Former Chief of Staff to the late President Muhammadu Buhari, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, has opened up on the inner workings of the presidency, disclosing how influential cabal members bypassed official protocol to smuggle memos directly to the president.
Appearing on Channels Television’s “Inside Sources” on Friday, July 18, 2025, Gambari said, “They knew his weak moment, they knew when to smuggle (memos) because they knew him as they interacted with him informally.”
Appointed in May 2020 following the death of Abba Kyari, Gambari noted that Buhari publicly ordered all memos to pass through him [CoS].
“Even the Vice President, to his credit, always passed his memos through me… But our people still got their memos to him from behind because they knew his weak point and who to use—and he never stopped them.”
Despite this circumvention, Gambari said he was often able to retrieve the documents for proper processing.
“The advantage I had was that the memos came back to me,” he noted.
On the existence of a so-called cabal, Gambari confirmed: “They say there was a cabal—there was. Every government has a cabal. They may call them a kitchen cabinet or a think tank.”
The seasoned diplomat added, “It’s the nature of the office of the president. Some have more power than others, but every government has a cabal of some kind.”
Reflecting on Buhari’s character, Gambari described him as a compassionate man who deeply cared for his appointees and Nigerians at large.
