Ibrahim Gambari, former chief of staff to the late President Muhammadu Buhari, says some members of the president’s cabal bypassed official protocol t
Ibrahim Gambari, former chief of staff to the late President Muhammadu Buhari, says some members of the president’s cabal bypassed official protocol to get memos directly to him.
Gambari said that despite Buhari’s directive that all official communications be routed through the chief of staff, influential individuals within his inner circle found ways to sidestep the order.
“They knew his weak moment, they knew when to smuggle memos because they knew him as they interacted with him informally,” Gambari said.
“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 noted that despite the backdoor channels, many memos still ended up on his desk, allowing him a degree of oversight.
“Even the vice-president, Yemi Osinbajo, to his credit, always passed his memos through me and several ministers, but our people, the cabal still got their memos to him from behind because they knew his weak point and who to use,” he said.
“He never stopped them, but the advantage I had was that the memos came back to me.”
Gambari had earlier admitted that the cabal, which is synonymous with a think tank or ‘kitchen cabinet’ on which a president relies, was not peculiar to Buhari’s presidency.
“So, some have more powers than others, but every government, I make it bold say, has a cabal of one kind of or whatever name it is called.”
