Abba Kyari: What happened?

“It Would Be A Great Reform In Politics If Wisdom Could Be Made To Spread As Easily And As Rapidly As Folly” – Winston Churchill

The death of Mallam Abba Kyari, the chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, has thrown up two main issues in Nigeria. One is immediate the other is on the long run. On the first score, it brings home the fact that Abba Kyari was grossly misunderstood, maligned but absolutely loyal and intelligent. Abba voluntarily announced that he had tested positive to COVID-19 upon his return from an official trip to Germany. Wasn’t it a rare show of transparency? Couldn’t he as well have kept it to himself and gone ahead to secure treatment privately, with the attendant danger that would have posed to those around him? For me, that is a mark of heroism and patriotism.

Recall that as soon as he made public his status, three other high profile persons – three state governors – followed suit to similarly announce that they had tested positive on the virus. They must have been encouraged by what Mallam Kyari did. In other words, the actions of these four top flight Nigerians, beginning from Mallam Kyari, was what made other high profile individuals to begin to take the needed precautions and that must have potentially saved us from recording more cases. So, Mallam Kyari should posthumously earn our admiration for his candour.

The second issue is that his predicament, battered image and even death brings to the fore the need for continued vigilance over the antics of a few powerful individuals in our midst who earn a living by coercing people in high public offices. Mallam Kyari, in the course of his duty as chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, resisted these powerful individuals in line with his personal principle and his boss’s policy of no business as usual. But they wouldn’t have that. They unleashed the mob on Mallam Kyari, using the media which they have a lot of control and influence on. They also mobilized innocent Nigerians and media fanatics who have one complaint or the other about the Buhari administration. Soon, the word, “cabal”, became the most common thing in our national political lexicon. Mallam Abba was said to lead this so-called powerful cabal that did not allow the president function as he ought to. They pounded, maligned and tortured him with all sorts of lies and propaganda through thoroughly choreographed and funded media terrorism.

Unfortunately, he could not fight back, given the nature of his job. Because of the position he held, he could not defend himself. The late chief of staff received a lot of undefended punches without throwing any, his image completely battered.    I have read a few accounts of some of his close friends, including a media practitioner, who had wanted to help out by letting the people know his own side of the story. But each time, Mallam said to them that there was no need. His position was quite understandable because joining issues with his traducers would have meant dragging his boss out. So, he continued to take the punches from people who disguised as critics of government but whose main target was to get him out of their way or make Mallam let off his guard so that they could do whatever they liked with the country’s resources. In his position, Mallam Abba Kyari became the provable cripple who had an encounter with a rattle snake which suddenly came into his room. The cripple told the snake: “Go ahead and kill me. I cannot run but I cannot surrender”. That was the position Mallam found himself.

Of course, Nigerians have very weighty issues with the administration he served – as the closest official to the president – but that is quite normal. Have we not been having issues with previous administrations even though there might be some peculiarities? But Mallam Kyari, as chief of staff, was like a member of an orchestra. He was definitely not the commander. Fortunately, his boss, President Buhari, whose brief he served, has a glowing testimonial on his late chief of staff.

After describing Mallam Kyari as “my loyal friend and compatriot for 42 years”, the president went ahead to say inter lia: “In political life, Abba never sought elective office for himself. Rather, he set himself against the view and conduct of generations of Nigeria’s political establishment who saw corruption as an entitlement and its practice a bye product of possessing political office… Abba was the opposite. He simply had no need, nor did he seek the cheap gratification of the crowd. For him, there was nothing to be found in popular adulation”

President Buhari further described Kyari as a fellow “whose true focus was always the development of infrastructure and the assurance of security for the people of this nation he served so faithfully… He made it clear in person and his practice always that every Nigerian, regardless of faith, family, fortune or frailty, was heard and treated respectfully and the same”.

Now this: “Working without fail seven days each week, he acted forcefully as a crucial goal keeper to the presidency ensuring that none, whether minister or governor, had access beyond another, and that all those representing and serving our country were treated equally”.

Those are not my words. They are the words of the only fellow that qualifies to write a testimonial on Mallam Kyari. Any other thing is mere conjecture or expression of the personal opinion of certain individuals which must have been coloured by regrets and angst arising from one frustration or another, or their inability to do Nigeria as they liked under Mallam Kyari’s watch as chief of staff to the president.

