Backstory Behind Aisha Buhari’s Gunfight with Sabiu Yusuf
Farooq A. Kperogi
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Backstory Behind Aisha Buhari’s Gunfight with Sabiu Yusuf
By now, most people have read the story of the scuffle that occurred between Mrs. Aisha Buhari, her children, and her security aides on one hand and Sabi’u “Tunde” Yusuf, son of Buhari’s niece who also works as his private secretary, on the other hand, which caused Aisha’s ADC to shoot at Sabiu inside the Presidential Villa, narrowly missing him.
Recall that I was the first to publicly publish the names of Muhammadu Buhari’s close relatives working for him in the Presidential Villa, including Sabiu Yusuf. At the time I published the names, the regime activated its online troll factory to call my revelation “fake news.”
Daily Trust even refused to publish a column by Sonala Olumhense that repurposed my revelations of Buhari’s close relatives working in the Villa. Now most of the names are in the open, and official communications from the presidency mentions them.
Well, Aisha’s attempt on the life of Sabi’u “Tunde” Yusuf, a 30-something-year-old former recharge card seller in Daura who is now the third most powerful Nigerian after Buhari and Mamman Daura was a consequence of her frustration at not being able to take over power after Abba Kyari’s death.
Abba Kyari was the face of the cabal made up of Mamman Daura, Samaila Isa Funtua, Babagana Kingibe, and former DSS boss Lawal Musa Daura. Kyari was almost literally Buhari’s babysitter, which, as you would expect, made him Aisha’s sworn enemy, although Aisha got a heck of a lot of placatory concessions and favors from him.
When Abba Kyari contracted the coronavirus, Aisha and her children were ecstatic. The prospect of the cessation of Kyari’s grip on Buhari gladdened them to no end. They were so thrilled at the thought of his death that they couldn’t contain it.
For instance, on May 24, shortly after news of Abba Kyari’s coronavirus infection became public knowledge, Zahra Buhari Indimi rejoiced on Instagram. “Earth is cleansing itself and it’s [sic] inhabitants,” she wrote. A few minutes later, she added: “Karma is the most patient gangster ever.”
Several social media users— and even some traditional news organizations— noticed. PM News’ headline was, “Zahra Buhari reacts to coronavirus after Abba Kyari tested positive.” Others called it what it was: perverse mockery of Kyari for testing positive for the coronavirus.
Even before Abba Kyari died on April 17, Aisha Buhari exploited the vacuum created by his absence to exert some influence and “cleanse” (to use her daughter’s words) the Presidential Villa of the bureaucratic vestiges of Abba Kyari. She caused Jalal Arabi, Permanent Secretary of the State House and Kyari's slavish underling, to be redeployed from the Villa.
In my April 18 social media intervention titled “Abba Kyari's Death, End of a Surrogate Presidency, and the Coming Chaos” in the immediate aftermath of Kyari’s death, I told people to “Watch out for Aisha Buhari to assert herself more aggressively and to work to grab power in the fashion that Turai Yar'adua did.”
She hasn’t disappointed. After Kyari’s death, she immediately got to work to get Buba Marwa appointed Chief of Staff to Buhari. Had that happened, she would have effectively taken over as president. Mamman Daura on whom Buhari has been emotionally and intellectually dependent for decades would never countenance that.
Babagana Kingibe, a member of the cabal who wanted to replace Abba Kyari as Buhari’s Chief of Staff, is a notoriously treacherous wretch with whom Mamman Daura was uncomfortable. Ibrahim Agboola Gambari emerged almost fortuitously as a compromise.
But Aisha Buhari was more enthusiastic about Gambari than Mamman Daura was. Gambari’s candidacy was almost entirely pushed by Maiduguri multibillionaire Muhammadu Indimi whose son is married to Aisha’s daughter, Zahra, who celebrated Abba Kyari’s coronavirus infection.
Of course, Gambari is known to Buhari. Apart from serving as his minister of external affairs when he was a military dictator in the 1980s, possibly on the recommendation of Tunde Idiagbon with whom Gambari shared Ilorin identity, Gambari was drafted to speak to presidents and international bodies to lend legitimacy and credibility to Buhari in the aftermath of his in-your-face electoral heist in 2019.
