EXPRESSO BY STEVE OSUJI
The stench from Aso Rock, (Nigeria’s Presidential abode) wafts with dark plumes.
Dissipating across the land and beyond
Rising like wild gale
Piercing the clouds
A veritable Incubus
And the host of heavens squirm with crumpling noses
The noxious stench from Aso Rock Villa wafts across the world…
HOUSE OF SLEAZE: That President Bola Tinubu’s State House would become a smelly place was not in doubt. From hoary birth papers to illicit educational credentials. From cartel strategist to political usurpation.
It was all a messy stuff ab initio. It was like malevolent aliens were invading Nigeria’s Number One abode. Then add the suborned electoral mandate, stolen most brazenly in the dead of night…
You would think a group with such an odious baggage would turn out an epitome of prudence and probity. Not this gang!
On the contrary, never in the 35 years of this pre-eminent edifice, this very cathedral of our sovereignty, has never been so debased and desecrated.
Many leaders have passed through Aso Rock – from Ibrahim Babangida to Sani Abacha, Olusegun Obasanjo, Goodluck Jonathan and even Muhammadu Buhari of yesterday. But never was our sacred abode so abused as we have it today.
THE ‘MATURE’ BUHARI GANG
Every head in Aso Rock had its cabal and denizens who exploit the rarefied environment and pristine accesses for their personal gains.
In the Buhari days, the gang was made up mainly of Abba Kyari, Mamman Daura, Ismaila Isa Funtua, Sabiu Tunde Yusuf, Babachir Lawal (to a point) and Lawal Musa Daura, former DG, DSS, among less notable others. There was even Papa Ahmed Joda, the super perm. Sec in the Buhari team at the beginning.
The Buhari cabal was a more mature crew made up of men with diverse backgrounds and bureaucratic experiences. Buhari’s first Chief of Staff, Kyari was well read and versed as a lawyer, top banker and public official.
So were many others of that class. Their leader, the president, was weak and ailing so this small Aso Rock group were the de facto authority and they got away with so much. But they were grounded and solid, and they did well not to create earth shaking scandals.
They understood the magnitude of the office of the president. The coming of Professor Sulu Gambari as chief of staff after the demise of Abba Kyari brought further order and stability to Buhari’s Aso Rock.
TINUBU’S RECKLESS, FECKLESS GANG
Quite unlike Buhari, Tinubu’s kitchen cabinet in Aso Rock led by his chief of staff, Femi Gbajabiamila is a poorly constituted lot.
While Tinubu has turned out more vulnerable than Buhari, his kitchen team has also proved to be less tutored and less circumspect than the Buhari team. Apart from Gbajabiamila, most other members of this class are small time weasels who were mainly personal and domestic staff of Tinubu in his earlier incarnations.
None of the current Aso Rock key staff seem to have a grasp of the current call of duty.
Worse is that the First Lady and the First Son also run rampant in the Villa making a bad situation worse.
More troubling is that not one of the crowd in Aso Rock today has quality educational grounding like Kyari and Gambari for instance; not one has solid public service experience and most notably, not one is given to such gravitas that imbues stately integrity like Mamman and Joda.
The impression we get today from outside, looking in, is that Aso Rock is filled with people who are fighting to out-pilfer each other.
SLEAZE WITHOUT END, AMEN
A few weeks ago, Weekend Trust reported about cash-for-access racket being perpetrated by the Protocol Unit of Aso Rock. Yes, this has been a long-known tradition in the Village but today, the practice has become transcendental.
A particular governor from a southeast state is said to be one of the chief clients of the Aso Rock protocol unit. Mr Governor reportedly pays the boys at the Villa in dollars so they put him on every protocol list including seeing the president off at the airport every time he’s traveling. And as we know, the President travels all the time and Mr Governor who runs his state from Abuja is seen all the time at the Abuja airport waving goodbye to Mr President.
CASH-FOR-APPOINTMENT SCAM IN ASO ROCK: EFCC COVER-UP
A certain Dr Halimat Adenike Tejuosho who is the South West women’s leader of the City Boys Movement, made a deposition to the EFCC early this year, detailing how hundreds of millions of naira and dollars were paid out someone between 2023 and 2025 for the purpose of securing ministerial and other juicy appointments from the Presidency.
Her contact person who apparently operated from Aso Rock, one Mallam Garuba, the conduit for the huge cash and transfers was reportedly apprehended by the EFCC. Till date, this huge scam from the innards of the Presidency has been covered and buried by the EFCC.
Monies amounting to billions of naira paid to agents purportedly in Aso Rock could easily have been trailed and the culprits exposed or exonerated as the case may be. But nothing has been done.
AND NOW THIS: WHAT’S GBAJABIAMILA STILL DOING IN ASO ROCK?
In decent climes, Mr Femi Gbajabiamila, the chief of staff to the president would have been fired years ago. Fingers have been pointed at him from day one for allegedly compromising his office in all manner of ways.
Most of it points to cash-for-appointment scams.
Though nothing has been proven and none has indicated him, the murmurings have become very loud.
The current scandal dubbed Gbaja-Gate seems to therefore corroborate the long held suspicions about him.
The Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) brouhaha is an Aso Rock mess taken too far. The president’s number one aide is not only accused of receiving a huge bribe of N400m, he is taken to have aided the set up of a fake federal government agency with the sole purpose of fleecing the government.
The PFIPC is a scandal of an epochal proportion!
How was the supposed N24 billion used for setting up this elaborate agency sourced?
Why did the chief culprit, Prince Adeyemi Aderemi Matthews accuse Gbajabiamila specifically and not anyone else in the Tinubu cabinet?
WHO KILLED DOLAPO BABATUNDE TANIMOLA?
Why in good conscience is Gbajabiamila sitting tight in the office when life has already been cut down over this Gbaja-Gate?
Who is DOLAPO BABATUNDE TANIMOLA? Nigerians deserve to know who exactly he is and what happened to him.
Gbajabiamila has a lot of questions to answer in this saga.
And he cannot answer these questions sitting tight on his desk. He must step aside for a thorough investigation to be done.
The stench from Aso Rock is choking the country to death.
LAST LINE: “IF THEY HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY, I WILL NOT BE ALIVE.” – OBI
“The way the government is going now, I might not be alive. I’m telling you. Every single thing I do, this government is frustrating. Deliberately so. There’s even a possibility that, if they have the opportunity, I will not be alive.”
Early in the week, the Presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress, NDC, Mr Peter Obi made a plaintive cry to the world.
My life is in danger and my businesses are under threat as well.
He points directly to the Nigerian government as the agent gunning for his life.
This is a serious allegation. Nigerians have witnessed the serial pursuit of Mr Peter Obi from one political party to another. The ruling party seemed to vow that Obi would not be on the ballot.
Now that he’s beaten them to their game, the government now openly seeks his very life, according to him.
This is shocking. This brand new kind of APC democracy is truly strange in Nigeria.
President Bola Tinubu and the ruling party have a duty to protect not only the presidential candidates but all Nigerians.
Let’s just say that no harm must come to Mr Peter Obi. President Tinubu must make sure of that.###
