Dalung: Buhari administration cabal not as dangerous as Tinubu’s camp

Solomon Dalung, a former minister, says the cabal surrounding President Bola Tinubu is a lot more dangerous, sophisticated and ambitious than the “clique that cocooned” ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.

Dalung was Buhari’s youth and sports minister from 2015 to 2019.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Tuesday, Dalung who had previously stated that Buhari was beholden to a clique who ran his government behind the scenes, said the close-knit group of people around Tinubu are more pernicious. 

He added that the Buhari cabal was less educated and lacked experience in politics and governance, while those around Tinubu are “sophisticated, ambitious, and educated, with sound knowledge of power dynamics”.

Dalung said the Tinubu cabal is the most dangerous in Nigeria’s history.

“Of course, President Muhammadu Buhari’s government had cabals. That is known and that I have attested to,” he said. 

“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 a 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 want, 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.”

Sunday Dare replaced Dalung as sports minister in 2019.