Buhari and The State Of The Nation (I)

I sat with him over a cup of coffee in my house last Monday before I left Nigeria. I started pressuring him to talk to me on phone a month after his appointment. He declined. He was confident my phone must have been tapped long ago. So I waited. That meeting was long overdue because he holds a sensitive position in government and I have always wanted to discuss the state of the nation as I see it from the eyes of the average Nigerian with him. I wanted him to corroborate or refute some information I have. He did corroborate all my priors with the exception of Mallami on Saraki! Here is what I know.

Buhari set out to do 3 major things from onset;

My plan to fight corruption in Nigeria By President Buhari:

In the run-up to the general elections in March 2015, I campaigned on the platform of addressing the challenges of security, the economy, power, infrastructure and fighting corruption. Of these, removing the cancer of corruption from the system is the key not only to restoring the moral health of the nation, but also to freeing our enormous resources for urgent socio-economic development.

Nigerians never cease to ask, for example, why it is that, at independence in 1960, Nigeria’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was higher at $559 than that of Singapore’s at $476, but today Singapore’s GDP has grown to $55,182 and Nigeria’s has increased to just $3,005 (World Bank 2016).

Kaduna Govt presents Q1 budget performance to legislature, explains Budget Adjustment Mechanism

For the first time in the history of the state, the Kaduna State Government has presented the first quarter budget performance report to the House of Assembly. 

Finance Commissioner Suleiman Abdu Kwari told the legislators that the presentation of the budget performance report “is in furtherance of the quest of the El-Rufai government to ensure accountability and transparency in governance”.

Reviewing the budget performance, Kwari recalled that the 2016 Budget is based on 60:40 expenditure profile for Capital and Recurrent. Key priorities for the budget are: Infrastructure, Healthcare, Security, Jobs and Agriculture with Education Sector being given the utmost priority. 

While the revenue dip has been a bit of a dampener, procurement processes for capital projects have dominated the first quarter as the government remains determined to fulfill its manifesto commitments. Capital spending in the first quarter amounts to an unprecedented N7bn, with N4.9bn going to the Education sector for school renovation, furniture, and uniforms, and almost a billion naira as payments for the Zaria Water Project.