Insecurity, Unemployment and Infrastructure: Buhari’s 2023 budget speech offers snapshot of his priorities as he vacates office in 7 months
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Friday, October 7, 2022, presented the 2023 budget to the National Assembly, his last presentation as Nigeria’s 15th president as he prepares to vacate office in May 2023, after eight years in office.
With insecurity, food crises, rising unemployment and infrastructural development dominating his address during the budget presentation at the National Assembly, his speech offers a snapshot into areas the President plans to focus his energies in the last seven months of his eight years in office.
While presenting the N20.51 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja, on Friday, Buhari said “over the last year, this Administration has implemented several priority projects. Our focus has been on the completion of key road and rail projects; the effective implementation of power sector projects; the provision of clean water; construction of irrigation infrastructure and dams across the country; and critical health projects such as upgrading Primary Health Care Centres across the six geopolitical zones.”
Assuring the lawmakers of his commitment to completing ongoing road projects and tackling the present food crisis, Buhari said “government is very concerned about the high food prices in the country. Various measures are being implemented to address structural factors underlying the issue. We will also step-up current efforts aimed at boosting food production and distribution in the country. You will recall our efforts in improving production of fertilizer, rice, maize cassava among other earlier initiatives.”
When he presented his first budget of N6.08 trillion in December 2015, the nation’s inflation rate was at 9.6%, while unemployment stood at 10.4% in Q4 2015 with 22.45 million of the total labour force of 76.96 million either unemployed or underemployed.
With a proposal of N6.08 trillion based on $38 a barrel oil price, Buhari, in 2015, said he planned to revive the nation’s economy which was badly hit by collapsing oil prices at the time.
“We must deliver security, jobs and infrastructures,” Buhari said in 2015.
While some Nigerians believe Buhari may have delivered on infrastructure, as he presented his final budget on Friday, with oil benchmarked at $70 a barrel, many others believe he has failed to fulfil his promise of job creation, security and reviving the economy. Insecurity and unemployment rank high among the myriads of issues confronting the nation.
The nation’s inflation hit 20.52% in August 2022, the unemployment rate increased to 33.30%, indicating that 23.2 million people were unemployed as of the fourth quarter of 2020, and analysts said the unemployment crisis may have gone worse since the last data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Buhari also admitted that “despite continuing efforts, unemployment, underemployment, and poverty rates remain high.”
He, however, assured that “we are currently implementing several skills development programmes and work opportunity programmes to enhance the employability of our youths and tackle the troubling level of youth unemployment.”
Buhari’s plan to exceed the borrowing limit in 2023 to tackle security challenges, also reflects Nigeria’s rising security crisis as cases of banditry, kidnapping and terrorism continue to rise across the nation.
He admitted that “the 2023 Budget proposal reflects the serious challenges currently facing our country, key reforms necessary to address them, and imperatives to achieve higher, more inclusive, diversified and sustainable growth.
“I assure you, insecurity, especially banditry and kidnapping, will be significantly curtailed before the end of this Administration. We will redouble our efforts to ensure we leave a legacy of a peaceful, prosperous and secured nation.”
The Appropriation Bill is still a proposal to the lawmakers who will take time to review and invite heads of ministries, departments and agencies of government to defend their proposals. The lawmakers may make changes to the proposal before it is passed and return to the president for assent.
Buhari who appears to be worried by the changes to previous budgets told the lawmakers on Friday “the current practice where some committees of the National Assembly purport to pass budgets for GOEs, which are at variance with the budgets sanctioned by me, and communicate such directly to the MDAs is against the rules and needs to stop.”
