Nigerian Elections: What if Buhari Wins?

With only two weeks to go until the most closely contested presidential election in Nigeria’s history, the biggest issue on the agenda is security. From Boko Haram to the instability of the oil-producing Niger Delta, the political fight between incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan and the lead opposition candidate, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, revolves around who will ensure peace and stability.
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Buhari is relying on his credentials as a retired general and former military ruler to convince the electorate that he is the man to end the violent Boko Haram insurgency that has killed more than 10,000 Nigerians and displaced 1.5 million others.
But what would Nigeria be like under a Buhari presidency? He has vowed to take the fight to Boko Haram, crush the sect, and “lead from the front”. Expectations of the stern and resolute general are sky high – many think he is tailor made to end Nigeria’s insecurity, but is he the reformed democrat he claims to be?

Boko Haram

The rhetoric of his campaign suggests that the defence policy is likely to change greatly under a Buhari presidency.
Senior security figures have repeatedly stated that there is no military solution to the insurgency, and that the government must address the socio-economic causes of Boko Haram. Nigeria’s former chief of defence staff General Martin Luther Agwai has said:

 “You can never solve any of these problems with military solutions … it is a political issue; it is a social issue; it is an economic issue, and until these issues are addressed, the military can never give you a solution.”

 Buhari has dealt with insecurity in Nigeria before. In 1983 he led an army unit that drove out Chadian rebels who had made incursions over the north-eastern Nigerian border. In an ironic reversal of fortunes, the Chadian army is now helping Nigeria to fight Boko Haram insurgents in the same corner of Nigeria. In response, Buhari has called the current Nigerian government’s reliance on assistance from a much poorer country like Chad a “big disgrace”.

The current government’s security forces have made tentative steps in the direction of a “soft approach to countering terrorism”. The national security adviser Lt Colonel Sambo Dasuki appointed Dr Fatima Akilu, a psychologist, to work as the director of behavioural analysis and strategic communication in his office. Last year it was announced that Akilu had designed a programme for de-radicalising and rehabilitating militants, and a communication strategy to counter Boko Haram’s narrative. However initiatives such as this will take years or decades to have effect, and the Nigerian public is not patient enough for incremental progress.

The rhetoric of Buhari’s campaign suggests that the defence policy is likely to change greatly if he were to win the election. His tough-talking promises to confront Boko Haram resonate with the Nigerian public. He has said he “will not tolerate insurgency, sabotage of the economy” and, in reference to the instability in the Niger Delta, the “the blowing up of installations, by stealing crude and so on ... All these things will be things of the past.”


If Buhari comes to power Dasuki and his colleague Lt General Aliyu Mohammed, the minister of defence, are likely to find themselves unemployed. Both men were key figures in the military palace coup that overthrew Buhari in 1985 (when Dasuki was a young army officer and Mohammed was the head of military intelligence).

There are questions over a military approach, too. So far, when the military has hit Boko Haram hard the group has escalated its violence and taken indirect revenge against civilians. Even if Buhari does end the Boko Haram insurgency, the conspiracy theorists among his opponents will likely use that against him to buttress their narrative that the insurgency led by northern Islamic insurgents was a political ploy to destabilise the southern Christian President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Niger Delta

The Niger Delta insurgency carries more severe economic consequences than the Boko Haram insurgency in the north

Boko Haram is not the only security menace threatening Nigeria. In 2009, after years of disrupting Nigeria’s oil production, exports and installations, more than 25,000 militants who waged an armed insurgency in the oil-producing Niger Delta areas of southern Nigeria to protest against economic exploitation agreed to lay down their weapons. In exchange for peace, the government promised to grant them amnesty, cash stipends, and training.

The elephant in the Nigerian room is that the government’s amnesty deal with the Niger Delta militants expires later this year, and the militants have threatened to take up arms again if Jonathan is not re-elected. Many militants see Jonathan – who comes from Bayelsa State, the heartland of Nigeria’s oil producing region – as one of their own.
Eighty percent of the Nigerian government’s income comes from oil exports, so the Niger Delta insurgency carries much more severe economic consequences than the Boko Haram in the north. Worryingly, four states in the Delta (Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, and Rivers States) alone produce 80% of Nigeria’s oil (out of a total of 36 states in Nigeria).

Although Buhari has said very little about the Niger Delta during his election campaign, the militants have reason for discomfort if Buhari becomes president. Militant leaders have become very rich from government patronage and contracts. Many ex-militants have been awarded security contracts to guard the oil installations they once protested against and attacked. Buhari – a man with a reputation for austerity and a no-nonsense approach to hard graft – is not the type of person to pay people money to not be violent.

In addition Nigeria’s ethnic, geographic, and religious differences can prove explosive, and it’s unlikely that Buhari – a Muslim from northern Nigeria – will treat the southern Christian Niger Delta militants differently to the Islamic Boko Haram , who this week declared their allegiance to Isis. Buhari simply won’t be able to hit one group of insurgents with an iron fist while negotiating with the other. But, if he stops the Niger Delta militants’ payments, then the country could face the daunting prospect of simultaneous insurgencies in both the north and south.

Those who have worked with Buhari describe him as “strong willed” and “completely inflexible”; suggesting that his resolute and unyielding temperament means he will stick to his words and will try to force a result with insurgents on the battlefield, rather than in the negotiating room.
If he becomes president after the vote, postponed until the 28th of March, Buhari will face the unenviable task of inheriting a nightmarish security landscape. But Nigeria’s problems are so deep and complex that they are likely to outlast Jonathan, however long he hopes to cling to power, and Buhari too if he is sucessful. 'Culled'