A critical article about the Muhammadu Buhari presidency purportedly written by the (London) Economist has been trending on Nigerian space these past few weeks. I actually first read it in May this year, andknew it wasn’t written by the London Economist after reading the very first paragraph. As someone who has a heightened sensitivity to comparative English usage, the style and idiomatic rhythm of the first paragraph struck me as distinctively Nigerian.
Subsequent paragraphs were peppered with the typical errors and turns of phrase of Nigerian English. This led me to investigative the article’s source. It turned out that although the writer strained really hard to mimic what David Bradley, publisher of theAtlantic, once called the Economist’s “tight and engaging prose,” it was written by a Nigerian.
It was first published on a website called the Nigerian-Economist.com on April 23, 2017. But, for some reason, the site is no longer available, although the article, which the site’s owner(s) shared on Facebook on April 25, 2017, can still be found on the site’s now inactive Facebook page. It was also republished on April 23, 2017 onNairaland, a popular Nigerian-themed online discussion site.
But a self-described Nigerian economist by the name of OlajideOyadeyi appears to have plagiarized the article on his LinkedIn page, leading two commenters on his page to alert him to the “fact” that “his” article was being wrongly attributed to the Economist. “Bros they are circulating your article online claiming that it was culled from The Economist newsmagazine,” wrote oneNur Habib. But Oyadeyi published the article on his LinkedIn page on May 20, 2017, almost a month after it first appeared on Nigerian-Economist.com.
Anyway, quibbles over the authorship of the article are less important than the content, most of which I found to be accurate and thoughtful. If you missed the article, read it here:
The Unprecedented Level of Patience Shown to Buhari
Nigerians have never shown such level of patience andtolerance towards any of their past leaders for his record andstrange policies as that shown to their current leader,Muhammadu Buhari- a former military dictator now self-confessed democrat who said he came to fight corruption.
Buhari, 75, is being plagued with failures across every singlesector in the economy, the like as has never been seen before.Less than a year into office, the economy plummeted intorecession, an economy which had till then grown at anaverage rate of 7% in previous years (2011-2014). Thenation’s currency lost 70% of its value, unemployment rosefrom 6.5 to 26% , commodity prices tripled across manyquarters and the state-regulated premium motor spirit priceswere hiked by 67% without practically anybody batting an eye .
There have been stern opposition to his policies however andto his very personality as well, notably in the South East andSouth- South regions in the country as they are called, wherehe both received less than 5% of the votes cast at the lastPresidential election and where he has always been sternlyunpopular for his history of bigotry against the people,perceived incompetence and dictatorial tendencies. But inmany other regions across the country the people have ratherresolved to suffer patiently, drawing up excuses for him at will,blaming everyone including his hundreds of politicalappointees, anything and anybody but never the man himself.
Buhari’s party, the APC, promised Nigerians unprecedentedswiping changes in government and the eviction of all corruptindividuals.
One possible explanation for this could be his party’s hopenarrative in the 2015 General election where citizens werepromised an unprecedented crackdown on corruption and theabolition of all government waste by a man whose financialworth they declared to have been less than N30million($150,000 then), a historical low for a former top official in thecountry and most especially a former leader.
In a country plagued by acute corruption problems and withthe unremitted crude oil revenue scandal of 2014 still fresh inthe people’s minds, many were eager for an abrupt change,the like as never been seen before. He was seen an armygeneral, already experienced in government, with a greatstrength of will, tough to take on the nation’s cabal ofhardened criminals. He promised to appoint only technocratsto head the country’s departments and to see out the lingeringBoko Haram insurgency from the warfront. For a nationlacking basic amenities such as power supply in spite of itshuge energy resources and with the lingering insurgencycrises, the choice seemed easy to many- the general withintegrity was the man for the country.
Talk was cheap then but now reality has taken its course. Hisearliest opponents pointed out to his track record and not tohis speech, noting that the last time Nigeria fell into dismalfailure, currency woes and commodity shortages was when hehad seized power as a military general in 1983 and stating thatthe facts of that record contradicted the poems of his imagebrokers.
Many however just wanted “change” as it was then called andso voted the General and sat to wait for the sung promises.But from the onset of his government, the course was as hiscritics had predefined: Incompetency, bigotry and dictatorialtendencies plaguing the country….
He breached the Central Bank’s 2007 Act ofIndependence, telling it to suspend forex disbursements tosteel importers and other manufacturing sectors in a bid todefend the Naira, a disastrous action which kick-started aspiral of recession.
He took 3 months to appoint his Chief of Staff, 6 months toappoint a cabinet and now 23 months and yet counting toappoint heads of agencies and board members he was soeager to fire upon his assumption into office and rose importduties on the most basic of commodities in a bid to raisegovernment revenue.
And as for the corruption fight, the facts on ground do notshow any one at all. Apart from a few officials harassed orimprisoned without court order, the country is yet to witnessthe first victim of the said campaign at the court stands.
Government waste is on the rise, officials publicly caught ingraft acts were swiftly excused, the 2016 Budget year passedwithout implementation and most worrisome, the CentralBank’s foreign reserves were being shared among unknownBureau De Change operators at variable rates at the detrimentof critical manufacturing, business and banking sectors.
The government continues to praise itself but the people seemto be increasingly tired of the paraded self-righteousness. ThePresident’s recent illness was greeted with cheers by many.
Many are just tired of the government. But the remarkablelevel of patience shown so far has been unprecedented andmany a times the general reactions towards acts ofconstitutional violations was one of calmness or insensitivity.
If the Change narrative of the 2015 election and the songs ofman of integrity are to account for this, then Nigerians mayhave just certified themselves on the world map as a nationeasy to fool with propaganda. An adult should be judged onhis track record not on his tongue.
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