Nonetheless, had Indimi not pleaded with Buhari to consider Gambari for the Chief of Staff position, he wouldn’t have stood a chance. It turned out, however, that Buhari and, most importantly, Mamman Daura had not yet been totally sold on the Gambari candidacy when news of his appointment littered social media.
A close friend to Aisha Buhari’s media consultant told me that it was Aisha Buhari who commissioned his consultant to reach out to social media influencers to spread the story of Gambari’s appointment. At the time I learned of this, it didn’t make sense to me because I knew she wanted Buba Marwa to succeed Abba Kyari.
Then, in an unusual move, the emir of Ilorin issued a public statement thanking Buhari for appointing Ibrahim Gambari, his uncle, as Chief of Staff to the President even though Gambari had not formally been announced by the presidency as Buhari’s Chief of Staff.
When I read the emir’s statement, I called an older friend of mine who is close to power brokers in the north and asked if he knew what was happening. He said some opinion leaders there had called Gambari after they read the emir’s statement and asked him if he had been formally appointed.
My friend reported Gambari to have told them that he had not been formally informed that he had been appointed Chief of Staff. I was confused. Exactly three hours later, my friend called back to say Gambari had just spoken with one of the leaders and said he had just then received word from the Villa that he had been appointed Chief of Staff to Buhari.
Apparently, realizing that her candidate wouldn’t make the cut—and in order to forestall the possibility of Mamman Daura imposing a candidate on her husband— Aisha decided to compel Buhari into appointing her father-in-law’s candidate through artful social media manipulation.
I don’t know if she coordinated with the emir of Ilorin, but at the time the emir thanked Buhari for appointing his uncle, Buhari and Mamman Daura had not made up their minds on whom they wanted to be Buhari’s Chief of Staff.
So Buhari and Daura were dealing with three simultaneous pressures: social media chatter that Gambari had been appointed Chief of Staff when he hadn’t, the emir of Ilorin’s letter of gratitude for an appointment that had not been made, and Muhammadu Indimi’s push on behalf of Gambari. It was too much to resist, so they caved in at the last minute.
Why is this background important to the Aso Rock gunfight? Well, it’s because Daura, having been beaten by Aisha in the choice of Gambari, decided to make Sabiu “Tunde” Yusuf, the son of his sister, the real Chief of Staff and a bulwark against Aisha’s encroachment into Buhari’s politics and policies.
As I noted in my May 30, 2020 column titled, “Gambari: Embrace and Alienation of an Outsider on the Inside,” “unlike Abba Kyari who had a direct access to Buhari and whom Buhari said all ministers should meet if they wanted anything from him, Gambari has an intermediary between him and Buhari. And it isn’t just any intermediary; the intermediary is Buhari’s blood relative whom my November 23, 2019 column titled ‘Government of Buhari’s Family, By His Family, and For His Family’ exposed.”
In other words, Gambari has turned out to be not the Abba Kyari replacement Aisha had hoped he would be. Instead, Sabi’u “Tunde” Yusuf, her nemesis’ nephew, is the new Abba Kyari. Since the “Earth” hasn’t “cleansed” itself of the man like it did with Abba Kyari, she and her children wanted to do it themselves.
Sabi’u’s refusal to self-quarantine after potentially exposing himself to the coronavirus is, of course, a legitimate reason for Aisha Buhari to be antsy, but naked power grab is the real motive force for the animus against him.
Kennesaw State University
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
DR SIKIRU ENIOLA
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Cornelius Hamelberg
“There’s nothing serious in mortality.
All is but toys. Renown and grace is dead.
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of. “
(That was Macbeth speaking, after Duncan’s death)
Let’s pile on the clichés and platitudes. In the realm of comparative dialectics, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, one man's hero is another man's villain, one man's dream is another man's lunch, one man's wilderness is another man's playground…
Things are bad enough as they are, in Nigeria. We thank the Almighty that the wrongly-guided bullet went astray and Sabiu Yusuf is still very much with us and still very much alive. If the bullet had not gone astray the ominous, the less than omniscient and in this case the villainous or less than villainous Kperogi - thousands of miles away from the scene of the alleged crime / “attempted” crime - on the West African side of the Atlantic Ocean would have no doubt been telling us another malicious story, giving us some salacious eye witness accounts from his alleged special secret ( secret service?) contacts, reports, as usual, spiced and peppered by a deceitful trademark imagination wherein palace intrigue and some of his trademark gossip about the cloak and dagger skulduggery is an essential part of his contributions/ news feeds to the rumour mill that he wants to pass off as “ journalism”.
