TheCable

The Financial Times of London has written a hard-hitting article on the state of affairs in Nigeria — and its verdict on President Muhammadu Buhari is far from flattering.

In an article written by David Pilling, its Africa editor, with the title “Nigeria’s president is missing in action”, the globally respected newspaper — commenting on the rumoured death of Buhari — said the “tragedy for Nigeria is that policymaking has been so ponderous during the 20 months since Mr Buhari took office that, dead or alive, it is not always easy to tell the difference”.

“Under Mr Buhari’s slow-blinking leadership,” Pilling wrote, “Africa’s largest economy has drifted into crisis.”

FT said the president’s style has “verged on the invisible”, highlighting the fact that it took Buhari six months to name a cabinet after coming to power in 2015.

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“Policymaking — such that it is — has been crafted instead by a tiny cabal of loyal, less qualified, stalwarts. Mr Buhari has failed to articulate anything approaching a vision,” FT wrote.

High inflation is damaging the poor “in whose name Mr Buhari ran for office”, the newspaper wrote, noting that there “are signs that Nigerians — among the most resilient and adaptive people on the continent — are losing patience”.

In the anti-graft war, the newspaper said it a can be “boiled down to a few symbolic gestures” and a few high-profile cases against members of the previous administration.

“Yet, systemically, little has changed. The confused exchange rate policy — in which the central bank doles out scarce dollars at an advantageous rate — is a recipe for opacity. The dollar shortage is killing off industry rather than nurturing it,” it said.

However, the UK newspaper admitted that Buhari inherited “a dire situation” from former president Goodluck Jonathan.