Gambari Will Not Make Any Difference, Don’t Put Hope In Him- Soyinka
POLITICS DIGEST- Noble Lauraete, Prof Wole Soyinka, has said the country’s administration should be the duty of the President and not that of the new Chief of Staff, Prof lbrahim Gambari.
Soyinka, who noted that Gambari wouldn’t make any difference, spoke during an interview programme titled, One-On-One, aired on Plus TV Africa.
The elder statesman stated that he read the excitement over the appointment of Gambari as replacement for the late ex-Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and something struck him about it.
He added, “First of all, we should not even be discussing “who is the CoS?”, because he is not an elected person but because of the twisted way this government has patterned governance, a wrong pattern of governance where everybody, without contradiction, has said we had a prime minister. Only his name was the CoS.
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“And then you have others who now weigh in the merits and the potential of the new CoS and they now try to measure the hopes, the possibilities of restructuring on account of CoS whom we should not even see or know about. I read something by Balarabe Musa. There, he was surprisingly making excuses in advance for the failure of the new CoS, as if it’s the CoS we should be looking at, and when I say making excuses, he was praising Gambari to the skies.
“The question: is will he be allowed to function? When I read that, I said really, we’re finished. Gambari is part of the whole brigade. I know Gambari very well, he’s a friend of mine, I know the family, I love the family and so on. But I know Gambari, he’s part of the structure.
“Gambari was an Abacha man which means that he has Abacha status quo mentality. Let’s put it that way. Gambari is not going to make any difference here, he is just going to make sure that he’s looking after his portfolio over there. So why are we looking in that direction for salvation in this country? I didn’t want to join in that debate because I want him to enjoy his stay. But I know Gambari, very, very well. And, let him do his work and leave him alone and don’t place any hope on his shoulders. In fact, you shouldn’t be looking in the direction of any Chief of Staff. The man who’s in charge is Buhari. The bulk stops there.’’