Has kperogi ever heard of a journalist by the name of Bankole Timothy? I could tell you a true thing or two about him…
It is people like Kperogi writing here that Trump refers to as purveyors of fake news. Not because Kperogi thought himself fit or brilliant enough to criticize what he believes are fault lines in Trump’s so-called “Grammar” , about which Trump, of course, doesn’t give a damn or shit, let alone care about being taught American English by someone from a “shithole” country; anyway, Trump, denies that he ever said that people who have seen a few skyscrapers in America – skyscrapers such as Trump Towers, don’t want to return or to be sent back to Africa and the alleged huts from whence they came. I take his word for it. What he doesn’t realise is how sophisticated and bold some Nigerians are and are becoming, this one already in the United States is now busy correcting the US President’s “grammar”. Caliban, all over again. Now he can curse…
As we all know according to Trump’s demonology it is exactly purveyors of fake news with that constant axe to grind with the-power-that-be, that will be cast into the bonfire, for all eternity, and that’s probably why Kperogi is refraining from even commenting on the murder of Rayshard Brooks, right there in Atlanta, Georgia, his neck of the woods. I understand that it is not a laughing matter. I imagine what some people would consider unpleasant, the constant danger or threat of being deported back home to Africa.
Just as I said, things are bad enough already, because although the alleged murder bullet went astray ( did not find its mark) Sheikh Kperogi has not hesitated with his usual calumny, compounded with intentional libel and slander, for which, hopefully, he will eventually pay the full penalty, this time for attributing some murderous intent and a motive for an alleged unsuccessful murder attempt to Nigeria’s First lady, Aisha Buhari when he writes,
“Aisha’s attempt on the life of Sabi’u “Tunde” Yusuf, a 30-something-year-old former recharge card seller in Daura who is now the third most powerful Nigerian after Buhari and Mamman Daura was a consequence of her frustration at not being able to take over power after Abba Kyari’s death.”
That’s a very serious accusation…
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
This message
is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (Cornelius Hamelberg
After consultations with Baba Kadiri this evening I am now forwarding an edited, sanitized and deodorized version of an earlier post that did not pass the moderator’s language-sensitive litmus test. As I explained to Baba Kadiri , it’s not that our moderator has any holy cows who can randomly say what they like about us, insult us and other people whilst we are denied the same privilege and the equal right to reply, even in kind, either in the name of reason, or “ freedom of speech”. It’s not a matter of they live in Trump’s United States where they can claim First Amendment privileges whilst some of us who live outside of the United States but in Sweden where we have a much longer history of freedom of speech, freedom of the press etc, even if, maybe, we cannot / are not permitted ( by whom?) to claim the same legal or freedom of speech status in our USA-Africa forum currently lodged in cyberspace and supervised by our authoritarian moderator, Chairman Falola. Like Mao.
I have inestimable respect for Baba Kadiri of great esteem and that’s why I invited him to participate in this forum and from my point of view he has been a godsend. I also know hosts of professors of at least three generations here in Sweden and elsewhere, including male and female professors of journalism, history, Literary studies, philosophy and every other subject in science and the humanities including a few in political science and Islamology, epidemiology, virology, and immunology. But they are less important than the ones who own banks, shipping lines, airplanes, factories, other big business that employ thousands of people in Asia….
We all have our various backgrounds, black-grounds, temperaments, propensities, passions, and, as things are ( the current situation) I feel morally obliged to forward the clarifications contained in Baba Kadiri’s posting, failing which, Kperogi’s malignant and pejorative inaccuracies would have been being allowed to ( unwittingly or deliberately) go unchallenged. In that case, in my opinion, his egregious inaccuracies which border on criminal liability would have only succeeded in doing great harm to several people’s reputations against which they bear false witness, not least of all Nigeria’s first lady, Aisha Buhari who Kperogi has deliberately or inadvertently otherwise accused of attempted murder.
