Nigeria: The Immediate Task Before President Muhammadu Buhari

opinion

When you are sworn in as Nigeria's president on May 29, 2015, you will be saddled with leading a divided, disjointed, unsafe, economically weak, and virtually impoverished country. The task before you is arguably tougher than what Barack Obama had to face in his first election as America's President after the disastrous years of the George Bush presidency. With Nigerians divided along ethnic and religious lines perhaps more than ever before, a wobbling 'federal' structure showing the inability of most federating units to function, security of lives and property across Nigeria at one of its lowest ebb, an oil-dependent economy in doldrums due to corruption and the fall in global oil prices, and more than 50 percent of the population living below the poverty line, you sure have an unenviable task. A large part of the challenges may have been caused by the actions and inactions of the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan, but your performance in office, just like Obama's, will not be judged by the action(s) of your predecessors, but by your own actions while in office.

While not elaborating on individual sectors of the Nigerian economy, and irrespective of the knowledge that you contested on the platform of a party that has its own manifesto, I believe that there are five areas a Buhari presidency should consider focussing on.

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