Former Chief of Staff to the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof Ibrahim Gambari, has revealed how members of the president’s inner circle often bypassed him to secretly send memos to the president.
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Speaking on Channels Television’s Inside Sources on Friday, Gambari said although Buhari had instructed that all memos be routed through him, some appointees exploited the president’s “weak point” to get their messages across informally.
“They knew his weak moment, they knew when to smuggle (memos) because they knew him as they interacted with him informally,” Gambari said.
Gambari served as Buhari’s Chief of Staff from May 2020 to May 2023 after the death of his predecessor, Abba Kyari.
“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.
“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,” the diplomat stated.
He said, “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.
“(Former President Olusegun) Obasanjo had a group of people. The Aboyades of this world and others – a small group of people. 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.
“Some have more powers than others, but I’m bold to say that every government has a cabal of some kind or another, whatever name it is called. So, there was (a cabal under Buhari).
“I was a minister 1884-1985 but I wasn’t privy to why he was removed by his colleagues; they put him there but one of the reasons I’m told was the military people were resenting the fact that Head of State Buhari was now getting a lot of advice and second-guessing the decision of his military colleagues – the Supreme Military Council.”
Gambari, who previously served as foreign affairs minister under Buhari’s military regime in the 1980s, also reflected on the president’s decision-making style.
He said Buhari was deeply loyal to his appointees and reluctant to fire anyone, even in the face of mounting pressure.
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