That’s not right, and even Professor Moderator must admit that when something isn’t right, it’s wrong.
For example, it has now been verified that Lady Aisha’s ADC was nowhere near the scene of the alleged shooting - he was far away from the scene of the alleged crime, the “attempted murder”
My own humble position about the English Language or even Swedish, about which some people make such big bones is summarised here –
“I hope one day people will understand that English is just a language, not a measure of intelligence”, said Robert Mugabe.
It ( the language) is a vehicle of thought (thinking) and in some cases is to be judged by the quality of thinking, more than the quality of any tortuous or decorative verbosity – so I began to admire Georg Henrik Von Wright in the superlative when I read his autobiography that he taught himself English by reading J M Keynes's Treatise on Probability) to study under C D Broad – and of course eventually, enough English to succeed Wittgenstein as Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, after Wittgenstein passed on unto the Hereafter.
Here’s the somewhat edited version of what Baba Kadiri posted a few days ago, still retaining much of the original flavour and all of the logic:
There are things happening in the government of President Muhammadu Buhari that call for interrogation by lovers of Nigeria which the government is democratically compelled to pay attention to and to act on accordingly. It seems that unlike many lovers and well-wishers of Nigeria, Professor Farooq Kperogi's desire is to see the collapse of Nigeria while feeling secure, although falsely, in his faraway self-exiled country, the racially problematic USA.
As if permanently afflicted with political transmitted disease resulting in chronic half-truths and virulent gliding, professor Kperogi is now used to making chickens out of feathers whenever he is discussing Nigeria's political affairs and worst of all he demands that his readers should swallow all his mumbo jumbo craps without question.
On reading the headline of Farooq's essay, “Backstory Behind Aisha Buhari's Gunfight with Sabiu Yusuf”, I am immediately reminded of the syndrome called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) by which the afflicted is characterised among other symptoms, impaired behaviour and language.
Farooq Kperogi asserted, "Well, Aisha's attempt on the life of Sabi'u (sic) *Tunde* Yusuf, a 30-something-year-old former recharge card seller in Daura who is now the third most powerful Nigerian after Buhari and Mamman Daura, was a consequence of her (Aisha Buhari) frustration at not being able to take over power after Abba Kyari's death." The headline, Backstory Behind Aisha Buhari's Gunfight with Sabiu, leaves no one in doubt that what Farooq wants his readers to believe is that there was an exchange of gunfight between Aisha Buhari and Sabiu Tunde Yusuf. If we are to believe such a malicious lie from the professor, the exchange of gunfight between Aisha and Sabiu was because of the attempt on the life of the latter by the former. If we ignore the disdain for the person of Sabiu presented as a former recharge card seller in Daura by the self-exiled Associate Professor, how can any sane person agree with Farooq Kperogi that Sabiu Tunde Yusuf is the third most powerful Nigerian after Buhari and Mamman Daura?
The official duties of Sabiu and Mamman are not recognised in the Constitution of Nigeria and his position is not granted any immunity like the President and the Vice President. The power hierarchy in Nigeria, according to the Constitution, is listed as follows:
President, Vice President (the Executive), Senate President and his deputy as well as the Speaker of the House of Reps and his deputy (the Legislature) and the Chief Justice (the Judiciary).
From where do Mamman Daura and Sabiu Tunde Yusuf derive the number two and three status in Nigeria's power hierarchy as being ascribed to them by Farooq? A writer must pursue and honour truth and accuracy, but those qualities seem to be non-existent in Professor Farooq Kperogi's world because his mind on Nigeria's political affairs is never clear and his pen is never clean.
