The enormously popular talk show, Berekete on Wazobia FM radio, Abuja station told the incredible, yet true story of the hardworking and respected school teacher somewhere in Plateau state who hanged himself.

He hadn’t been paid salary for seven straight months. He came home to find that no one had eaten and two of the children had medical prescriptions for which there was no money. He sneaked out without talking to anyone. After a long while, news came home that he had strangely been caught with a stolen goat.

On his day in court, the teacher confessed to the offense. The reason he stole,he told the local judge, was that he hadn’t been paid for seven months and when he got home to see what he saw, he just couldn’t stand it.

The judge allowed him to go home on bail on self-recognition given, as he said, the good impression the entire village had of the otherwise respected teacher.

All were shocked to find his body dangling from tree the morning after. He couldn’t live with the shame.

In the recommendations and notes the Ahmed Joda transition committee presented to him as President -EIect, Muhammadu Buhari was informed that a section of the Fedaral government as well as 27 states hadn’t paid salaries, in some case for up to a year.

The Joda committee advised that this was a national emergency and should be treated as such.

It is on account of this that one of the activities– please note the choice of this word:activities, not achievements- of President Muahammadu Buhari in these past three months is the settlement of unpaid salaries. This is going on right now.

Like the proverbial blinking of the eye, Saturday September 5th will mark the 100th day of the Buhari-led All Progressives Congress, APC government which took office on May 29th after the new party became the first in opposition to unseat an incumbent government in an election adjudged by everyone as free and fair.

There are many out there who say that the performance of a president and his government in terms success or failure cannot be judged in 100 days and I agree with them. But history will be written anyway. In the coming week or two, a rash of commentaries and analyses to commemorate the event will be made.

I myself don’t deny that 100 days is long enough to know and understand the man who is the head of a government.

Buhari arrived power with strong support from young men and women and this country’s poor. The new government was not favored at election by the monied power-brokers although that did not stop the President from taking measures such as improving security that are good for business and investment. This government is business-friendly but not one that is for crony capitalism.

The new government inherited enormous problems created by the tainted PDP administration, largely caused by the lack of governance,corruption and lawlessness. This was mostly evident in the last two years of the Jonathan Goodluck administration. As the President continues to point out,the  drift is most evident in the oil sector.

I believe that there is enough on the ground in those 100 days to understand President Buhari, his government and what it stands for.

I will cite a few of these. Before I do that, I will make a little confession.

In the course of electioneering, the presidential campaign had so many centers of public communication which, for whatever reason were on the loose.

There is a certain document tagged “One Hundred Things Buhari Will Do in 100 Days” and the other, “My Covenant With Nigerians.” Both  pamphlets bore the authorized party logo but as the Director of Media and Communications in that campaign, I did not fund or authorize any of those. I can equally bet my last Kobo that Candidate Buhari did not see or authorize those publications.

As a consequence of these publications, expectations have been raised unreasonably, that as President, Muhammadu Buhari will wave his hand and all the problems that the country faces- insecurity, corruption, unemployment, poor infrastructure would go away.

But that notwithstanding, President Buhari has given the job his best shot and the whole country is saying that we never had it so good. He has re-instituted the values of hard work and  administrative efficiency. The President says times without number that this country needs to fix governance and that he won’t tolerate laziness.

Some of the other activities I wish to enumerate also include the fact of his taking relations with the country’s immediate neighbors to new heights. By their open admissions, this country’s  neighbors did not have someone they could talk to on the deteriorating security situation in the Lake Chad Basin area in Aso Rock.

Buhari embarked on his foreign policy on Day Four of his administration.

When he met   Barak Obama, the U.S president told the Nigerian leader that he was getting it right and that it is only when Nigeria gets it right that Africa will get it right.

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon who came calling this week said that our president is “courageous, focused and firm.”

Relations with the “G 7” group of industrialized countries have since been “reset” and the dividends of this have begun to flow inwards.

