Buhari on Remuneration and Housing

Awareness

The Buhari/Bakare manifesto puts the issues of remuneration (wage rates) and housing together in one section and on some level putting these two things together shows a lack of awareness of the scale and scope of both these issues taken separately.

That said there is a recognition that the issue of wages exists in both the private and public sector. It also highlights the importance of saving. It however ignores a number of issues including the role of trade unions in wage disputes, the effect of inflation and the cost of staples like food, fuel and electricity. There is also no mention made of the minimum wage.

In regards to housing, it acknowledges the importance of instituting a solid mortgage market that is able to catering to those in employment as well as the need for mass housing schemes. It also alludes to the issue of funding. It however doesn’t explicitly talk about low cost housing or the differing housing needs of urban and rural areas or the maintenance of existing buildings and how to ensure safety standards in future builds.

Ambition

This section contains the explicit promise to enhance public sector pay, which to be honest is mandatory at this stage. While it will require some moving around of money, it really ought not to put a strain on the economy to properly remunerate civil servants. Encouraging employer-employee consultations is not ambitious at all as neither party is bound to anything and it will be very difficult to force results from such an arrangement.

In terms of housing, the institution of proper mortgage system is very ambitious as it will require a number of institutions to ensure that there is sufficient supply at reasonable interest rates and that there is demand from people who are trackable and are able to repay the loans.  As to building ‘mass-housing’ this really depends on the scale of the housing that is to be built as to whether it will be ambitious or not.

Detail

This section like much of the manifesto is lacking in any real detail. The goal is painted out in vague terms, but we are not told what a fair wage will be, how it is to be calculated an how it would be enforced. We are not told how many houses the government intends to build using this Private Public Partnership nor where they will be or how long they will take to complete. We are not told what incentives/regulations will be put in place to have the desired effect on the mortgage market.

My View

This is one of the weakest sections of the whole document.  Firstly it takes two issues that should be big issues in their own right and then tries to amalgamate them. The issue of housing, particularly in urban areas is one of great concern. I think that the government should be looking to move people away from Lagos and Abuja by building cheap housing somewhere else.  If not for the problem of corruption in Nigeria, I would advocate that the government build these low-cost houses using private contractors and then sell them at a fixed price , giving preference to young couples.

As to the issue of wage, the CPC really needed to come out in favour or against the minimum wage as they did not their rhetoric on a fair wage will be seen as just that, rhetoric. I would have preferred a plan that set up a system akin to what they have in Ghana that pegs all government employees wages to each other’s e.g a teacher makes x, university lecturer makes 2x, a senator makes 4x etc so that if the cost of living rises then everybody’s wages rise proportionally. It would also reduce the propensity to strike and would give a whole new meaning to the term collective bargaining.

Scores (Out of 5)

Awareness: 1.75

Ambition: 1.75

Detail: .75

My view: 2.0

Buhari on Senior Citizen Welfare

Awareness

There may be questions as to how much of an issue senior citizen welfare really is, after all 70% of the population is under 30 and only a fraction of the remaining 30% will ever make it to the age of 70. That said, the issue is one of importance in the civil service and other forms of corporate employment and is important to the families of such people. In an atmosphere of rampant youth unemployment, family income becomes more important. And taken in this context there is a potential problem of the burden of retired or unproductive people with no income in already strained households. The manifesto doesn’t do much to explain this reality but it does implicitly highlight some of the problems including the slow or non-payment of retirement packages.

Ambition

There is no new policy that is put forward in this section; rather it reiterates a commitment to ensure that the existing pension system is carried out properly with an emphasis placed on the process of review of the process to ensure that the standard of living of pensioners is maintained.

It could have gone further perhaps to include a mandatory state pension as part of a taxation system for all adults or even by changing the retirement age.

Detail

There is little detail here, but that is because there doesn’t really need to be much detail given. As already mentioned there is no new policy being put in place

My View

Nigeria has a very young population, most of who are not thinking about their pensions let alone inclined to vote on those grounds, so it seems like an odd choice from a political standpoint. That said though, life expectancy will continue to improve for the average Nigerian over the next few decades, so in a sense there is a pension crisis looming at some point in the future. The problem now is simply one of mismanagement though, with pension funds of workers both in the private and public sector going missing. The solution in my opinion is that people should be encouraged to save but they shouldn’t be forced to take out a pension with an unreliable system, people aren’t stupid and if at any point a state (or even private) insurance/pension scheme becomes viable people will take it out. This issue of pensions however, raises other questions of retirement age? In a nation where the average life expectancy is 48 years, 70% of the population is under 30 and the median age is 19 is there not a strong argument for lowering the retirement age?

