Former vice president Namadi Sambo pops into Aso Rock for brief meeting with Buhari

FORMER vice president Alhaji Namadi Sambo held a brief meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa today sparking rumours about political intrigue ahead of next year's general elections.

Alhaji Sambo, the number two man in the administration of former president Dr Goodluck Jonathan, met with President Buhari this afternoon for about 25 minutes. He arrived at the presidential villa at about 12 noon and went straight into the president’s office and then left the premises at about 12.25pm.

Since leaving office in Mat 2015, Alhaji Sambo has not been a regular visitor to the presidential villa. His only previous visit was in 2017 when he visited vice president Professor Yemi Osinbajo in his office and then he also joined President Buhari for a Jumat service in commemoration of the nation’s independence last year.

It is not yet clear if today's meeting was to do with next year's elections or the ongoing corruption investigations into the Jonathan administration. Barely 24 hours ago, Professor Osinbajo openly accused the administration Alhaji Sambo served in of grand corruption.

Speaking at the Seventh Presidential Quarterly Business Forum for Private Sector stakeholders on Monday, Professor Osinbajo had said the difference between the present administration and that of Jonathan was that Buhari’s administration was not corrupt. He said: “Today, with less revenue, we have increased capital funding by 400% as the minister has said, in power, works and housing, in defence, transportation, agriculture.

“If we want to do analysis in Nigeria, it is either fraudulent or ignorant if we do not bring money that belongs to corruption into the mass and this is what distinguishes, in my own respectful view, this administration from the other. I can say that with what I have seen, if you have a president who is not corrupt, 50% of your financial problems are over.

"This is what I have seen and I can demonstrate it with facts and figures. If the president is corrupt, the entire financial system is compromised and that is what we have seen with the figures we have just seen, which is something that is absolutely important that we must take into account.”