Almost a year after winning an election on promises to fix Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari’s grand vision of reform is fading away, with power centralized in his increasingly remote presidency and a bureaucracy in disarray.
After axing almost 50 top civil servants and 40 ambassadors and shaking up ministries in a bid to excise endemic graft, the 73-year-old former military ruler has even started cancelling some weekly cabinet meetings, local news said.
Since taking office a year ago, he has been on almost 30 overseas trips, visiting gulf countries, China and Western allies, where officials say he hopes to drum up interest from investors.
On Sunday, the presidency announced that President Muhammadu Buhari will travel to London Monday for a 10 day-rest during which he will undergo medical check-up.
His opponents complain that his external focus comes at the expense of the two pillars of the domestic economy – the oil-producing Niger Delta and Lagos, the sprawling mega city that serves as Nigeria’s commercial capital.
Buhari has won plaudits from ordinary Nigerians for fighting graft as part of a crackdown on the elite whose wealth has grown for decades while most of the country’s 170 million people remained in poverty.