The incident at the Presidential Villa which Farooq referred to as Aisha's attempt on the life of Sabiu Tunde Yusuf or Aisha Buhari's gunfight with Saibu Yusuf occurred on Thursday night, 11 June 2020. What is now falsely presented as gunfight or attempt on the life of the Personal Assistant to the President, Sabiu Yusuf, by the President's wife was not known to the public or reported in any media until Aisha Buhari in her twitter handle @aishabuhari on Friday night, 12 June 2020 wrote to IGB Adamu thus,
"That COVID-19 is real and still very much around in our nation is not in doubt. Consequently, I call on all relevant Government Agencies to enforce the Quarantine ACT signed by Mr. President and ensure no one is found violating this law and the NCDC guidelines ESPECIALLY ON INTERSTATE TRAVEL WITHOUT THE NECESSARY EXCEMPTIONS FOR MOVEMENT OF ESSENTIALS. Anyone who does that should at the very least be made to UNDERGO A 14-DAY MANDATORY ISOLATION NO MATTER WHO THE PERSON IS, NO ONE SHOULD BE ABOVE THE LAW AND THE POLICE COMMAND will do well to remember that.
"Finally, I call on the IGP to release my assigned Staff who are still in the custody of the Police in order to avoid putting their lives in danger or exposure to COVID-19 while in their custody."
Most media outlets in Nigeria reported that the cause of Aisha Buhari's twitter of 12 June 2020 was an incident at the Villa on Thursday, 11 2020, when Sabiu Yusuf returned to Abuja from Lagos where he made a stop over to see his wife who had just delivered a baby boy just after arriving from London on a business trip in the company of a well-known Lagos State oil magnate. Aisha Buhari, accompanied by her three children, Zahra, Halima and Yusuf took a team of policemen led by her Aide-De-Camp (ADC), Usman Shugaba, to the residence of Buhari's Personal Assistant, Sabiu Yusuf, and counselled him to go on self-isolation on account of COVID-19 since he had travelled to Lagos. Mr. Yusuf rebuffed his visitor's counsel to self-isolation and in the ensuing argument Sabiu pushed Zahra to the ground which caused Aisha's security guard to wrestle down Mr. Sabiu Yusuf. There are conflicting versions of what happened next. Some reported that Sabiu Yusuf scaled the fence to escape being forced by Aisha's ADC team from forcing him into 14 days quarantine and during the process of scaling the fence Sabiu Yusuf was shot at. Others reported that the shots were fired in the air and not direct at Sabiu. One report said that Sabiu entered his vehicle and as he drove across the gate, there were about three gun-shots against his vehicle but he managed to escape. A Villa source said the gun-shots were aimed at deflating the tyres of the vehicle in which the escaping Sabiu Yusuf was driving. Nigeria is a very wonderful country where the President has signed Quarantine Act into law and the government's agency, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has banned interstate travel, yet the Personal Assistant to the President, Sabiu Yusuf, could leave Abuja for London and Lagos and return to Abuja without going into 14 days quarantine. Did the President know that his Personal Assistant travelled to London and Lagos? The core issue here is not whether there were gunshots at Sabiu Yusuf or not but if he is above the law prohibiting interstate travels and in breach, 14 days quarantine.
Normally, Buhari, the President, is not only the father of the Nation but father of his own family. As the father of his own family, he is the first person to be consulted by the wife whenever she senses any looming danger to the family or the nation. The obvious violations of interstate travel ban and Quarantine Act because of COVID-19 by the Personal Assistant to the President, Sabiu Yusuf, ought to have been reported direct to the President by his wife, Aisha. Were Buhari not to be in the Villa in the evening of Thursday, 11 June 2020, that could have been the only legitimate reason for Aisha to by-pass Buhari and with the aid of her security outfit to compel Sabiu Yusuf to obey 14 days quarantine after violating interstate travel prohibition. The law of self-preservation permits her to do that. Had there been gunshots that Thursday night at the Villa, could Buhari have escaped hearing it if he was at home?