Score (Out of 5)

Awareness: 2.5

Ambition: 1.0

Detail: 2.5

My View: 2.75

Buhari on Institutional Reform

*NB: This section could have been spread into the four constituent parts as it is in the manifesto, but then these sections would have scored very poorly in all categories*

Awareness

This section of the manifesto is wide reaching in terms of the institutions that it tends to reform – the Judiciary; all Law Enforcement; all Regulatory Agencies, Government Bodies and Professional bodies created by law; and all democratic institutions. In regard to each of these institutions the plan does well to allude to the problems which are currently plaguing them. However, in a section labelled institutional reform it fails to explicitly talk about constitutional reform, the one set of reforms that would adequately encompass all the aforementioned.

Ambition

The plan reads as very ambitious in this section, it plans to review all of the judiciary, all law enforcement etc. Even if that is merely an academic or theoretical review of all these institutions it will be epic. This review will not only encompass the legal system and the police force but presumably it will include bodies such as INEC, EFCC and ICPC. Many of the described institutions are in such a decrepit state that it will be difficult to revitalize them to the levels described in the document, and it will be even more difficult to do these reforms concurrently.  Any possible change will come up against stiff opposition from those who have entrenched interests in the status quo and as such will require a tremendous amount of political capital and will.

Detail

There is much detail given about the goals of all the reforms and from this there is a fair amount of implicit detail given about the current state of affairs. However, there is no detail given about the process of reform, how it will be made consultative, how long will any consultation take place, who are the relevant stake holders that will be consulted, how many decisions will be made at the federal and how many at the state level. There are a number of logistic issues that will arise if the institutions are to be reformed supposedly while they are still carrying out their functions and these issues are not addressed.

My View

The current constitution of Nigeria was hastily put together in the transition to civilian rule in 1999. It largely rehashed previous constitutions and there was almost no consultative process in its creation and was passed by military decree (i.e. no referendum, not even a sitting of the house of assembly). Like it or not this constitution is flawed and much of the reason why the institutions of state do not work is because the constitution itself doesn’t work. What Buhari and the CPC is proposing here is constitutional change even though they do not want to call it that. They plan to ‘review and reform’ almost every institution that is created by the constitution, when the more sensible approach would be to ‘review and reform’ the whole constitution. If we are going to start ‘reviewing and reforming’ the constitution, why not just start again from scratch with a real consultative process and a referendum for Nigerians to decide the social contract under which they plan to live?

I like the intent of this section, but I would have liked for it to have been bolder and come out and said what a lot of people are thinking.

Scores (Out of 5)

Awareness: 4.0

Ambition: 4.25

Detail: 2.25

My View: 3.75

Buhari on Infrastructure

Awareness

Buhari’s plan outlines well the importance of infrastructure to the development of the country. It also picks up on the scale and scope – agriculture, power, transport and telecommunications -of the current inadequacy of infrastructure in Nigeria as well as the effect that this is having on the economy. The plan also recognizes the potential for job creation that the building of infrastructure will have. While not in this section but rather as part of the Mission, there is an explicit mention of the need to develop a maintenance culture.

However by lumping all these disparate yet individually important issues into one the General shows a lack of awareness of the scale of these issues. You are not going to be able to solve the problem of transport in the same way that the problem of power generation will be solved.

Ambition

As all these issues are treated together as one it is hard to tell how ambitious the plan is in any particular respect. In addition to which there is no clear policy that one can to point to. What this section does promise is that when infrastructures are undertaken they will be done through a combination of public private partnership (PPP). There is also a policy to implement a strict regulatory framework for these PPPs.

Detail

There is little or no detail as to what will be built, when, where or by whom.  It is however made clear that funding for these projects will be through PPPs.

My View

There is very little to actually go on in this section and in the whole document there is very little beyond rhetoric said about the state of infrastructure. This is particularly surprising from a political standpoint because it is the delivery of new roads, or better GSM signal or constant electricity that will really win voters on the ground, in addition to which the planned privatisation of PHCN is an easy policy to come out in favour or against, yet no mention was made of it. In my opinion the CPC should have treated transport, power and technology as three separate issues because these are the issues that people actually talk about. It is an opportunity missed.

