On his first day at the Aso Rock Villa since his inauguration on May 29, President Muhammadu Buhari said, yesterday, that he inherited a “virtually empty treasury”, from his predecessor, Dr Goodluck Jonathan with debts running into hundreds of millions of dollars. The President disclosed this on a day he ordered the withdrawal of the military from internal security operations as part of a comprehensive review of national security operations.

The President who spoke while meeting with members of the State House Press Corps said it was a disgrace that Nigeria is unable to pay workers salaries, adding that this was as a result of bad management.

According to him, there was already a lot of pressure on his government due to the huge expectations of Nigerians on what they desire from the administration.

While calling on the media to cooperate with his administration, President Buhari said he chose Femi Adesina as his Adviser because he is ‘one of the best’.

His words: “It is not by accident that I got the best of you to be the special adviser, one of the 15 aides I had to get clearance from the Senate. He is one of the best Presidents of the Guild of Editors that I can have as special adviser. I brought one of the best of you so that he can consistently defend me against you.

“Whether my job is a difficult one or easy is up to him, but I’m here to thank you in advance for what good and ill you are going to do to me. I have to quickly come and see you and welcome you to this place. I hope what happened of recent between the former President and one of you (the withdrawal of the accreditation of the Radio Germany reporter) will not happen between me and you.

“I hope we are starting and this culture of 100 days is bringing so much pressure with treasury virtually empty, with debts in millions of dollars, with state workers and even federal workers not paid their salaries. It is such a disgrace for Nigeria. I think Nigeria should be in a position to even pay its workers. This bad management that we find ourselves in, we really need your help to protect us from people before they march on us”, he said.