In the area of economic management, Nigerians are already seeing things  happen that they thought were not possible in so short a time.

He didn’t put a Kobo to finance the power sector. Yet, reading his body language alone and knowing that there are things you cannot do and get away with under Buhari, electricity supply all over the countries has risen to unprecedented heights.

Actually, some cities are on the verge of calling 24-hour, round the clock power supply. The country generates more power than can internally be taken by the deplorable distribution system we have on the ground, which points to the next challenge that the country faces.

Framework for the management of the country’s finances has been put in place. The wobbly Naira is being stabilized and inflation is headed towards a single digit.President  Buhari is keeping a close eye on the government treasury.

Agriculture is getting its own shot in the arm.

Rice importation has been curtailed and seven governors whose states are priming a  massive local production of the commodity have had a strategy meeting with the President on the next steps that are coming. Americans say their intervention in our agriculture will come next year.

Boko Haram, which had more or less been allowed to fester for about five years is about being ended but what is even more interesting is that intelligence coming from the fired-up armed forces who now work in synergy with each other is raising hope that the Chibok girls may, repeat may be found in good numbers in a geographic location of interest somewhere in the North-East.

President Buhari is being praised at home and abroad for his ongoing fight against corruption. He said from the beginning that his government will not tolerate this vice.

Borrowing the words of India Narendra Modi’s, he said himself that “I won’t steal and I’ll not allow others to do it.” President Buhari has walked his talk since he come to office.

Himself and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo have not only given up half of their salary, they have cut a good number of funding lines to their official  homes and offices.

President Buhari also takes the environment seriously. He blames the lack of security in the Lake Chad region on the recession, almost drying up of the lake. He has undertaken to clean up  the Ogoniland.

In this country, appointments and removal from office are done usually in accordance with a spoils system.

A new government sacks officials on the basis only that it did not appoint them, but the predecessor-administration.

President Buhari has shown that his government is different. He wants to look at each case on its own merit and it is clear by now that he is not ready to surrender the country to burnt out politicians. Technocrats will have a big place in his administration.

He has appointed no ministers yet, but the government is running smoothly.

In this period of three months, government certainly deserves a pat on the back for improved power, reform in the energy sector, foreign relations fight against corruption and insurgency and the fact of Nigerians being at peace, not only among themselves but with their neighbors and the rest of the world.

In think in summary, I would like to end this piece by saying that President Muhammadu Buhari will turn out to be a leader in the tradition of Lee Kuan-Yu and India’s current reform-minded  Prime Minister Modi  with strong and clear emphasis on detail and execution. He may however differ with them by not micro-managing things.

Garba Shehu is Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari. [myad]

This piece is not about former President Goodluck Jonathan, but it is important to focus on him to help us understand our current predicament. In June 2012 when the former president made his infamous “I don’t give a damn” comment during a presidential media chat, I knew immediately that it would define his presidency. As it turned out, it was not only public asset declaration that the former president did not “give a damn” about. He did not “give a damn” about much of what happened under his watch as president of the federal republic.

Mr. Jonathan made other damning revelations during the media chat. He told a bewildered nation that he had gone to late President Umaru Yar’Adua to caution that, “We should not play to the hands of some people” (by openly declaring their assets), adding, “That is a matter of principle and I am not going to declare. It is not the president declaring his asset that will end Boko Haram.”

It is instructive that in 2007, as vice president, Mr Jonathan, after public outcry, declared his asset publicly following the example of his boss, the late President Yar’Adua. In a December 2012 piece titled, “Memo to Doyin Okupe: What is President Jonathan hiding?” I responded to a press conference by Mr. Okupe, then Senior Special Assistant to President Jonathan on Public Affairs, in which he elaborated on what his boss was doing to fight corruption.

“The signing of the Freedom of Information Act into law by President Jonathan in May 2011 represents a watershed in the anti-corruption crusade in Nigeria,” Mr. Okupe noted. “This piece of legislation, which had been virtually stalled by successive administrations since 1999, was signed into law by Mr. President to usher Nigeria into the league of countries where transparency in governance is entrenched and citizens are granted unfettered access to information about government activities.”

