NGScorecard

Shagari's flagship programme distributed seed and fertiliser to farmers and commissioned irrigation dams (Bakalori in Sokoto, Kafin Zaki in Bauchi and others) to make Nigeria self-sufficient in food.

Output did not keep pace with population or with rising demand, and food imports climbed through the term — imported rice became so associated with the era that it was nicknamed 'rice Shagari'. The Bakalori scheme itself was marred by a violent 1980 confrontation with displaced farmers.

To move the federal capital from Lagos to the purpose-built city of Abuja, with roads, power and water.

Construction advanced substantially — the Usman Dam was built in 1980 and by 1983 Abuja was described as a functional city — but the seat of government did not actually relocate until 1991, under a later military government.

A federal housing programme targeting 200,000 low-cost units — the 'Shagari houses'.

Only about 32,000 units had been completed by June 1983 — a large programme by Nigerian standards, but a fraction of the target, and the incomplete estates became a byword for over-promising.

To build a domestic steel industry, anchored by the Ajaokuta Steel complex — billed as the largest steel project in Africa at the time — and Delta Steel.

Delta Steel was completed in 1982 and Ajaokuta was commissioned, but Ajaokuta never entered full production and remained unfinished for decades afterward — one of Nigeria's longest-running infrastructure failures, begun on Shagari's watch.

To sustain development spending and public services as oil revenue held up.

The 1981 collapse in oil prices hit government finances hard. Shagari rejected IMF adjustment and ran an Economic Stabilization Programme (import licensing, austerity) with minimal effect; external debt rose sharply and the economy was in open crisis by the end of 1983.