Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s
party may be wracked by defections and his
battles against corruption and an Islamist
rebellion under fire, but he has one crucial
advantage in securing re-election:
incumbency.
The 75-year-old leader is going to need all
the tools available to repeat his 2015
victory — the first time an opposition
party won power at the ballot box in
Africa’s biggest oil producer. At his disposal,
analysts say, is a record with some policy
successes, as well as the state power to
reward or punish.
Buhari “seems prepared to deploy the
institutions of state to his advantage,” said
Clement Nwankwo, executive director of
the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre in the
capital, Abuja. “It’s kind of a plan to beat
people into line.”
Buhari — who was briefly Nigeria’s military
ruler in the 1980s — will be fighting against
perceptions the country hasn’t gotten any
safer nor less corrupt during his tenure. A
promise to shatter Boko Haram’s northern
Islamist insurgency may have been partly
fulfilled, but inter-communal violence has
replaced it as Nigeria’s deadliest threat.
Nigeria’s corruption perception ranking
soared this year despite a much-touted
war on graft.
Buhari is benefiting from a recovering
economy with rising crude prices after a
2016 recession triggered by the sharp fall in
the price of the commodity that is the
country’s main export. Foreign-exchange
reforms by the government have helped to
stabilize the naira. Inflation decelerated for
the 18th straight month in July as food
prices climbed at the slowest rate since
March 2016.
Improved Economy
“Oil output has been fairly steady and prices
are better than anticipated,” said Antony
Goldman, West Africa analyst at London-
based PM Consulting. “Economic
fundamentals are better than when Buhari
was elected.”
When the head of the Senate, Bukola Saraki
— Nigeria’s third-most powerful politician —
joined more than 50 APC members in leaving
for the opposition People’s Democratic
Party over the past month, the reaction
was swift. First his home was blockaded;
days later security officers barred entry
to the legislature itself. It’s an exodus
that Buhari needs stemmed if he’s to keep
afloat a party with a campaign machine
spanning Africa’s most populous nation of
almost 200 million people.
The PDP said the move was an attempt to
smuggle in Buhari loyalists and remove
Saraki, who’d adjourned sittings until late
September. Amid public outrage, the
government and APC condemned the
deployment as unconstitutional and Vice
President Yemi Osinbajo, who’s acting head of
state while Buhari’s overseas, dismissed the
state security chief.
‘Damage Control’
“It was a crucial act of damage control by
the acting president,” said Nwankwo.
Saraki said he’s considering challenging for
Buhari’s job in the coming vote on the
platform of the PDP, as the country needs a
business-friendly leadership that is
currently lacking.
Buhari’s war on corruption gives him a way
to coerce his opponents, according to Cheta
Nwanze, an analyst at Lagos-based business
advisory, SBM Intelligence.
Buhari signed an executive order in July
empowering him to freeze the bank
accounts of those implicated in graft
investigations. The opposition says that it
will be used to punish defectors, undermines
Nigeria’s courts and violates the principle of
presumption of innocence.
Critics point to the case of Benue state
Governor Samuel Ortom. Shortly after he
left the ruling party for the PDP, the
Buhari-controlled financial crimes agency
moved in to freeze Benue state’s bank
accounts, citing a corruption investigation.
Ortom’s office has asked why the probe only
happened once the governor had left the
APC.
‘Concrete Achievements’
Buhari has other elements in his favor.
Amaka Anku, an Africa analyst at Washington
D.C.-based risk advisers Eurasia Group,
pointed to national railway lines and a
metro system in the capital completed
during his first term.
“Buhari will have concrete achievements to
point to on the campaign trail,” she said.
The president may also get a boost from
the opposition’s disunity. Still to name a
presidential candidate, the PDP has at least
a dozen would-be contenders.
While former President Olusegun Obasanjo —
a powerful voice — is campaigning against
Buhari’s re-election, he’s also, due to long-
standing differences, opposed to the
candidacy of his former deputy, Atiku
Abubakar. A northerner, like Buhari, who may
be able to win support on the incumbent’s
home turf, Abubakar is widely seen as the
only challenger proposing coherent policies.
“Compared to 2015, the president has lost
some support, but the challenge for the
opposition will be to win that support,”
Goldman said. “The PDP is still in search of a
personality to unite the party.”
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