by Mark Amaza

On Tuesday, guerilla journalism site Sahara Reporters broke the news that a group of top government officials including the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari and the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika had formed a cabal with the aim of undermining the authority of Acting President Yemi Osibanjo so as to protect their presidential influence.

This news does not come as a shock to anybody; as a matter of fact, it has been expected for a while. Ever since President Muhammadu Buhari started going on medical vacations to the United Kingdom, there have been reports that a cabal wants to reduce the power of his Vice President in very much the same way there was a cabal that kept then Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan out of the loop during the illness of late President Umaru Yar’adua.

It is not surprising to have power circles around presidents and governors that isolate their running mates and have them totally oblivious of what is going on. Such moves end up rendering these deputy governors or running mates redundant; when there is a change in leadership at the top, it is natural for a lot of personnel changes to follow suit lest one is working with possible saboteurs.

But the main question at hand is: can this said cabal, if true, be successful at their goal?

It will be foolhardy for the Acting President to be ignorant of the fact there will be such power struggles within the Presidency. Palace intrigues come with leadership at every large organisation and with running the affairs of states, regions and countries.

To his credit, he has not engaged in any triumphalism or made radical changes to the Presidency. Not only that, he enjoys a lot of goodwill by virtue of his willingness to engage with all groups directly, to speak on contentious issues and his charisma and intellect.

It will take a misstep of monumental proportions on his part or accusations that are powerful enough to stick to change the tide.

Although Acting President Osinbajo will unlikely make any major changes to either government policy or actions as he is not the substantive president, he will very likely navigate the murky waters of Aso Rock politics excellently as he has done so far.

Also, credit must be given to the political class as a whole for carefully managing the situation especially compared to the Yar’adua saga in 2010. Apparently armed with lessons from that episode, the ruling party in general and the Presidency, in particular, has been very careful to present a united front in the absence of President Buhari.

Any deviation from this show of unity will start to rock the boat and could likely plunge Nigeria into the tense situation that pervaded the country for the first 5 months of 2015.

It remains to be seen what the coming weeks and months will throw up, and there will likely be more stories coming up.

However, it is unlikely that any concerted attempts to undermine the Acting President will succeed.