By Abdulrahim Abdulkadir
Five hundred and eighty-nine days after then-President Muhammadu Buhari handed over power to incumbent Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, a close associate of the former and leading Minister in his administration, Solomon Dalung, has asserted that a cabal in the Buhari government dipped their hands into public funds.
Dalung, who served as Minister of Sports and Youth from November,2015 to May,2019, stated this on Channels TV ‘Politics Today’ programme on Tuesday.
He made the allegation while reflecting on the comparative activities and destructive consequences of cabals in the Buhari and Tinubu administrations.
President Tinubu,it would be recalled, had in the early days of his government, promised not to allow the existence of cabals in his administration.
But Dalung has revealed: “And so, their (Buhari’s government cabal) activities were more or less limited to their parochial view of understanding power relations and exchanging hands to help themselves with the public purse.”
Recall that the Buhari administration came to power on a singsong of fighting corruption,among others.
According to Dalung, the Buhari cabal, which members’ identities he failed to mention, were less educated and less sophisticated than the Tinubu cabal and,to him, posed less discomfort to the country’s presidency.
He said: “Of course, President Muhammadu Buhari’s government had cabals. That is known and that, I have attested to it.
“But I am saying that President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabals were made up of people who were not quite informed, with little experience in politics, public administration, and governance.
“And so, their activities were more or less limited to their parochial view of understanding power relations and exchanging hands to help themselves with the public purse.
“But President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s cabal is made up of sophisticated and ambitious group of people who had a long history in power. They are experienced, they are educated, and so they have sound knowledge of what power is.”
To him, the Tinubu presidency will feel the devastating effects of his administration’s cabal’s undertakings in worse fashion than Buhari’s because the former are adept at manipulating power.
Dalung added: “And since they are an ambitious set of people, the presidency will suffer more than that of President Muhammadu Buhari because of their capacity to manipulate power, their capacity to also build security barricade around the president and stifle information from getting to the president except that which they wanted, and then the control of those they would want to access the president.
“These cabals are masters, and therefore, are more dangerous than any cabal in the history of this country.”
