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  • Politics
  • Updated: June 20, 2020

Kperogi Links Gambari Appointment To Aisha Buhari’s Gunfight With Sabiu Yusuf In New Claims

Kperogi Links Gambari Appointment To Aisha Buhari’s Gunfig

Fresh information has surfaced surrounding the emergence of Prof Ibrahim Gambari as the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari and how the appointment connects to the reported gunfight at the Aso Rock Villa involving First Lady Aisha Buhari's ADC and the President's private secretary cum blood relative, Sabiu Yusuf.

The new insights were contained in Farooq A. Kperogi’s column published on his website Saturday with the title: Backstory Behind Aisha Buhari’s Gunfight with Sabiu Yusuf, wherein the US-based professor described Yusuf as a "former recharge card seller in Daura who is now the third most powerful Nigerian after Buhari and Mamman Daura".

According to the essayist, Gambari was originally not Aisha's preferred candidate to replace the late Abba Kyari as her husband's Chief of Staff but opted for the former diplomat when she realized that her choice wouldn't make the cut and as a way to checkmate Buhari's powerful nephew, Mamman Daura. The First Lady was said to have been initially rooting for Buba Marwa to occupy the office.

Kperogi wrote, “Aisha Buhari was more enthusiastic about Gambari than Mamman Daura was. Gambari’s candidacy was almost entirely pushed by Maiduguri multibillionaire Muhammadu Indimi whose son is married to Aisha’s daughter, Zahra, who celebrated Abba Kyari’s coronavirus infection.

“Of course, Gambari is known to Buhari. Apart from serving as his minister of external affairs when he was a military dictator in the 1980s, possibly on the recommendation of Tunde Idiagbon with whom Gambari shared Ilorin identity, Gambari was drafted to speak to presidents and international bodies to lend legitimacy and credibility to Buhari in the aftermath of his in-your-face electoral heist in 2019.

“Nonetheless, had Indimi not pleaded with Buhari to consider Gambari for the Chief of Staff position, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. It turned out, however, that Buhari and, most importantly, Mamman Daura had not yet been totally sold on the Gambari candidacy when news of his appointment littered social media.

“A close friend to Aisha Buhari’s media consultant told me that it was Aisha Buhari who commissioned his consultant to reach out to social media influencers to spread the story of Gambari’s appointment. At the time I learned of this, it didn’t make sense to me because I knew she wanted Buba Marwa to succeed Abba Kyari.

“Then, in an unusual move, the emir of Ilorin issued a public statement thanking Buhari for appointing Ibrahim Gambari, his uncle, as Chief of Staff to the President even though Gambari had not formally been announced by the presidency as Buhari’s Chief of Staff.

“When I read the emir’s statement, I called an older friend of mine who is close to power brokers in the north and asked if he knew what was happening. He said some opinion leaders there had called Gambari after they read the emir’s statement and asked him if he had been formally appointed.

“My friend reported Gambari to have told them that he had not been formally informed that he had been appointed Chief of Staff. I was confused. Exactly three hours later, my friend called back to say Gambari had just spoken with one of the leaders and said he had just then received word from the Villa that he had been appointed Chief of Staff to Buhari.

“Apparently, realizing that her candidate wouldn’t make the cut—and in order to forestall the possibility of Mamman Daura imposing a candidate on her husband— Aisha decided to compel Buhari into appointing her father-in-law’s candidate through artful social media manipulation.

“I don’t know if she coordinated with the emir of Ilorin, but at the time the emir thanked Buhari for appointing his uncle, Buhari and Mamman Daura had not made up their minds on whom they wanted to be Buhari’s Chief of Staff.

“So Buhari and Daura were dealing with three simultaneous pressures: social media chatter that Gambari had been appointed Chief of Staff when he hadn’t, the emir of Ilorin’s letter of gratitude for an appointment that had not been made, and Muhammadu Indimi’s push on behalf of Gambari. It was too much to resist, so they caved in at the last minute.”

While connecting to foregoing narrative to the reported gunfight in the Aso Presidential Villa, the popular columnist explained that "Daura, having been beaten by Aisha in the choice of Gambari, decided to make Sabiu “Tunde” Yusuf, the son of his sister, the real Chief of Staff and a bulwark against Aisha’s encroachment into Buhari’s politics and policies.

"As I noted in my May 30, 2020 column titled, “Gambari: Embrace and Alienation of an Outsider on the Inside,” “unlike Abba Kyari who had a direct access to Buhari and whom Buhari said all ministers should meet if they wanted anything from him, Gambari has an intermediary between him and Buhari. And it isn’t just any intermediary; the intermediary is Buhari’s blood relative whom my November 23, 2019 column titled ‘Government of Buhari’s Family, By His Family, and For His Family’ exposed.”

Kperogi stated further, "Gambari has turned out to be not the Abba Kyari replacement Aisha had hoped he would be. Instead, Sabi’u “Tunde” Yusuf, her nemesis’ nephew, is the new Abba Kyari. Since the “Earth” hasn’t “cleansed” itself of the man like it did with Abba Kyari, she and her children wanted to do it themselves."

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