If Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32^nd President of the United States did not place a timeline of first 100 days in the life of the US congress during his tenure, perhaps President Muhammadu Buhari would have been spared this sound and fury of what he did or failed to do in his first 100 days in office. Though Roosevelt intended the 100 days marker for measuring the performance of Congress, it turned out over the years as a pointer for leaders in executive positions in government across democracies.

Ever since, Presidents and governors and others have had to be made to account for their first 100 days in office. In Nigeria, a nation famed for her proclivity to copying wholly all things American, first 100 days has become the people’s herald of what to expect in the tenure of a government. Sadly, those who hold tight to this exotic tradition fail to contextualize it within the circumstances of governance in America and governance in Nigeria. This is where I do not subscribe to the argument that Buhari has failed to deliver in his first 100 days. A President who is alone without a Congress cannot achieve much in 100 days. The truth is that from the days of Roosevelt to Barack Obama, every American President has had the full complementary partnership of Congress from the day of their inauguration. And within this definitive timeline, they initiated bills which were passed by Parliament; the same cannot be said of Nigeria.

Since the life of the present National Assembly, the nation has operated with an absentee legislature. This current legislature, more than any in the nation’s annals, has been the most fugitive, cyclically present for one week and absent for three weeks. The legislature has spent the first 100 days bickering over its internal leadership, and when they are not fighting for position, they are brawling for their wardrobe allowance, sitting allowance, constituency emoluments and other pecuniary appurtenances. And while they brawl and battle, their primary duty of making laws for the good governance of the people suffers. Till this day, some of the appointments made by Buhari are yet to be confirmed by a Senate that behaves like a club of scoundrels.

In every democracy, it is the legislature, not the judiciary that puts the Executive on the spot, holding oversight responsibility and ensuring that operators of the Executive arm of government play by the rules. It is the legislature that has the constitutional licence to query the Executive, give it a jab in the arm if need be. In the instant case, the Nigerian legislature has for most part of the period gone on a binge, and each time they return, they act true to type: like inebriated, drunken ill-mannered adults. When a legislature is deficient in its duties, the Executive tend to act with some degree of impunity, even if such imperial autocracy was never intended.

This is the context in which Nigerians should not blame Buhari for his actions or inactions. If somebody in the Senate or House of Representatives had raised a point of order or raised a motion on a matter of urgent national importance to the effect that Mr. Buhari’s inertia to appoint ministers, an Attorney-General of the Federation ( a very fundamental officer to provide compass for due process) and other critical appointments, perhaps by now, the president would have acted on such alert. But the nation’s lawmakers, too pampered and over-spruced with tax-payers’ money, have a different agenda.

If in his first 100 days, Buhari has indulged in shadowy autocracy like unilaterally dissolving the boards of government agencies including the board of tenured appointees, it is because there was no legislature to call him to order. I concur that Buhari has been slow in running government, I agree he has afflicted himself with self-contrived apathy in making key appointments, and where he did, it was sectional appointments, but it is all down to the absence of a responsible and responsive legislature. The National Assembly, not Buhari, should be blamed for the stasis that has dogged governance since May 29.

I understand the plight of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). It has, like a masochist steeped in self-flagellation, been remonstrating about the lack of governance from Aso Rock. But it is obvious it is not doing so because the party loves Nigeria and Nigerians. It is mere sour-grape of a bad loser, otherwise the party should use its caucus in the National Assembly to rouse Buhari out of his reverie. Yes, he sure needs a jab.

But Buhari’s first 100 days has not been an all-hope-dashed narrative. He may not have built bridges, constructed roads or asphalted all roads in his Daura home in 100 days, but he has triggered a centrifugal force which is blowing out of Aso Rock to the rest of the nation. It is a redemptive force which bears in its blades a new socio-political and economic order. Though still inchoate, this new wind blazing from Aso Villa, in effect prefaces a new dawn in transparency, accountability and a national ethos that frowns at corruption.

Chroniclers of the 100-day time spectrum should look in the direction of the restructuring at NNPC and the momentum the Group Managing Director, Dr. Ibe Emmanuel Kachikwu, has gathered in reining in the once disorderly petroleum resources behemoth. They should capture in succinct prose the openness displayed so far by Buhari in matters verging on fiscal management; they should see as an act of public-spiritedness the gesture of Mr. President to bail out insolvent states and ipso facto, arrest the seething restiveness among unpaid and angry civil servants which would have by now snowballed into a maddening upheaval in the streets of the nation.

But above all, the greatest achievement, though intangible, is the consciousness that for once Nigeria has a leader who is incorruptible; who cannot be swayed by political mandarins to do their bidding; who will not give notes to fly-by-night contractors to procure lousy contracts from NNPC, PPMC, NPA, NIMASA and who will not turn Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) account into his personal purse as the nation witnessed under Obasanjo-Atiku Presidency. The signs are showing. Without Buhari touching the switch, PHCN got better; without turning a screw at the refineries, they are beginning to rev back to life just because of the fear of Buhari. If Buhari succeeds, it will not be because of APC but because of himself, his values and principles. If we do a proper audit, we might find out that the APC harbours more crooks than the PDP. There is actually no difference, so let the gladiators bury this needless sound and fury of 100 days and allow the man from Daura face the serious business of governance.

Author: KEN UGBECHIE