The Cabal (Mis)ruling Nigeria

By SOC Okenwa

In the history of the Nigerian presidency (post-June 12 from 1999) no First Lady had demonstrated rare courageous patriotic determination like the current one, Aisha Buhari. Perhaps her quality academic background must have played a major part in the way and manner she sees issues as regards her husband’s embattled administration. Madam Buhari remains an amazon, an enigma whose national interventions had earned her plaudits from many a Nigerian.

Her predecessors were busy enhancing their cosmetic beauties or amassing wealth to the detriment of national well-being. Or worse still, manoeuvring to take over power by proxy upon the tragic demise of their executive spouses.

Pre-1999 the two unpatriotic dictators (the late Gen. Sani Abacha and Gen. Ibrahim Babangida) — the latter, a Maradonic political dribbler, nay swindler, living in obscene opulence in Minna annulled June 12 throwing the nation into an unnecessary crisis she has not recovered from even today. And the former who died poisoned by an imported Indian prostitute looted the federal treasury mind-bogglingly a la Mobutu to the tune of billions of Dollars hidden in offshore bank accounts. Years after his timely demise Nigerians were treated to a corruption ‘movie’ called ‘Abacha-Loot’!

Their wives shared the same name: Mariam. Maryam Babangida and Mariam Abacha were obviously content being in the kitchen, the bedroom and the other room as their bloody husbands raided the treasury and killed pro-democracy forces opposed to their despotic methods and tactics. Today Mrs Babangida is longer living with us in flesh and blood having left IBB as a widower some years ago. But Mariam Abacha is still very much around living happily in Kano with whatever is left of the Abacha loot yet to be discovered by the state authorities!

The late Stella Obasanjo never made herself heard on anything during her husband’s eight years as elected President. She occupied herself with her outward beauty ignorantly ignoring what the all-time literary great, William Shakespeare, said about beauty needing no pencil and truth no colour! She died in Spain following a surgery aimed at improving her physical features. And ‘Baba’ has since moved on with life.

Hajia Turai Yar’Adua was busy coveting power even when the late husband, ex-President Umaru Yar’Adua, was suffering from the Churg-Strauss Syndrome which later claimed his life. The politically-ambitious woman was used by power mongers from the north working as Yar’Adua’s inner circle to want to capture power through the back door upon their knowledge that their principal had kicked the bucket in a foreign hospital. But the “doctrine of necessity” thwarted their evil plan!

After Hajia Turai was sent packing to Katsina Patience Jonathan came in with her strange brand of politics featuring gaffes, disrespect of protocol and cupidity. The woman from Rivers State was so overbearing and meddlesome that her husband, former President Goodluck Jonathan, was never able to control her caprices and whims. Enter Aisha Buhari!

Elegant, intelligent and intrepid Mrs Buhari refuses to be confined to the kitchen, the bedroom or the ‘other room’ as her husband may have wished or willed. Buhari as a retired General may not fully understand the real meaning of true love given his embarrassing “the other room” declaration in far-away Germany following the Aisha first cut (which happened to be the deepest). In a controversial interview she had granted the Hausa Service of the BBC few years ago the presidential wife had indicated that her husband’s regime was literally held hostage by stange forces. Even before that interview Nigerians were in the know that an entrenched cabal had hijacked power at the centre with which they were doing whatever they fancied.

Few weeks ago (early December this year to be precise) the First Lady attended a National Women Leadership Summit organised by a political group, Project 4+4 for Buhari & Osinbajo 2019, in Abuja. And she never disappointed her audience by speaking truth to power as it were! For her “the leadership of the country under her husband would have performed better, but for two powerful individuals standing as clogs in its wheels. Mrs. Buhari said there are two men in President Muhammadu Buhari administration who have constituted themselves as hindrance for the speedy progress of governance”.

Attempts by the Special Adviser on Political Matters to the President, Senator Babafemi Ojodu to persuade her to move away from the topic failed as she continued in her criticism of the system. Making reference to this interference she said: “I have realised that Senator Babafemi Ojodu and Dr. Hajo Sani, my aide, Sajo, and wife of the Vice President, Mrs. Osinbajo, are not comfortable with me saying this and want me to confine myself to my prepared speech, but we must say the truth”.

No one knows for sure the “two powerful men” Aisha was referring to. But suffice to say here that the existence of a cabal in Aso Rock is well known to discerning Nigerians. We know that the Villa cabal comprises the fallen D-G of the Directorate of State Security (DSS), Lawal Daura, Buhari’s powerful nephew, Mamman Daura, his Personal Secretary, Tunde ‘Idiagbon’ Sabiu, a mercurial businessman, Isa Funtua, Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and Babagana Kingibe, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Now that one of the Dauras, Lawal, no longer enjoys limitless power he may be excused from the larger picture.

The Muhammadu Buhari we know is not good at managing men and resources without recourse to trusted lieutenants. During his first coming as a military no-nonsense tyrant that toppled a democratically-elected government in 1984’s eve he was alleged to have ‘ceded’ power to the late Gen. Tunde Idiagbon, his second-in-command. He may still be a man of integrity, one who detests filthy lucre unlike the late Gen. Abacha and Gen. Babangida but he lacks administrative competence and charismatic aura expected of the President of most populous black country and the richest in the African continent.

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Buhari is damn good as a good General in fighting wars and insurgencies yet his inability to go beyond defeating “technically” Boko Haram has punctured his promise to give a bloody nose to the terrorist organisation upon his emergence as the President. He has, of course, given a bloody nose to the detained Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky and his Shiites’ followers in Zaria. As well as the fugitive Nnamdi Kanu and his Biafran elements in the south-east.

The beautiful Aisha Buhari had said it before about the existence of a cabal in and around her hubby’s presidency and she has just recently persisted and insisted on what she was convinced about. Many prominent Nigerians (including the beloved Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal) had stated matter-of-factly and restated their positions on the national governance by proxy being operated by Buharism. Buhari himself has refused to acknowledge the fact that some undesirable unelected elements are out to undo his administration.

As an elder statesman in his twilight years here on earth the President cannot possibly claim ignorance, when the jury is out after leaving Aso Rock next year, of the existence of the gerontocrats he surrounded himself with. Amb. Kingibe, Abba Kyari, the Daura brothers and the other cabal members at large are misruling Nigeria on behalf of Buhari. And Buhari must be held accountable and responsible for whatever damage or destruction they might have wrought on the system.

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