Buhari's Tale Of Empty Treasury And $30 Billion Loan

By Onyiorah Paschal Chidulemije

Ever since he was sworn in as a democratically elect­ed President of Nigeria on May 29, 2015, one frivolous trend that has conspicuously character­ized President Muhammadu Bu­hari’s administration is the inces­sant and boring tale of how he inherited empty treasury from the past government of Presi­dent Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Like a nagging spouse, the Pres­ident would always explore and exploit every small or big oppor­tunity, either within or outside the country, to blabber on about how he came in to behold an empty treasury.

*Jonathan and Buhari 

Just recently, while addressing members of the National Insti­tute for Policy and Strategic Stud­ies who visited him in the State House, the President was report­edly quoted as saying that he al­most ran away from office after taking over from President Good­luck Ebele Jonathan.

Please hear him: “Actually, I felt like absconding…I asked if there was any savings and I was told there was no savings”.

Strangely enough, like a rea­sonable person will ask, is this why a man who had repeatedly contested for the Presidency of Nigeria and, thus, implicitly          pre­pared himself – psychological­ly and otherwise - to change the course of the country, should have taken to his heels? Oh my God! 

Now, let us return to the is­sue of President Buhari’s unending tale of empty treasury. Obvi­ously, it is no longer news that for umpteenth times, many a Nigerian had urged Mr. President to make public the hand-over notes bequeathed to him by the immediate past government of President Goodluck Jonathan so that the citizenry too could empirical­ly share a good deal with him on this lingering tale of having inher­ited an empty treasury from his predecessor. But all to no avail. Yet, this is an “honest” man and President who wants all and sun­dry to believe that he is not to a very large extent or, worse still, solely responsible for the current economic recession bedeviling the country (?).