberg Tells Buhari
American news agency, Bloomberg, has described President Muhammadu Buhari’s record in the last four years as “discouraging”.
The international news agency made the statement in an editorial it published on its news website on Sunday.
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Bloomberg said Nigeria is now Africa’s biggest demographic time bomb, urging Buhari to “hurry up before it gets too late.
While noting that the country has failed in tackling extreme poverty, the news agency said “even assuming that the proportion of Nigerians living in extreme poverty stops rising as quickly as it has in recent years, it’s on course to remain extraordinarily high for the foreseeable future.”
The editorial read in part, “The government led by President Muhammadu Buhari, recently re-elected to a second and final four-year term, bears a grave responsibility. One wonders whether a politician known as “Baba Go Slow” is up to the task.
“His record over the last four years is discouraging. Economic growth has barely recovered following the 2014 crash in the price of oil, which remains Nigeria’s biggest export and source of government revenue. Per capita gross domestic product is less than it was when he took office. Joblessness has more than tripled. Efforts to spur agriculture and other non-oil parts of the economy have failed. Foreign direct investment has fallen by more than half since 2010.
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“Islamic extremists such as Boko Haram and Islamic State remain a serious threat, violence persists in the oil-rich Niger Delta, and environmental pressures due to climate change have stoked clashes between herders and farmers. All told, more than 2 million Nigerians have been displaced by conflict. The country also has the world’s second largest number of people suffering from HIV/AIDS, and faces huge burdens from tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases. Governance remains weak, corruption and crime rampant.
“Despite everything, Buhari retains a reputation for personal integrity and the commitment to fight graft. But he needs to give equal weight to economic revival, without which there will be little progress in quelling conflict and radicalism. This in turn means moving away from the statist mindset that he’s displayed since the 1980s, when he became head of state following a military coup.”
