Buharism is anchored on the economic direction of the centre left progressive ideology. Its economic reforms was characterised as moving the political economy away from the control of a "parasitic" elites and into the control of a "productive "class. To its students, Buharism represented a two way struggle: with external globalism and with its internal agents and advocates" Its agenda for social order shows a demonstrable character of State Consequentialism. Consequentialists believe that the morality of an action is contingent on the action's outcome, therefore an action is right if it delivers a greater good for a greater number of people. An action is therefore right, if it leads to state order, welfare of the people and their material prosperity.
Economic ideology
Buharism rejected the dominant approach of the Washington Consensus, rather holding that for a crisis-wracked country to successfully improve its balance of payments through devaluation, there must first exist the condition that the price of every country's export is denominated in its own currency. In the case of Nigeria, it largely exported Crude Oil which was sold on dollar terms, and exported no finished goods which will be priced cheaper by devaluation and result in supposed economic recovery under the Washington Consensus Model. As such a condition did not exist, Buharism asserted that, for any country where Washington Consensus conditions do not exist clearly enough, there are alternate approaches to solving the problem of its economic crisis. Therefore, instead of applying devaluation to get the then crisis-wracked economy of Nigeria back on track, Buharism instead employed a policy of curbing imports of goods deemed unnecessary, curtailing oil theft, and improving exports through a counter trade policy of bartering seized bunkered crude oil for goods like machinery, enabling it to export above its OPEC quota.
Neo-Buharism
In 2015, with Muhammadu Buhari's return to power as a civilian president, and faced with an economic crisis that included massive downturn in global oil prices, record level of unemployment, un-diversified economy and security challenges that cut production without savings due to institutional decay and corruption in successive administrations, Buharism meant an inward focused strategy that rejected austerity measures targeting the poorest while enhancing investments in infrastructure and leveraging state powers to cut imports. Buharism as an economic policy emphasizes providing incremental domestic production and thus job opportunities by restricting imports and encouraging import substitution. It also emphasizes state investments in infrastructure while curtailing corruption to increase productivity while recovering the economic resources captured by established power blocs to provide social safety nets for the poorest during the transition period to economic self sufficiency.
Criticism
Critics have often referred to Buharir's political outlook as dictatorial and authoritarian. The election-centric outlook of Buharism has often been described as an illiberal democracy. Buharism they argue, and its emphasis on state consequentialism evidently gives rise to an anti-aristocratic police state as opposed to a legal state. This political anomaly further extends towards a dichotomic relationship between the apparatus of the state on the one hand and legalism on the other supported by the ruling elite.
