By ARUGA JOE OMOKARO

It would seem that the presidency has finally caved in to criticisms of lopsided appointments into key national positions in President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

Against this backdrop, President Buhari is said to have, therefore, approved the reshuffling of service chiefs and others.

Those believed to have been subsequently approved for replacement are the National Security Adviser (NSA), the Chief of Army Staff, the Chief of Naval Staff, the Chief of Air Staff, and the Comptroller-General of Customs.

Investigations by Daily Independent reveal that apart from the service chiefs, the NSA and the Customs boss, some key staff at the presidency and heads of some Federal Government agencies would be replaced.

It was further learnt that the shake-up was sequel to a memo from the new Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari, suggesting that there was an emergency to reshuffle Buhari’s cabinet to accommodate people from the southern part of the country.

Our source revealed that Gambari, in his memo, stressed that disunity in the country was more widened by the lopsided appointments, thereby pitching the South against the North.

Similarly, the new CoS was said to have highlighted several reasons why there was an urgent need to replace some people in Buhari’s government to embrace national unity and cohesion.

One of the highlights was that there was no sincerity of purpose in executing national economic policies as well as lack of commitment in curtailing insecurity.

President Buhari was said to have yielded to the urgent need to replace some of the key position holders, “especially in the security sector”, our source disclosed.

Our investigations revealed that Gambari’s proposal has leaked to all the military and other agencies whose heads have been slated for sack.

Subsequently, lobby has intensified by interested groups and some politicians, who are said to have reached out to Gambari to recommend their cronies.

In the new dispensation, our source hinted that the new Chief of Naval Staff or Chief of Air Staff might emerge from Kwara State.

Similarly, the naval chief may alternatively emerge from the Niger Delta.

Following the incident at the Presidential Villa, 42 aides to President Muhammadu Buhari have been removed.

According to a source, CPSO to the president, chief detail to the president, ADC to First Lady, escort commander, and 38 others were removed from the villa.

Recall that the First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, her children and Aide-de-Camp (ADC), Usman Shugaba, were alleged to have breached security protocol in the Presidential Villa while attempting to force President Buhari’s nephew and personal assistant, Sabiu Yusuf, to go into self-isolation for traveling out of Abuja recently.

The altercation was said to have led to at least two gunshots being fired within the sacred precincts of the presidential seat of power, a dangerous escalation of the crisis of confidence between the First Lady and the president’s other relatives in the struggle for control of access to the president. Yusuf was said to have managed to flee the scene with blood stain injuries sustained during the attack.

Trouble actually started on Thursday night, penultimate week, when the First Lady and three of her children, Zahra, Halima and Yusuf, accompanied by some of her security aides, led by Shugaba, stormed the residence of Yusuf, House 8 and one of the president’s guests houses, by the Pilot Gate of the Presidential Villa, insisting that Yusuf should proceed on self-isolation for 14 days, to save the president’s family from the danger of COVID-19.

Yusuf had four days earlier returned from Lagos after visiting his wife, who was recently delivered of a baby.

The situation, however, went out of control, when the First Lady’s ADC, in his attempt to apprehend Yusuf, popularly known as Tunde (having been named after Buhari’s former Chief of Staff, Supreme Military Headquarters, Tunde Idiagbon, when he was head of state in the 1980s), discharged his weapon in the premises.

The gunshots, which were described as ‘security breach,’ in the Presidential Villa, forced Yusuf to scamper to safety and eventually took cover in the nearby house of his uncle, Mamman Daura, also Buhari’s nephew.

There were also indications that the matter escalated because of four days of insistence by Aisha that Yusuf should self-isolate after returning from his Lagos trip.

The encounter was said to have degenerated into a heated argument as Sabiu insisted that he was not the only aide of the president, who had travelled to Lagos, citing the case of the new Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, whom he claimed has been going to Lagos every weekend, without anybody pressuring him to self-isolate. (Daily Independent)

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