The Absurdity Of Dr. Sulaiman’s Claim That Buhari Was Lying About Meeting An Empty Treasury
A former Deputy Chairman of the National Planning Commission (NPC) Dr. Abubakar Olanrewaju Sulaiman, has stated that President Muhammadu Buhari lied for claiming that he inherited an ‘empty treasury’ from the immediate past administration.
The former minister’s claim is as absurd as it is baseless.
Firstly, the president did not exactly say he met an empty treasury, the president’s words were, “VIRTUALLY met an empty treasury”.
These are Dr. Sulaiman’s words, however, “Until they are able to prove they had no receipts from these government agencies in the last one month before Nigerians can now buy into Mr. President’s claims of an empty treasury.”
The former minister accusing the president of lying quoted the president out of context by removing the word “virtually” from the president’s statement.
If the former minister, who supposedly has a doctorate degree, had bothered to check the meaning of the word, “virtually” he would have discovered that the word means “almost” or “nearly”.
So, the president did not say he met an empty treasury, he said he met a treasury that was nearly or almost empty.
“Nearly”, “almost” or “virtually” are relative terms. In the words of the ex-minister himself, Nigeria has the largest economy in Africa and the 26th largest in the world so the amount of money found in the treasury that made the president claim the treasury is virtually empty could be any amount.
Secondly, let us consider the ex-minister’s claim that the last administration left $30 billion in the treasury: Was the ex-minster not in the country on Sunday when the chairman of the Transition Committee, Dr. Ahmed Joda, said the last administration left a N7 Trillion deficit? Why has he not challenged that figure? Is it because he knows the Chairman of the transition Committee was correct?
With the Naira exchanging at N198 to $1, N7 Trillion is roughly equivalent to $34 billion. So let’s do the simple arithmetic: The past administration left $30 billion in the treasury and a deficit of $34 billion. I don’t need to explain this but I will. The $34 billion deficit automatically swallows the $30 billion left in the treasury.
If president Buhari should be accused of anything, it is sugar coating the situation by saying the treasury is virtually empty because it is not virtually empty it is actually empty!