Anthony Nyiam reveals Nigeria’s ‘de facto president’

Retired Lt Colonel Anthony Nyiam, a former member of the Presidential Advisory Committee, PAC, which packaged the National Conference during the Goodluck Jonathan regime, has taken a swipe at the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government for failing to contain the insecurity problem in Nigeria.

The elder statesman said Buhari only listens to his 80-year-old uncle, Mamman Daura, whom he claimed is Nigeria’s de facto president.

Speaking with Vanguard, Nyaiam said Buhari’s failure to curtail the lingering crises, especially the raging issue of herdsmen who have unleashed terror on Nigerians was unfortunate.

He stated this while reacting to the recent statement by former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, warning Buhari against contesting for second term.

He said, “Obasanjo was only explicitly expressing what some of us have been implicitly hinting if PMB continues in his rigid and persistent ignorance of the inevitability of restructuring and being a Bororo Fulani warlord.

“The de facto president of Nigeria is over 80-year-old Mamman Daura, Buhari’s uncle and unelected occupant of Aso Rock. That is why Buhari disregards his wife’s wise counsel. Buhari has been rendered not to be in charge.

“The ship of the nation-state shall sail away from PMB, if he continues in his rigidity, especially the one driven by ignorance. The 80-year-old Aso Rock occupant would seem to have used his associates to compel the Minister of Agriculture to accept cattle colony rather than what Chief Audu Ogbeh has been a long advocate of. Daura controls the political and economic power while Buhari is in office. PMB’s directives are known to be not only ignored but also changed before his eyes and nothing happens.

“Genuine loyalists of Buhari’s aspiration for integrity in governance are not allowed by the hand of the de facto C-in-C, the CoS, Abba Kyari, to have audience with the president. Through the CoS, the unelected Mamman Daura wants to use the window of opportunity, which PMB regime provides, to add Taraba, Benue, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Borno, Adamawa to the Hausa they have social-culturally enslaved and then use such to take over the South-East, the South-South and the South-West.”