Revealed! Why Buhari Directs Ministers to Go Through CoS, Kyari

Insiders have given insight into the reasons President Muhammadu Buhari requested his new ministers to channel all requests to him through his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.

The President had on Tuesday, at the close of the two-day retreat organised for the ministers, asked them to always go through Kyari for meeting requests and through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation(SGF)E, Boss Mustapha, for issues relating to the Federal Executive Council.

Buhari repeated the instruction on Wednesday while inaugurating the ministers, stressing that the decision was made in order to “to speed up the process of decision-making.”

While it is true that the President was concerned about remarks characterizing the decision-making of his administration as slow, Buhari is also worried about the abuse of Presidential access by some ministers in the past.

Such abuse, according to some insiders in the Government, had made coordination of government processes unwieldy and difficult to track.

For instance, some ministers like Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transport and ex-SGF Babachir Lawal, are among those who have now forced the President to review access to him.

Sources say Amaechi had bypassed the Chief of Staff and other officials on many occasions to get the President’s approvals on some important executive actions unrelated to his ministry when his personal interests were at stake.

He almost clashed with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) in September 2018 when he obtained the President’s consent to dissolve the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) which was then an agency under Office of the SGF.

Amaechi also used his access to the President to move the NDDC from the SGF’s office to the Ministry of Niger Delta so he could continue to exercise influence on its operations under the former minister Usani Uguru Usani.

The former SGF was also said to have “extorted” an approval from Buhari during his time as SGF without the knowledge of Kyari. The matter came to the fore and became scandalous when the Presidency gave a contrary directive on the same matter.

“This was one of the strongest reasons Babachir Lawal was sacked as SGF and not the contract scandal. Rotimi Amaechi had done similar things in the past, especially on the NDDC issue which brought some little problems of coordination,” a source told THE WHISTLER.

Insiders reveal the President’s decision to restrict direct access for ministers and presidential aides  was borne out of the desire to improve coordination in government.

“The order is essentially to streamline access and communication with the President so that the chief of staff can track approvals given to ministers by the president,” a presidency source revealed.

The Office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria is overseen by the Chief of Staff to the President, who manages the President’s schedule and correspondence, and any other duties that may be assigned by the President. Kyari, the current occupant of the position, was first appointed on August 27, 2015.