My response was to remind Mr. Okupe that in July 2011, two months after President Jonathan signed the FoIA, my organisation, the African Centre for Media & Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) wrote to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) requesting the details of President Jonathan’s asset declaration. We were rebuffed by the CCB. Its chairman, Sam Saba, would later say at a public forum that there was nothing in the constitution that said the president had to declare his asset publicly.

I wondered what, for someone purported to be committed to fighting corruption, President Jonathan was hiding considering that he declared his asset, as vice president in 2007, and that in the intervening period (2007-2011), he did not do any other job (constitutionally, he was not allowed to) apart from being vice president, acting president, and president. So what had the president acquired in four years that he did not want Nigerians to know about? It is also important to note that in a June 2012 interview with SaharaTV’s Rudolf Okonkwo, Dr. Reuben Abati, another aide of President Jonathan, had referred Nigerians interested in the president’s asset declaration “to check with the Code of Conduct Bureau office.”

The point I have laboured to make here is that beyond showing complete disinterest in addressing one of Nigeria’s major headache, corruption, Mr. Jonathan also undermined the very constitution he swore to uphold and there is a sense in which President Buhari may have unwittingly borrowed a page from Mr. Jonathan’s playbook. Why do I say this? Here is what the laws of the country say on this issue: Paragraph 3, Part I of the Third Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides, among other things, that “the Bureau shall have power to: (a) receive declarations by public officers made under paragraph 12 of Part I of the Fifth Schedule to this Constitution; (b) examine the declarations in accordance with the requirements of the Code of Conduct or any law; (c) retain custody of such declarations and make them available for inspection by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly may prescribe.

Section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2011 states that, “Notwithstanding anything contained in any other Act, Law or Regulation, the right of any person to access or request information, whether or not contained in any written form, which is in the custody or possession of any public official, agency or institution howsoever described, is hereby established.” Clearly, the CCB is obligated to make asset declarations “available for inspection by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly may prescribe.” These terms and conditions are covered under the FoI bill assented to by the Clerk to the National Assembly on May 27, 2011.

Considering his avowed commitment to anti-corruption, I think President Buhari made a false start on the war by not making public his asset the very day he was sworn-in as president. He didn’t need to wait for anybody or group to make the request. He has to redeem himself, and quickly too, because this is an issue that will not go away, not minding the convoluted logic of Mr. Saba and his CCB and the equivocation of Mr. Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.

Two weeks ago, in an interview with the Punch, Mr. Saba said his agency had not commenced the verification of the asset of President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo and that the CCB was waiting for the Presidency to tell it when it would be ready to commence the task. “Even if the president’s asset is as huge as the country’s external reserve,” a friend noted, “why should it take so long to verify?” I thought the question was quite amusing if it were not such a serious matter.

Prior to Mr. Saba’s intervention, the Presidency had said that the president would only make his asset public after it had been verified by the CCB. Then came Mr. Adesina’s comment during an interview that the president did not say he would declare his asset publicly. There is a feeling of déjà vu on the issue of public asset declaration. Is Adesina’s position a prelude to what we should expect? Let’s assume, for the purpose of argument, that the president did not say he would declare his asset publicly, could there be a better way to lead by example in the anti-corruption campaign than for the president to publicly declare his worth?

Of course, I know the worth of public asset declaration or asset declaration in Nigeria having served, about a decade ago, as head of the crime prevention unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Trust is, therefore, very important for President Buhari to win the war on corruption.

If the president’s minders can’t tell him, the truth is that there is simmering disquiet, even among staunch Buharists, over the issue of his public asset declaration. And the sooner he resolves it in accordance with popular expectation, the better for the mounting “wind of change.”

conumah@hotmail.com; Follow me on Twitter @conumah. [myad]