By THOUGH belated, former Chief of Staff to the Nigeria’s late former President Muhammadu Buhari, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, has confirmed the existence of a “cabal” in the previous administration.
He stated that the influential group knew and exploited Buhari’s “weak moment” to bypass official protocols to have their ways.
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Gambari made the revelation on Friday during an interview on Channels Television’s Inside Sources with Laolu Akande.
Recall that Gambari served as Chief of Staff from May 2020 to May 2023, following the death of his predecessor, Abba Kyari.
Muhammadu Buhari
He revealed that despite Buhari’s public directive that all official memos be routed through his office, some individuals found ways to circumvent the process.
“When I came as Chief of Staff to the President, he made a statement publicly. He said all memos must go through the Chief of Staff before coming to him,” Gambari recalled.
“Even the Vice President (Yemi Osinbajo), to his credit, always passed his memos through me and several ministers, but our people still got their memos to him from behind because they knew his weak point and who to use and he never stopped them, but the advantage I had was that the memos came back to me,” Gambari stated.
Addressing the long-standing public speculation about a powerful inner circle, Gambari confirmed its existence, but argued that it is a common feature of all governments.
“They say there was a cabal, there was. Every government has a cabal. They may call them a kitchen cabinet; they may call them a think tank,” he said.
He cited former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration as an example of a government with a small, trusted inner circle.
“It’s the nature of the office of the president that they must have some people in and out of government whom they can let their guard down to and talk to freely,” he explained.
He acknowledged that while “some have more powers than others,” every administration has a group of trusted confidants.
Gambari also touched on Buhari’s first stint as a military Head of State from 1984-1985, where he served as a minister.
He noted that while he was not privy to the exact reasons for Buhari’s removal by his military colleagues, he was told that one of the contributing factors was the military’s resentment of Buhari’s reliance on civilian advisers, which led to him “second-guessing the decision of his military colleagues.”
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