The President has come under a lot of fire in the past few months (we take as much blame as we deserve here). Understandably, for many Nigerians, there’s no way things should have become more difficult and the President has a lot to answer for as far as they are concerned.

On his part, the President has maintained an “it-gets-darker-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-and-I-did-not-even-drag-you-into-the-tunnel-in-the-first-place” stance. He’s stood his ground in throwing off as much blame for the current state of affairs as he can.

Still, that has not stopped people from calling him a failure who only made lofty promises to address personal vendetta.

The truth is that there is merit to both arguments. One person, however, has made the bold and assertive move to pat the President on his shoulder disagreeing with one of the most prevalent theories used to support the assessment of Buhari’s failure so far.

That person is Pastor Tunde Bakare, the one-time running mate of the President who had just last week said that he’d be divinely instructed not to take part in the President’s administration for the first two years.

He said this while delivering his annual State of the Nation address at his Church, the Latter Rain Assembly earlier. And because we believe the President can do with a little bit of slack we have provided this part of the address that has somehow not made the news as much as the other parts:

“I have heard concerned citizens attribute Nigeria’s current challenges to a lack of direction by the present administration. I beg to disagree with this opinion no matter how widely held.

Right from his inaugural address, President Buhari outlined a three-point policy thrust that included combating insecurity, tackling corruption and dealing with unemployment through diversification.”

Quoting a Nigerian Security Tracker portal managed by the United States Council on Foreign Relations, that maps violence in Nigeria, the Pastor said  the number of deaths per month from violence perpetuated by a combination of state and non-state actors, including Boko Haram, dropped “from 767 deaths in May 2015 when this government came into power, to 250 deaths in December 2016, 19 months into the administration.”

“As at April 2016, despite the acceleration of global terror, Boko Haram’s impact had been reduced from 22 attacks per month in 2015 to 9 per month in 2016.”

He continued by saying that the diversification efforts had also pushed for the attention that the agricultural sector now gets with the agricultural sector “growing by 4.54% in the third quarter of the year despite the 2.24% year on year reduction in growth rate”.

“The third quarter also saw growth in non-oil sectors, including fishing and crop production. These are signs of a diversifying economy.”

Therefore, the assumption that the Buhari administration lacks direction is questionable.”