Former Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr. Solomon Dalung, has expressed concerns over the influence of powerbrokers surrounding President Bola Tinubu, describing them as more sophisticated and dangerous than those who influenced former President Muhammadu Buhari.
He expressed this concern while speaking on Channels Television Politics Today on Tuesday.
Dalung, who served in Buhari’s cabinet from 2015 to 2019, noted that while Buhari’s government was controlled by a clique, Tinubu’s cabal poses a greater threat to governance due to their advanced political knowledge and strategic expertise.
He described the former President Buhari as a “stranger” in his own government, adding that cabal members swallowed his leadership.
Mr. Dalung said, “Of course, President Muhammadu Buhari’s government had cabals. That is known and that I have attested to. 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.
“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.”