Former presidential aide, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, on Monday, revealed the identities of those he claimed are President Muhammadu Buhari’s “cabal” members.
He gave the names in an article about Buhari’s late Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, entitled “How are the mighty fallen.”
The Minister of Aviation was close to Kyari, who decades ago, worked for the law firm of his father, Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo, after his return to Nigeria from the United Kingdom.
Africa Today News reports that since Buhari assumed power in 2015, there have been several reports and references to a certain “cabal” controlling his government.
As of today, the Yoruba World Congress (YWC), insisted that the clique exists.
YWC President, Prof. Banji Akintoye, in a statement, claimed that Kyari was the one controlling most of the affairs of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
He described Kyari as Nigeria’s “de facto President” before his demise and suggested that he was the one controlling affairs.
The Yoruba leader said it was outrageous that Buhari ordered all appointees and government officials go through Kyari on matters that required his attention.
“We are talking of high public officials such governors, ministers, ambassadors, top federal career civil servants, national assembly members and, to our collective embarrassment, the vice-president.
“A Chief of Staff is no more than the head of the president’s kitchen cabinet, the president’s own personal collection of personal staff, that has no superiority to the structural pillars established by the constitution of Nigeria.
“Abba Kyari’s unconstitutional position as de facto president in recent times, coupled with an elected President who is periodically nowhere to be found, has seriously denuded the legitimacy of government in our country.”
In his piece, Fani-Kayode hinted that there are powerful people around the president but that the deceased was not their head.
“Some say he was the leader of the cabal. This is a cabal in which seasoned and skillful old war horses, ancient northern political veterans and warriors like Mamman Daura, Zangon Daura, Mahmoud Tukur, Ismaila Isa Funtua, Lawal Daura, Baba Gana Kingibe and many others.”
He added that Kyari was a powerful Chief of Staff “but he was far from being head of the cabal or being de facto President.”
Fani-Kayode stated if Kyari was the strongest of them, “many of those (Buhari’s appointees) in office at the time of his death would not have been there anymore because he would have fired them long ago.”
He added that God alone sees the heart, knows who is who and “will call each and every one of us to account for our deeds and misdeeds. It is not for me or anyone else to judge Kyari and it is not for anyone else to judge me or to judge you.
The ex-minister posited that for all good deeds, “there shall be reward in the afterlife and for our bad ones we shall suffer. That applies to us all and as the Bible says, “let he that is free of sin throw the first stone.”
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK