From Suyi Ayodele
“A lot of ministers pay billions to be appointed, and the first thing they think of is how to recoup that money after being appointed.”
A man, who should know, Alwan Hassan, the spokesman for the All Progressives Presidential Campaign Council (APC-PCC), uttered those words on Friday, October 23, 2026, on national television.
It is exactly five days, today being Tuesday, October 27, 2026, that those sacrilegious words were uttered. Hassan is still free as the breeze, moving about and speaking for the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Some people are born lucky, some attract luck, and some become lucky by political association.
Now cast your mind back to February 13, 2026, and consider the case of the second man; a former minister, former governor and failed-ministerial-nominee, Nassir el-Rufai. The former Kaduna State governor, while appearing on Arise television programme, said: “We listened to the conversation of the NSA.” What el-Rufai admitted here is that he got someone to wiretap the telephone line of the National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu.
Six days after el-Rufai made that open confession; the Directorate of State Security (DSS) visited him on February 18, 2026. He was taken into custody and he has remained behind bars for the past 253 days, his various case files moving from one courtroom in Abuja to another courtroom in Kaduna like the spirit of J. P. Clark’s Abiku!
It is a simple logic here in Nigeria, where perfidy does not just rain but pours. Our case is like the proverbial case of the illness of the child of the rich moneylender, whose parents beg passionately to have a taste of the freshly cooked fish stew and the sick child of the pawn, whose father’s creditor kicks aside as someone who has come with his bag of tricks!
What keeps a big opposition man in perpetual detention is what gives liberty to the spokesman of the ruling party’s campaign team! Felony has colour, belongs to an ethnic group and aligns with political camps in Nigeria. Pray you don’t fall on the wrong side of the political divide. May my mouth not lead me to trouble like the mouth of the proverbial ẹyẹ òrófó (African green pigeon).
The prayer above was one of my saving graces when the news of what Hassan said last Friday first broke over three years ago. An average columnist or journalist is like the typical Yoruba Ayo game player. The elders of the land, after studying the idiosyncrasies of an Ayo game player, conclude thus: òrò ò bò l’énu aláyò (an Ayo game player does not know how to keep secrets).
But if you are privileged to have a countryside cradle orientation like I had, you would know that it is not everything a man hears that he talks about. We must give credit to our forebears who ensured that, from the beginning of time, African names are not just mere appellations but ones with didactic implicatures.
When the news broke shortly after President Tinubu formed his cabinet, I was tempted to join the fray. But I restrained myself not because I had any doubt about my source. But the names of the three wise men of old: F’enu-ménu (Keep your mouth sealed), F’ètè-m’étè (keep your lips pressed together) and Bí-ojú-bá-rí-ẹnu-a-dákẹ́ (when the eye sees, the mouth keeps shut), came to mind. They were the three wise men who counselled the loquacious Ìwòfà Àlàbá (Alaba’s pawn), to be discreet in talking about everything he sees or hears.
Unfortunately, Ìwòfà Àlàbá failed to heed the counsel. One day, he saw a skeleton on a kolanut tree, greeted it and that one answered. Pronto, Ìwọ̀fà Àlàbá dashed to the palace. He told the king what he saw and heard. The entire Oba-in-Council followed him to the spot. Truly, there was a skeleton. But when Ìwọ̀fà Àlàbá spoke to it, mute was the response. In anger, the king ordered Ìwọ̀fà Àlàbá to be beheaded for deceiving the crown. As the decapitated head of Ìwọ̀fà Àlàbá hit the ground, the skeleton spoke. It praised the three wise men for their efforts and enjoined those present to learn from the experience. That was the last time humans heard a skeleton speak.
There are stories that are too weird to be believed. One is the Ìwọ̀fà Àlàbá and the speaking-skeleton fable. The other one in our contemporary history is the bribe-for-ministerial-appointment scandal of Hassan. I first heard about the scandal shortly after President Tinubu formed his cabinet over three years ago. I almost went to town with the story but for the Ìwọ̀fà Àlàbá fable. I had no doubt about my source, but caution is the watchword, so they say.
The source remains to date an impeccable personality; one that is never given to frivolity. His narrative and the manner of delivery echoed the truthfulness of a Catholic Bishop delivering a homily. He was sure and he put figures to the money which allegedly exchanged hands.
The most interesting of the characters in the bribe-for-ministerial-appointment scandal then was a former governor who was said to have contested the APC presidential primary with the incumbent President Tinubu. To ensure that the ex-governor did not cause collateral damage to Tinubu’s ambition, a deal was struck.
The source vowed that the former governor was given a cash of two million US dollars and a promise of a ministerial slot. Deal! The ex-governor stepped down and Tinubu won the APC primary and was eventually declared winner of the subsequent presidential election.
After the victory dance, the ex-governor was said to have approached the Tinubu kitchen cabinet to cash his political IOU. He received the shock of his life. The man was told in a plain language that there were conditions attached to all the available ministerial slots.
One, he was told that he would pay a minimum of three million US dollars for any slot. Two, if he wanted a preferred ministry, he would pay not less than five million US dollars. When the ex-governor mentioned the presidential pre-primary agreement, he was told that Baba (Tinubu) spent a lot of money during the primary and there was the urgent need to recoup every dime. The group reminded the appointment seeker that just like he collected hard currency to step down, other aspirants who also stepped down for the Jagaban did not come cheap either.
