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.
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.
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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! Wonders shall never cease! Perhaps this latest confession may well help us all to begin to appreciate with hindsight the seemingly misleading rationale that often belied President Buhari’s initial obsession, predilection or proclivities for always junketing around the world soon after his inauguration. Anyway, that is by the way.
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 (?). And this development is more so worrisomely curious when juxtaposed with the fact that even Honourable members of the National Assembly had sometime urged President Buhari by a resolution to make public the hand-over notes passed on to him by the government of President Goodluck Jonathan. As usual, he still turned a deaf ear to all that. Little wonder, therefore, that people are wont to submit that the President is a man highly impervious to public opinions.
But granted that this submission is anchor on a bogus premise, one still wonders why the President is seriously loath to make public the total or actual amount of money that has so far accrued from the Single Treasury Account (TSA). In the same vein, it is no less surprising that despite all entreaties by Nigerians to his government to disclose the sum of money thus far recovered from looters of our treasury, President Buhari has rather remained indifferent to this legitimate demand of Nigerians he is purportedly fighting for their interest and well-being.
Meanwhile, this is the same President who perhaps still wallows in the ignorance that one of the ways of addressing the current economic downturn in the country is by selling off our hard-earned national assets and using the proceeds therefrom to rescue the bad economic situation.
Arguably, though, apparently discouraged later by the public outcry that followed the announcement of this policy proposal, President Muhammadu Buhari has once again veered to the idea of external borrowing of the whopping sum of $29.96 billion from multilateral bodies, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its ilk, ostensibly to be used for infrastructural development in the country. Though needless to say it, this is yet another goose chasing exercise on the part of the Presidency. This, at the very best, is analogous to the case of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Of course, great kudos to the Distinguished Senators of the hallowed chamber for timely throwing away this Buhari’s $30 billion loan request. As it were, truth be told, Nigeria can reasonably afford to address her infrastructural deficit without necessarily borrowing a dime or mortgaging the future of the generations yet unborn.
If therefore President Muhammadu Buhari is not mentally and/or intellectually disposed to make do with the available resources within our municipal limit and reach, let him quickly abdicate in favour of Prof. Yemi Osibanjo and, in fact, waste no more time to run away as he once contemplated, and should stop boring us all with his outrageous tale of empty treasury (all the time).
Onyiorah Paschal Chiduluemije, a Journalist, Writes from Abuja & can be contacted via: 07012130204
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