Gambari: Every govt has cabal
Ibrahim Gambari, former Chief of Staff to the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has disclosed that there are cabals in every government. Gambari served as Buhari’s Chief of Staff from May 2020 to May 2023 after the death of Abba Kyari, his predecessor. Speaking on Channels Television’s Inside Sources on Friday, Gambari addressed long-standing reports of […]
Former Foreign Affairs Minister and Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari
Ibrahim Gambari, former Chief of Staff to the late ex-President Muhammadu Buhari, has disclosed that there are cabals in every government.
Gambari served as Buhari’s Chief of Staff from May 2020 to May 2023 after the death of Abba Kyari, his predecessor.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Inside Sources on Friday, Gambari addressed long-standing reports of a powerful cabal that operated in Buhari’s presidency.
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).”
The diplomat also revealed how members of the late president’s cabal often bypassed him to secretly send memos to the president.
“They knew his weak moment, they knew when to smuggle (memos) because they knew him as they interacted with him informally.
“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,” he said.