When Aisha, accompanied by her three children and a team of Policemen led by her ADC, Usman Shugaba, arrived at Yusuf's residence, did they wear facemask as a precaution against being infected with probable COVID-19? How was it possible for Mr. Yusuf to scale the fence when surrounded by a team of armed policemen? And if we are to believe that Mr. Yusuf drove away in a car which Aisha's security men shot at, how did he escape from the security men to gain access to the car? If the bullets were actually fired with the intention to harm or inhibit Sabiu Yusuf's escape from being forced into quarantine, how could the Policemen have missed him at such a close range? Did the Policemen pursue Mr. Yusuf to the residence of Mamman Daura? The law of self-preservation, for herself and her family, compelled Aisha Buhari to insist that the Personal Assistant to her husband, Sabiu Tunde Yusuf, should commit himself into 14 days quarantine as laid down by the NCDC, after violating the ban on interstate travel. Whatever method was deployed by Aisha Buhari to prevent Sabiu Tunde Yusuf from spreading probable COVID-19 in the Villa, after exposing himself to the risk of infection must be regarded as a National issue about the equality of all citizens before the law and not as a simple family feud which professor Farooq Kperogi is making it to be.
Sitting in over there in Atlanta, Farooq Kperogi has on so many occasions only imagined what people in authority in Nigeria think, as if privy to what is going on in their minds. Hear him: according to him:
Even Before Abba Kyari died on April 17, Aisha Buhari exploited the vacuum created by his absence to exert some influence and "cleanse" (to use her daughter's words) the Presidential Villa of the bureaucratic vestiges of Abba Kyari. She caused Jalal Arabi, Permanent Secretary of the State House and Kyari's slavish underling, to be redeployed from the Villa. The same Farooq had told his readers on several occasions that Buhari is an obedient servant of the Almighty Mamman Daura. Premised on that postulation, what Jalal Arabi could have done to avert his redeployment was to contact Mamman Daura who would have commanded Buhari to reverse Arabi's redeployment from the State Villa. However, the power to deploy and transfer Permanent Secretaries in Nigeria belongs to the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC). For Farooq's story to be credible, in this wise, he must tell his readers who Aisha Buhari contacted at the FCSC to effect the transfer of Jalal Arabi from the State House.
After Kyari's death, she (Aisha Buhari) immediately got to work to get Buba Marwa appointed Chief of Staff to Buhari - Farooq Kperogi. How did Farooq get to know this from Atlanta? The only person with the power to appoint and terminate, at will, a Chief of Staff is President Muhammadu Buhari, the husband of Aisha. Did Farooq's informants tell him that Aisha Buhari had requested her husband to appoint Buba Marwa as Chief of Staff to replace late Abba Kyari? Farooq also stated categorically that Babagana Kingibe wanted to replace Abba Kyari as Chief of Staff but Mamman Daura did not feel comfortable with Kingibe in that position. What is the source of that information being presented as an eyewitness story by Farooq? It was nothing short of gossip when Farooq wrote, "A close friend to Aisha Buhari's media consultant told me that it was Aisha Buhari who commissioned his (sic) consultant to reach out to the social media influencers to spread the story of Gambari's appointment. It didn't make sense to me because I knew she wanted Buba Marwa to succeed Abba Kyari." Why can't Farooq tell readers the name of a close friend to Aisha Buhari's media consultant who had told him the story if the close friend to Aisha is not invented by Farooq? One can even ask, how Farooq could know from Atlanta, as he claimed with certainty, that Aisha in Abuja wanted Buba Marwa to succeed Abba Kyari, when he, Farooq, is not a soothsayer? The garrulous professor know-all wrote, "When I (Farooq Kperogi) read the emir's statement, I called an older friend of mine who is close to power brokers in the north and asked if he knew what was happening. He said some opinion leaders there (in the north) had called Gambari that they read the emir's statement and asked him (Gambari) if he had been formerly appointed. My friend reported Gambari to have told them (opinion leaders) that he had not been formerly informed … "
What does any reader gain from a phrase-radical-middle-class-intellectual in Atlanta knowing a nameless old friend in Nigeria who is close to nameless power brokers in the North? Farooq's nameless older friend who he initially touted as being close to the power brokers in the north was in the next moment transformed by Farooq to a knower of some opinion leaders who had called Gambari to know if he had been appointed as contained in the emir's statement. For a Nigerian whose medullae oblongata does not contain only the wrong matter, it is easy to discern that the nameless older friend, who is close to nameless power brokers in the north, that ended up being some nameless opinion leaders are valueless invented stories aimed at boosting personal ego. Regrettably, Farooq Kperogi is like a crab and no matter how one tries, one can never make him walk straight with his wishful connections with powerful people in Nigeria.
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