Left with no option, the ex-governor brought the demanded three million US dollars and handed it over to the ‘gatekeeper.’ He went away with hope, waiting for the announcement of his name as a ministerial nominee. His wife, a-yet-to-retire old socialite, was said to have assembled the women who would accompany her to Abuja for her husband’s swearing-in ceremony.
Alas, when the list of nominees was released, the ex-governor’s name was missing! He rushed back to the inner circle to draw their attention to the ‘obvious mistake’ and he was told there was no mistake. He asked if his state would get two slots and he got a negative response. The man was said to have blustered, asking what happened to the money he paid.
The explanation he got, according to my source, was simple. Two million US dollars was a refund of the money he collected to step down for Tinubu at the APC presidential primary. The additional one million US dollar was the accrued interest. No be today guyman dey run mugu street. Dazed, the ex-governor left quietly. He couldn’t have done otherwise because he knew his interlocutors to be meaner characters, deadlier and very absolutely unfeeling!
My source concluded the narrative with the magisterial declaration that no minister in the Tinubu cabinet came in without paying. One particular minister was said to have, on his own, upped the ante by going beyond the five million US dollar benchmark to get the particular ministry he wanted. Today, the ‘cheated’ ex-governor is one of the sworn enemies of Tinubu; one that will likely be the first to roll out the drums should Tinubu lose the 2027 election!
So, the confirmation of the bribery that characterised the ministerial nominations coming from Hassan should get us thinking. The caveat, “It is the truth about our country and not just APC ministers; it started before the APC,” is a mere afterthought. If the opposition party had been the one to make the allegation, we would all have dismissed it. Hassan saying it with his full chest makes a lot of difference.
This is one of the fundamental reasons why the country is upside down. A government built on the foundation of corruption is doomed. When ministers pay millions of hard currency to be appointed into the cabinet, the masses should not expect anything tangible from them. This is also applicable to vote-buying. Our leaders do nothing after their elections because the masses had collected their own ‘dividends’ of democracy on the election day.
The dìbò-kóo-se’bè (vote and cook soup), the Ekiti euphemism for vote buying, is akin to the saying of our elders that a man who ate the yam and the seedlings should not expect any harvest the following year. This is one of the reasons our leaders are not accountable to us. A politician who paid voters to get elected has no business formulating policies that will better the lots of the people he paid! A President who ‘bought the seat’ will have no qualms if ministerial nominees paid to be selected!
And the people, too, have no moral justification to ask for good governance from someone who paid to be elected. This is the awareness we all should create. In Ekiti for instance, we need to tell the masses, in their dialect, that: obè kíkan na hí sè léyìn ìbò (one can only make a stale soup from the money collected to vote). That stale soup is the bad governance that has been the lot of the people over the years.
This is what the Sokoto-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Bello Yabo, alluded to on July 29, 2024, when he told his congregants that with President Tinubu telling northern clerics and traditional rulers: ‘I bought this seat I’m on with money’, it matter-of-factly, means: “You have eaten the spaghetti and macaroni you have been given to vote, and now it is finished, it’s all over.”
Hassan was truthful enough to tell us this. The only reason why many of those holding political appointments in this government want Tinubu back is because of the desire for enhanced Return on their Investment (RoI). This government is not just dysfunctional but heavily transactional; it is an equivalent of the Igbo awara awara concept of ‘sharp-sharp’ transactions, popularised by the inimitable restless traders of the Onitsha Main Market!
The allegation by Hassan is one that President Tinubu must not sweep under the carpet. This is an opportunity for Mr. President to prove to Nigerians that his government is not as rotten as the citizenry deem it to be. Hassan could not have spoken in a vacuum. The man is not just a reckless talker to have uttered those words in the heat of the presidential electioneering.
I could feel his frustration at the lacklustre performances of the Tinubu cabinet. There are a few others like him, who are genuinely concerned about the poor outings of this administration on all fronts. Except the Presidency is saying Hassan was under the spell of the opposition when he spoke, this allegation must be looked into with a view to bringing those involved to book.
The Presidency should not be distracted by the noise of the perennial presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), who in recent times has assumed the position of the president of the ‘shadow cabinet’. Each time I read the former Vice-President and his new pastime of picking at anything anti-Tinubu, I wonder who reset his system back to the factory setting; and who told him that he could use criticism to convince Nigerians that he was never part of the rottenness in the country!
While the Presidency is taking steps to unravel the gatekeeper(s) in Aso Rock Villa who sold our ministerial positions, the security agencies, particularly the DSS should also step forward and do the needful. It will be wrong if the DSS is only active whenever its customer dada ni, Omoyele Sowore, is believed to have ‘cyber-bullied’ the President.
What Hassan said last Friday is not different from what el-Rufai said on February 13 and was railroaded to the next jailhouse. If the DSS could be that efficient and effective in the case of the former Kaduna State governor, the Department should show the same dexterity by taking in Hassan for questioning over his allegation of bribe-for-ministerial-appointments.
It is now more interesting, and most important, for the DSS to act, since neither the Presidency, nor the President himself, nor the APC-PCC, has come out to deny what Hassan said. It is a national embarrassment that after ‘buying’ the Presidency, President Tinubu would go ahead to sell his cabinet posts to the highest bidders as Hassan said this present administration did! The inorganic disposition of this administration to matters of public odium does not mean that an average Nigerian remains insensitive to the daily embarrassment the administration dishes out.
If there is anytime one feels so deflated being a Nigerian, it is this era of a President surrounded by a bribe-giving and bribe-taking cabinet! There must surely be an end to PERFIDY!
