Babachir Lawal, a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, said on Friday that President Muhammadu Buhari is no longer in charge of running the country.
During an interview on The 2023 Verdict, a special show on Channels Television, the ex-SGF said that there is no government without an inner caucus.
He said that the people in the current government who were close to the President refused to carry Buhari’s hopes.
“He can’t do anything about it, and there’s nothing he can do about it. “There are some people who don’t do what they’re told,” he said.
“As soon as they leave the place where they are told what to do, they go do different things. There’s nothing else like it. Every government has a group of people who work together behind the scenes. No one is in charge.
“There are people who have the President’s ear and who should do things because of their jobs in government, but they don’t do what the President tells them to do or what the President expects of them or what society expects of them.”
He also said that he left the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Labour Party. He said that he joined the LP’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, for the February 25 election because he realized that Obi is the “light.”
Lawal called the APC and the main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), “darkness” and said that he saw the light and left the darkness.
“I have seen the light. When you see the light, you can change your mind. I saw the light and changed my mind. The light is Peter Obi, and the dark is the old way we used to be ruled, which is both the PDP and the APC. Same people, same agbadas, and same red caps, so I’m not the only Nigerian who has seen the light.
“In the life of a people who are so oppressed that they have to live with unimaginable fear, poverty, ignorance, hunger, and diseases, there comes a time when they get fed up and it only takes a small spark to start a fire. I can tell you that Peter Obi is that fire in Nigeria because everyone there has realized that we can’t keep going like this,” Lawal said.
The former SGF, who was part of President Mohammadu Buhari’s administration, said that the government didn’t work well and didn’t live up to expectations.