Buhari's Government: Meet the Top Men who will Take Charge

 

With the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan in the March 28 presidential polls, the President-elect retired General Muhammadu Buhari has emerged as the new hub of power in the country.

Buhari’s election as president after three attempts has led to an intense struggle among individuals and power bases - all trying to ingratiate themselves and their cronies into the political calculus. There are few individuals across the country believed to have the capacity of influencing some decisions of the president-elect because of their long standing relationship with him.

Aside them, there are also emerging political power bases that are strategizing to position themselves in his power base because of the various roles they purportedly played in his electioneering.

Bola Tinubu:
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the national leader of the APC. He was two terms governor of Lagos State from I999 to 2007.

He is considered as the power house of the APC after the successful merger of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP). His role during the party’s primaries that elected Buhari as well as the recent victory against Jonathan is legendary.

His political acumen, resilience was believed to be instrumental to Buhari’s victory at the Lagos APC convention at a time when the APC governors were said to have endorsed their counterpart Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State.

Apart from his financial muscles, Tinubu also mobilized the South west APC governors for a robust campaign for Buhari. He also provided Buhari with his former state Attorney General Prof Yemi Osinbajo as running mate.

Tinubu has the required leverage to influence major policy decisions in the government.
It is instructive that even while receiving his certificate of return, Buhari singled out Tinubu, the former party chairman, Bisi Akande and the current one Odigie Oyegun for mention.


Olusegun Obasanjo:
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo played an indirect role in delivering victory to Buhari.

His public attack on Jonathan as well as his public exoneration of Buhari from any wrong doing in PTF is believed to have amounted to endorsement of Buhari before the polls.
Obasanjo enjoys tremendous respect from Buhari, and he was recently seen to be coming closer to the president-elect.

In the course of the campaign, Buhari met Obasanjo twice and he visited Buhari in Kaduna just last week. He is therefore seen as one of the people that may influence things around the president-elect.

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