Since the exit of former President Muhammadu Buhari from office in May 2023 and his passing earlier this year, Nigeria has entered a phase of historical revisionism concerning his eight-year rule. What is unfolding is not accidental. It is deliberate, calculated, and strategic. A well-coordinated attempt is underway to rebrand, sanitize, and recast Buhari’s presidency in softer, more flattering tones—often stripped of the uncomfortable truths Nigerians lived through.
At the center of this posthumous image laundering is a sudden flood of books, memoirs, documentaries, and testimonials authored, sponsored, or subtly influenced by individuals who were either direct beneficiaries of Buhari’s administration or members of his intimate political and family ecosystem. These works seek not merely to document history but to define it, controlling how the Buhari years will be remembered.
One of the most controversial among these publications is From Soldier to a Statesman by Charles Omole. While marketed as a legacy book, it has ignited widespread debate—particularly following revelations attributed to Buhari’s widow, which touched on deeply sensitive state and personal matters, including marital relationships and internal power struggles within Aso Rock. Rather than clarifying Buhari’s legacy, the book inadvertently reopened old wounds and validated long-held suspicions about dysfunction at the heart of his government.
This piece is not written from the safety of hindsight alone. It is written from proximity.
I do not write as a casual observer or armchair analyst. I write as someone who enjoyed close personal and professional access to President Muhammadu Buhari—access that was neither symbolic nor ceremonial. We shared mutual respect, and he extended to me a degree of trust and confidence that, ironically, became the very reason I attracted hostility from powerful figures around him.
That access—direct, unfiltered, and uncontrollable—made me a threat.
The Myth of a Unified Presidency
One of the greatest myths of the Buhari era is the idea of a centralized, disciplined, and tightly controlled presidency. In reality, power under Buhari was anything but monolithic. It was fragmented, contested, and weaponized by competing factions operating within the Presidential Villa.
What existed was not a single cabal, but a multi-layered cabal system—three dominant power blocs locked in perpetual rivalry, suspicion, and occasional strategic alliances.
1. The Political Cabal, anchored by the late Chief of Staff
2. The Family Cabal, largely influenced by the First Lady
3. The Inner Caucus Cabal, composed of select aides and gatekeepers, coordinated through the President’s personal assistant, Tunde Sabiu
These were not advisory groups. They were power cults—each obsessed with proximity, access, and control over presidential decisions. Their currency was not ideology or national interest, but influence.
Enemies by Proximity, Allies by Convenience
Though united by access to Buhari, these cabals were deeply distrustful of one another. Their rivalry was fierce, personal, and often vindictive. Whenever one faction sensed encroachment on its territory—appointments, contracts, budgets, or presidential access—the response was swift and ruthless.
Yet, like Herod and Pontius Pilate in biblical lore, they routinely buried their mutual hatred when confronted with a perceived outsider.
That outsider, at various points, was me.
My crime was simple: I had unrestricted access to the President that they could neither monitor nor regulate. I could speak to him directly, candidly, and privately. That reality destabilized their carefully constructed gatekeeping systems.
Blocked, Silenced, and Strategically Isolated
The hostility eventually became institutional. I was systematically cut off from the President—officially, privately, and electronically. Calls went unanswered. Messages vanished. Requests for audience were intercepted.
In one particularly humiliating episode, I wrote five formal letters requesting an appointment. None received acknowledgment—not even a rejection.
It became clear that access to Buhari had been militarized.
Out of frustration and desperation, I took an unconventional step. After a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, I bypassed protocol and quietly approached the President during lunch. I explained, calmly but firmly, that I had been completely blocked from seeing him.
His response was telling—both in its honesty and its resignation.
He told me plainly that even if I wrote ten more letters, they would end up in the dustbin. He then offered an alternative that revealed the depth of the dysfunction: whenever I needed to see him, I should wait after FEC meetings, “ambush” him, and walk with him to his office.
That informal backdoor became my only reliable channel of access—a personal “NADECO route” that sustained my engagement with the President for the remainder of my time in government.
The First Major War: Food, Power, and Control
The inter-cabal conflict began early in the administration, and its first major flashpoint was deceptively mundane: the Presidential Villa’s feeding and maintenance budget.
Under the previous administration, the budget—estimated at about ₦500 million—was managed by the Office of the First Lady. Shortly after Buhari assumed office, the Chief of Staff allegedly slashed the allocation to ₦100 million and transferred control to himself.
What followed was not just bureaucratic disagreement but open warfare.
The political cabal viewed the First Lady as overly ambitious, unpredictable, and potentially destabilizing. The family cabal, on the other hand, saw participation in government as a long-awaited route to economic empowerment—what some insiders privately described as an “escape from poverty.”
Caught in the middle was President Buhari.
In this struggle, he sided largely with the political cabal. That alignment explains the unusually public and repeated outbursts by the First Lady, who openly criticized the administration, the party, and even the President himself—an unprecedented spectacle in Nigerian political history.
A President Caged by His Own Court
To suggest that Buhari was unaware of this hijack would be dishonest.
He knew.
He knew that access to him was being rationed. He knew that memos were filtered. He knew that loyalty was being weaponized and dissent punished. Yet, whether out of temperament, calculation, exhaustion, or fear of implosion, he allowed the system to persist.
In doing so, the President became both the symbol and the victim of a captured government.
While cabals fought over scraps of power, Nigeria drifted—economically weakened, socially polarized, and institutionally hollowed out. Governance suffered. Accountability vanished. Decisions were delayed, distorted, or driven by interests far removed from the public good.
The Silence That Will Haunt History
History will judge the individuals who seized power around Buhari. But it will also judge the silences—the moments when intervention was possible but withheld.
Why Buhari chose to tolerate this fragmentation, why he allowed himself to be caged within his own presidency, and why he permitted gatekeepers to define governance are questions I deliberately reserve for my memoir.
What is clear, however, is this: Nigeria was governed, for eight years, not by one man, but by competing shadows around him.
As the revisionists work overtime to repaint the past, Nigerians must insist on truth—not bitterness, not hatred, but truth. Only then can history serve as a warning rather than a whitewash.
By Solomon Dalung
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