Out of 222 Campaign Promises, Buhari Has Only Delivered One-Newsweek

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has delivered on just one of his

200-plus electoral promises during the first seven months of his

presidency,  a report has claimed.
Buhari defeated former president Goodluck Jonathan in an  election in

March 2015 and was inaugurated in May. His election campaign was built on

a number of key pledges, including  reclaiming billions of dollars of

government funds lost to corruption and ending Boko Haram's reign of

violence in northeast Nigeria.
The fourth Buharimeter report, which is the work of advocacy group the

Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD)—tracked the implementation of

222 public electoral promises made by Buhari and his All Progressives

Congress (APC).
According to the report, only one promise has been fully implemented:

Buhari's pledge to publicly declare his assets and liabilities and to

encourage all his appointees to do the same. The Nigerian president

declared in September 2015 that he had $150,000 in his personal account,

five homes and two mud houses, and a few hundred cattle plus other

animals. A further 27 pledges made by the president—including the rescue

of more than 200 girls  kidnapped by Boko Haram from Chibok, northeastern

Nigeria—are ranked as ongoing, while the vast majority have not yet been

rated due to a lack of action.
In the war against Boko Haram, Buhari has failed to completely deliver.

Despite the president stating in December 2015 to have “technically”

defeated the insurgents, the report said that Boko Haram has killed almost

2,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands more since Buhari took

over in May.
According to Idayat Hassan, director of CDD West Africa, Buhari's emphasis

on the military approach means that other root causes of the insurgency

have been neglected. “Winning the war against Boko Haram needs a very

holistic approach,” says Hassan.
The ongoing problem of alleged human rights violations committed by

Nigerian troops, could serve as a recruitment tool for the extremist

group. Amnesty International has called for the  investigation of senior

Nigerian military commanders for allegedly overseeing the murder of more

than 8,000 people—mostly young men and boys accused of being members of

Boko Haram. While a preliminary report released by the International

Criminal Court in November 2015 identified  two possible instances of war

crimes committed by the military, as well as six by Boko Haram militants.

In addition to fighting Boko Haram, Nigeria faces a range of other

security threats including the renewed  agitation for an independent state

of Biafra. This unrest was in part sparked by  the arrest of Nnamdi Kanu,

the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) group,  in October

2015 on charges of ethnic incitement and sedition. The charges were later

dropped but Kanu remains in detention after the Nigerian authorities filed

fresh charges of treason against him. Thousands of protesters have

demonstrated in the months since. According to the Buharimeter report, the

security services' response to the agitation has stoked fears that if the

pro-Biafran agitation is not properly managed, the issue “may degenerate

into a low-level insurgency.”
Buhari has taken important steps in tackling corruption in Nigeria, Hassan

says. These include executing a probe into an arms scandal that saw more

than $2 billion of government funds earmarked for fighting Boko Haram go

missing. Nigeria's anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes

Commission (EFCC), has taken a lead role in this, ordering the arrest of

numerous prominent figures, including  former national security advisor

Sambo Dasuki and  ex-defense minister Bello Haliru Mohammed on corruption

charges. Both Dauki and Mohammed deny the charges against them.

“We have lots of big fishes being arrested and now they are facing trial,”

says Hassan. “For quite a long time, we have not had this political will

in terms of fighting corruption. There has been so much impunity, but now

we are seeing people held to account.”
Newsweek contacted the Nigerian presidency for a response to the report

but received no reply.
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