Please hurry up Oct 23rd 2008 | LAGOS From The Economist print edition People are worried about Umaru Yar'Adua's slow pace of government ReutersAS GOVERNOR of a sparsely populated state in northern Nigeria, President Umaru Yar'Adua was known fondly as "the silent achiever". But a year-and-a- half into his first term as his country's president, more and more people are muttering that his unhurried style is failing to move the machinery of Africa's biggest and most boisterous nation. Nowadays he has a new nickname, taken from Nigeria's notorious traffic jams: "Baba Go-Slow". Many Nigerians are complaining that their soft- spoken president has failed to fulfil his inaugural promises, for instance to improve the energy sector and to end violence in the oil-rich Delta region, which is losing the country billions of dollars of oil revenue. And worries about his own health are creating a mood of uncertainty. "Initially I thought he was being deliberate—he likes to think before he acts," says a frustrated former government minister who lost out when Mr Yar'Adua came to office. "But now I think he's just out of his depth. He's overwhelmed. Nothing is going to be achieved." Under Mr Yar'Adua, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), an anti-corruption body, has lost its bite. Civil strife in the Delta has worsened. Nationwide electricity cuts are as frequent as ever. Worries about his kidney ailment have exacerbated things; northern power- brokers seem more concerned to retain power in the event of the president's demise than to get Nigeria back on its feet. Before he was unexpectedly chosen to succeed Olusegun Obasanjo, Mr Yar'Adua, a former chemistry teacher, was a little-known governor of the remote northern state of Katsina. There he earned a name for quiet efficiency, spending eight years deliberating and consulting as he steadily invested in development. On the sleepy sun-baked streets of Katsina, his reputation remains high. "He seeks many viewpoints before making a decision," says Mustapha Inuwa, who held several senior posts in Katsina under Mr Yar'Adua. "That's why it may take him a little time before he takes a position on an issue. But when he does take his stand, you find he rarely makes a mistake." So far, as president, there have been no big decisions, so no big mistakes. He rarely pontificates in the media. But he did make a slew of promises at his inauguration in May last year. Top of his list was restoring peace in the Delta and revamping Nigeria's dreadful electricity system. Now he is even further away from doing so than when he took office. Attacks by militants in the Delta have reduced oil output so sharply that Angola is threatening to knock Nigeria off its spot as the continent's biggest producer. Businessmen and potential investors were particularly upset when the EFCC's head, Nuhu Ribadu, who had won international praise for tackling government corruption, was sacked and then banished to a remote corner of Nigeria for "retraining". But Mr Yar'Adua's admirers say his deliberative style is right for a country with a feeble infrastructure and an array of problems that cannot be solved simply by having oil cash thrown at them. Few think he is personally corrupt—a rare compliment for a Nigerian leader. Some think he should take credit for a relative absence of religious and ethnic strife since he took over a country of 140m people speaking some 250 languages. In the first years of Mr Obasanjo's presidency, tens of thousands of people were killed in civil strife. But Mr Yar'Adua's ill health is a growing worry. He recently spent more than two weeks in Saudi Arabia, officially on a pilgrimage, but also reportedly for kidney treatment. When a Nigerian news station reported that he might step down on health grounds, the government yanked the broadcaster temporarily off the air, only magnifying the topic's sensitivity.