There are indications that the battle for the control of the Presidency has intensified over the past few weeks especially in the wake of the sudden sack of former Director General of the State Security Service, Lawal Daura, by then Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on August 7.
Following the sack, THE WHISTLER learnt from Presidency sources that President Muhammadu Buhari is being pushed to sack the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, SAN; Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele; the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru; the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Sovereign Investment Fund (NSIA), Mr Uche Orji, and a number of other influential technocrats in his government.
The thinking of those behind the move is to be in firm control of the Presidency and drive the anti-graft war in the manner they choose.
Advertisement
Before his inglorious fall, Daura was known to be at war with the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, with both officials seen then as representing different powerbrokers within the Presidency.
According to one of the sources, with Daura out, the other group believes it was moving in the right direction and are set to speed up the war of attrition by revealing “damaging secret memos to some section of the press so as to force the hand of the president to sack the targeted senior officials of the administration.”
Already, there are signs of leaks with the purported memo on the Acting DG of the SSS, Matthew Seiyefa, from the Office of the Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, asking him to stay action on reforms of the secret police without authorization from the president.
“The game is on,” another source said. “They want to cast some influential members of the president as the villains by leaking otherwise secret memos. Besides, the Acting DG of the SSS is in no position to carry out any major policy shift without the authorization of the president. So those egging him on by thinking they are doing him any good are mistaken,” the source added.
Similar, the on-going media attacks on the AGF is part of the wider plot, our correspondent gathered.
The objective is to cast Malami as ‘shady, corrupt’ so as to strengthen the case for President Buhari to sack him.
There were feelers that the move had been on for quite some time now, and a notable human rights lawyer from the south west has been saddled with the task of coordinating the agenda.
Members of the group who had benefitted so much from President Buhari’s magnanimity, had moved to ensure the sack of Emefiele and Baru while the president was on his last working visit to London.
They both, however, escaped the plot because the duo were respectively out of the country on official engagements.
Osinbajo had, enjoyed rave commendations in the media for the Daura sack, while the proponents of this plot had hoped that he would be emboldened to deploy the powers of his office to rework the administrative infrastructure along the line of instilling discipline and redirection in government.
Already, the media trial of Malami is on with the alleged not-too-transparent handling of the repatriation of looted funds of the late General Sani Abacha.
Malami was alleged to have made questionable request for payment of $17 million to two lawyers for performing an already completed role in the return of $321 Abacha loot.
His legal advice to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), on the prosecution of suspects in the $1.1 billion Malabu scandal was also twisted to mean an advice to discontinue the trial.
His advice to the Inspector General of Police on the interim report on Offa bank robbery, which indicted the Senate President Bukola Saraki, to do more investigations was also wrongly interpreted in the media as a legal clearance for Saraki.
The AGF have had to make clarifications on these subjects several times to put the records straight.
There has also not been any love lost between the GMD of the NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru and the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, since the appointment of the latter, culminating in the scandalous leakage of a private memo to the president.
It may be recalled that the content of the memo has since been established as baseless and put to rest.
Some analysts in the know of the plot have also argued that those behind the plot may actually be moles in the administration, who are working against President Buhari’s reelection bid.
They reasoned that it could not have been mere coincidence that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had intensified attacks on the NNPC and Baru in recent days alleging mismanagement of the corporation’s revenue.
The perceived sins of the Managing Director of NSIA is his assumed proximity to the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari. It is the belief of the plotters that the sack of Orji will also weaken the Chief of Staff and put him on the line of fire.
Orji was first appointed in October 2012 for a term of five years, renewable for another term. He was re-appointed October last year for another term of five years. Femi Adesina, Spokesman of the President who announced the re-appointment said the NSIA under Orji’s leadership “made remarkable strides, and its assets now stand at over $2 billion, which is invested in Nigerian infrastructure, economic stabilization and future generation funds,” the statement noted.
“The meeting was held at a hotel in Asokoro and a popular human rights lawyer with connection to the media addressed the group, which also included some known online media platforms,” disclosed the source, adding that aides of a senior Presidency official present at the meeting promised to make documents available for the media campaign.
Other sources who spoke on condition of anonymity explained that the plot to discredit these men and get the President to sack them before the next election may be to pave way for some persons and tilt the power base of the Presidency against Buhari or at the very least destroy his integrity which will in turn work to the advantage of the opposition.