- The 71-year-old was sworn in on Monday as the 16th president of Africa’s most populous country, and it is the fifth since three decades of military rule ended in 1999.
- Tinubu won just 37% of the nationwide vote, while only a quarter of Nigeria’s 93 million registered voters were able to cast their vote in an electoral process beset by technical difficulties.
- “He’s inheriting a broken economy, he’s inheriting a broken country that’s highly polarized by religious and ethnic lines,” said Samson Itodo, executive director of YIAGA Africa.
ABUJA, Nigeria – May 29, 2023: Nigeria’s President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu arrives for the inauguration ceremony at Eagle Square in the capital. Tinubu inherits a dysfunctional society and a crippled economy while taking the reins of Africa’s most populous nation.
Emmanuel Osodi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Nigeria’s new President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, faces a daunting task of bringing stability to a society and economy in crisis – and to rekindling hope in a young population that feels its voice has been ignored for decades.
The 71-year-old was sworn in on Monday as the 16th president of Africa’s most populous country, and his fifth since the end of three decades of military rule in 1999. He succeeds Muhammadu Buhari, also a member of the All Progressive Congress (`C). Party leaving with a widely criticized economic record.
Meanwhile, judges are considering a legal motion by opposition leaders Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labor Party alleging fraud and challenging the outcome of February’s presidential election.
Tinubu is the legacy of an economy plagued with record debt and nearly two decades of inflation exceeding 22%, shortages of foreign exchange reserves and fuel, a severely weakened naira currency, ailing power supplies and declining oil production.
Economic turmoil
A former governor of Lagos State between 1999 and 2007, Tinubu has been credited with modernizing Nigeria’s commercial center and vastly expanding the region’s economy.
Citing his accomplishments, he pledged at his inauguration ceremony on Monday to grow Nigeria’s economy by at least 6% a year, unify the exchange rate, end costly fuel subsidies, while tackling widespread insecurity.
“I have a message for our investors at home and abroad: our government will look into all their complaints about multiple taxation and various barriers to investment,” Tinubu told the audience in Abuja’s Eagle Square, while promising a “thorough house cleaning.” monetary policy.
His predecessor Buhari pursued a series of protectionist economic policies and scared off international investors. While he claimed in his farewell speech on Sunday that many of the “hard decisions” had boosted the country’s economic resilience, the hard data showed unemployment and poverty were rising.
ABUJA, Nigeria – February 25, 2023: A party observer argues with an official from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over ballot boxes being reportedly placed at the wrong polling station in Abuja.
Michele Spatari/AFP via Getty Images
Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics now estimates that 63% of the population, roughly 133 million people, are now considered multidimensionally poor, up 10 percentage points from before Buhari took office in 2015. Unemployment stands at 33.3%, or over 23 million people, and the figure has been rising steadily over the past eight years.
Samson Itodo, executive director of Nigeria-based civic group YIAGA Africa, told CNBC he expects the country to get through the legal challenges process with minimal disruption, but that Tinubu’s government faced several obstacles in the first 60 days.
“He’s inheriting a broken economy, he’s inheriting a broken country that’s very polarized in terms of religious and ethnic lines, and so there’s a lot of expectation that as the Tinubu that he is, he’ll take on that responsibility, but I do it.” “We believe Nigeria will come out of this situation because of our resilient character,” Itodo said Monday.
While the decades-old petroleum product subsidy is popular, it drains government finances, and since its introduction in the 1970s, several governments have promised to abolish it, but failed to do so.
Itodo said the first few months of Tinubu’s tenure would be critical in restoring economic credibility to an electorate that has experienced two recessions in the past eight years, both by delivering on bold campaign promises and appointing “more competent people” with the necessary experience.
A divided country
Nigeria has one of the fastest growing populations in the world – currently nearly 220 million and expected to double by 2050. The country also has one of the youngest average populations in the world: 42% of citizens are under the age of 15 and the median age is just over 18, according to the UN estimates.
In the run-up to February’s elections, Labor Party’s Peter Obi mobilized popular discontent over widespread youth unemployment, a lack of opportunity and police brutality to win large swaths of young voters for a break with the two traditional main parties of the country, the `C and the PDP.
Tinubu won just 37% of the nationwide vote, while only a quarter of Nigeria’s 93 million registered voters were able to cast their vote in an electoral process beset by technical difficulties. Demonstrating courage on both economic and social issues will be a difficult task for many disenfranchised Nigerians.
Mucahid Durmaz, senior West Africa analyst at risk information firm Verisk Maplecroft, said Tinubu’s presidency was seen by many disillusioned voters as reinforcing the “dominance of the entrenched political elite.”
“Tinubu’s election victory has further cemented the perception among ordinary Nigerians that the political arena is a playground for wealthy old guard who put patronage at the heart of politics,” Durmaz said.
“The extensive client networks and powerful regional brokers behind his victory are likely to be rewarded with government office at the national and state levels.”
Protesters take a knee to honor the lives of those who have died as a result of police brutality across the country at the Murtala Muhammed Airport tollbooth as they protest against the unjustified brutality of Nigeria’s police force, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). protest. at Obafemi Awolowo Way, Ikeja, Lagos on October 19, 2020.
Benson Ibeabuchi/AFP via Getty Images
A key question for the first 100 days in office, Durmaz said, will be whether the new leader has the “will and ability” to reach out to alienated urban youth and minorities.
“Tinubu must promote an inclusive national identity in a deeply divided society and address the grievances of the majority of Nigerians over issues such as insecurity, police brutality and inequality,” Durmaz said.
Tinubu pledged to counter widespread violence – including killings and kidnappings in the north-west, clashes between pastoralists and farmers in the country’s “middle belt” and a combination of separatist and gang-based attacks in the south-east – through sweeping reforms of Nigeria’s security services.
“Nigeria’s overburdened state security apparatus has a history of gross human rights abuses and requires far-reaching structural reforms, comprehensive training programs and modern equipment,” Durmaz said.
“Any improvement in the military must be followed by economic development plans in violence-affected areas to curb the root causes of insecurity, namely poverty, youth unemployment and lack of government presence.”
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