Opinion: Who is in charge of Buhari's government

Editor’s note: There have been reports that there is a powerful cabal controlling President Muhammadu Buhari in the decisions he makes and this has been reinforced by his wife, Aisha’s comment that people who worked for his presidency have been relegated In this opinion published on Daily Trust, the writer lists 12 actions the president has taken that has raised the suspicion that there is a strong force responsible for his actions. The powerful cabal Old time newspaper readers must have chuckled yesterday when several newspapers reported President Muhammadu Buhari as saying that he is in charge of his government and had not abandoned his constitutional powers to his nephew, Malam Mamman Daura. The president spoke to the online medium The Osasu Show. He said, “I don’t know where [those making the allegation] get their news from. I stood for the election. I visited every local government in Nigeria. I travelled by road, by air and so on and we had one of the most credible election. So whoever feels he has lost somehow is his own problem. I have no problem.” In recent weeks and months, allegations were routinely made in political circles and the news media that the president was not in charge of his government; that a cabal of unelected persons has seized control and is calling the shots in the State House. The president’s wife Hajia Aisha sensationally added to the chorus when she alluded to the same cabal whose members, she said, do not even have voter’s registration cards. Names are not often mentioned in these allegations but the men widely believed to constitute this power cabal are Malam Mamman Daura and the president’s Chief of Staff Malam Abba Kyari. Sometimes Secretary to the Government of the Federation Babachir David Lawal is added to the mix.
President Buhari has denied the existence of a cabal in his government