Scores (Out of 5)

Awareness: 2.5

Ambition: 2.5

Details: 1.0

My View: 1.0

Buhari on Education

Awareness

There is little done in the manifesto itself to expound the need for education or the problems facing the education sector. However, there is a level of awareness that can be inferred from the policies out forward. The policies show awareness of the need to review the curriculums being taught in school and an awareness of the demand for education that is often coupled with lack of access to it. His policies also demonstrate a commitment to the Universal Basic Education (UBE) goal.

That said there are a lot of areas that the diminutive section on education doesn’t touch on. There is no mention of the quality of education in terms of the abilities/availability/commitment of the teachers and the availability of equipment and resources. It makes no reference to how schools are controlled and funded. It also neglects the education of girl-children and nomads, which need special attention in Nigeria.

Ambition

The first policy for universal attendance of junior secondary school is part of the nine years of education (UBE) commitment of the Millennium Development Goals to which Nigeria is a signatory. So this should really be seen as a pre-requisite for any current or future administration, although the compulsory continuation to senior secondary education and the emphasis on functionality throughout do show a level of ambition.

The ambition of any curriculum review depends on the review of the curriculum itself. Whether it will simply bring up to date outdated learning systems or practices or will choose to overhaul the whole thing remains to be seen.

The establishment of an education bank, geared at providing student loans will be a monumental task. Not only the initial difficulty of setting up and financing it, but the establishment of a system that will ensure that the bank is able to recover the money it lends will also be difficult.

Detail

This section of the plan only provides the policies in its barest forms. As already noted, there is no expounding of the scale of the issue, so too is there very little detail given of the how. The question with many of the policies will be how will they be funded (privately/publicly, federal/state) and how will they be monitored to ensure that standards are kept and in these regards the manifesto has nothing to say.

My View

I think that education should be the bedrock of any political manifesto for these upcoming elections. The ramifications of a good education system are wide reaching in terms of everything from crime to health to the economy and so I was particularly disappointed in this section.  I feel there is a need for a revolution in the education sector that will ensure UBE for all Nigerians, but beyond that will not just follow the trend. The focus really ought to be on vocational training and sector specific training. There are a multitude of unemployed graduates so stop funnelling more 16-18 year olds into an inadequate university system. The plan is not offensive to me, I understand if you believe the current 6-6-(4) or 6-3-3-(4) system of education is eventually going to come good in Nigeria then this is what needs to be done, but I don’t believe that.

Scores (Out of 5)

Awareness: 2.0

Ambition: 3.0

Detail: 0.5

My View: 1.5

Ribadu on The Economy

Awareness
'The Pathway' is very perceptive of the problems of the Nigerian Economy. It acknowledges the problem of unemployment ( in particular youth and graduate unemployment) and the effect that this is having on education. It also notices the not-so-well publicised problems of a growing fiscal deficit, diminishing excess crude accounts, diminishing foreign exchange, increased domestic debt and the problem of states borrowing beyond their means. There is also an implicit nod to the need to diversify the economy away from the oil-sector.
However, there is no mention of the problem of inflation and in particular regarding the inflation of food prices and seasonal price variation. There is also no mention of income inequality.

Ambition
The aim of reducing youth unemployment will no doubt be difficult, but it has to be seen as necessary rather than ambitious. The failure to achieve it will lead to economic rot and political instability for generations to come. That said, the introduction of target based economic planning in Nigeria is ambitious in itself but beyond that the targets that are set (7-8% growth for the next five years) are very ambitious especially as without proper diversification the fortunes of the Nigerian economy are dictated by external factors ( global commodity, oil and food prices). So the less ambitious sounding plan for diversification is important to any grander plans for the economy.

Detail
The plan is very detailed in its analysis of the problem, It is very detailed in its goals giving measurable targets and specific timescales. Despite this, it is not forthcoming in what sepcific policies will be used to achieve these targets. It speaks of investment in infrastructure, healthcare education etc and creating 'an enabling environment' but this sort of rhetoric will surely be common to most people's manifestos and without specific policies to promote, then these are meaningless.

My View
I think the Nigerian government really doesn't have a saving mentality, building up reserves wil just leave more in the kitty for the next government to steal. I feel therefore that governemnt should spend, spend on new industries, spend on subsidizing burgeoning industries, spend on training and possibly spend on state-owned enterprises ( especially in agriculture). I am also disappointed that there is no plan to combat high inflation or at least bring it into the single figures. Having said that Mr. Ribadu's plan is on the money about a lot of the problems facing the economy and the targets set out to combat them are commendable.

Scores (Out of 5)
Awareness: 4.5
Ambition: 3.5
Detail: 1.5
My View: 3.0