Lawyer and author Charles Omole has revealed that cabals in the late President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration went as far as planting stories in newspapers specifically for the former president to read.
Omole spoke on Thursday during an interview on Channels Television about his newly launched biography, From Soldier to Statesman: The Legacy of Muhammadu Buhari, which chronicles key aspects of Buhari’s presidency from 2015 to 2023.
“Like I said in the book, every president, since 1999, had his own cabal,” Omole said.
“The current one (Tinubu’s administration) is slightly more complicated. He has more than one cabal. Every president has their own cabal. Cabal is not necessarily a bad thing like I said in the book. The cabals can become a force multiplier. If they share the intention of the leaders they can help magnify his programmes and help achieve much better things. But the problem comes when cabals have their own agenda.”
Omole highlighted that in Buhari’s government, an “overarching” cabal shaped policies and controlled information flow. “One of the things about Buhari is that he loved reading newspapers. Everybody knows that right from his early days, he was a newspaper man. There were reports that the cabals went to the extent of creating his own newspaper. They would plant stories that they want him to read,” he said.
He contrasted this with the current Tinubu administration, noting the presence of multiple power blocs. “This current government, from what I can see, has at least five cabals. The interesting thing is that one of the cabals is actually headed by the president himself based on my own analysis.”
Omole also categorized the five cabals in Tinubu’s government: Femi Gbajabiamila’s group, Seyi Tinubu’s camp, Remi Tinubu, the principal private secretary’s camp, and a geriatric camp led by the president himself.
“The challenge, of course, with someone like Buhari is that there was one overarching cabal but in this current government, there are multiple cabals. I think this has its plus and minus,” he added.