His traducers have since regrouped, after his death, with some of them jostling to determine who his successor becomes. In the process, they are using the same media to continue the orchestrated campaign of calumny against a dead man and to also indirectly warn whoever is coming to replace him. They have recycled their description of him as a “usurper” of presidential power. As one patriotic Nigerian has observed, perhaps more newspaper articles were written on Mallam Kyari between Friday, April 17, 2020, when his death was announced, and Sunday April 19, 2020, than on any Nigerian public figure, dead or alive; most of the write-ups based on falsehood!. The bible tells us that “A false witness will not go unpunished and he who breathes out lies will perish.” (Proverbs 19:9) It could be an exaggeration but it invariably describes the frenzy witnessed in the public square following Mallam’s death.

Some posthumous Kyari ‘specialists’ have come up with the argument that he took so much power because the president himself was “weak”. Trash. One, it is absolutely not true that President Buhari is weak. Nigeria cannot have a weak president even if the person was born a weakling, thanks to our constitution even if it is not the best in the world. A weak president would not have survived the arsenals directed at him during the last presidential election. Two, go back to the testimonial written by President Buhari on Mallam Kyari, whom he described as “My loyal friend and compatriot for 42 years”. It is a very rare phenomenon. Loyalty for forty two years! How many Nigerian politicians and non politicians have commanded one person’s loyalty for that length of time?

The president’s testimonial on Kyari means that even long before he was elected president, he had seen in Kyari a soul mate, a fellow whom he could depend, confide and lean on. Providence was to later prove him right when poor health jolted his presidency. Kyari proved that capable loyalist, and worked harmoniously with other presidency officials to ensure that the ship of state remained afloat. No member of the Federal Executive Council could summon the courage or had the boldness to present a memo for the president to step down; unlike what we experienced in the Yar’adua case.  I can state without any fear of contractions that, given Mallam Kyari’s fabled closeness to the president, the boat would have been rocked if he did not have the discipline, comportment and levelheadedness to cooperate with other top presidency officials to keep the seat of government going.

At a point during the president’s long absence on account of illness, the vice president, Yemi Osinbajo, acted as president. The presidency would have erupted if Mallam Kyari was enamored of power as some of us now say. The acting president took some far reaching decisions and actions which were quite appreciated by Nigerians. It would have been otherwise if we had an uncooperative and ambitious chief of staff at that trying period.

Agreed, there are challenges of all types facing us as a country and which might have been accentuated by some inadequacies in the personal capacity of some of those on the saddle right now. But to blame it all on the warm relationship that existed  between the president and his late chief of staff is to self assault our collective psyche. As attested to by the president in the tribute we saw above, Kyari worked seven days a week. That was at the expense of his health and family whom he must have left almost always to be on duty. Are we not supposed to show empathy to such a family? What has happened to our humanity?

Moving forward, I believe that all hands must be on deck to change the narrative from our ever readiness to destroy our leaders. Yes, for obvious reasons, Nigerians have been having issues with the leadership of the country but we are getting to a point where people with potentials of offering quality service will begin to get discouraged from taking up public offices, whether elective or appointive. This should be of concern to the younger generation, in particular. If, as they say, the future belongs to them, I would advise the younger elements in the society to be at the forefront of an advocacy for minimizing, if not completely eradicating, the pervasive crab (Nshikor) mentality in us. With the economic future of our country no looking too bright, I can see this mentality blossoming as youths jostle for opportunities which are becoming fewer and fewer by the day. In the circumstance, peer group jealously, which has been the major reason why the youth in Nigeria find it difficult to get to top leadership positions will increase. Incidentally, it is the same youths that are the main operatives in the social media through which leaders are maligned. I advise a change of style. The youths can, nevertheless, identify and isolate those wealthy and powerful individuals who, believing that our society owes them a living, put pressure on people on elective or appointive leadership positions to always do their bidding.

I am not one of those who lay claim to a deep relationship with the late Kyari but I interacted reasonably with him to be able to have an informed opinion about him. I became close to him following the introduction of the presidential intervention policy on Palm production in the country and another presidential programme on environment and climate change. I had the opportunity of making inputs into the strategic document that defined the policy and it was in the course of that that I met Mallam and some very polished and intelligent individuals in the presidential corridor of power. I became personally enamored on the candour with which the presidency went about it and with the late chief of staff a strategic resource person. Not many are aware of the importance of Palm to the economy of the old Eastern Nigeria. Mallam was a strong advocate of government policies that will help steer the national economy away from our over dependency on hydrocarbons.

Death, where is thy sting? The world, according William Shakespeare, is a stage: life our entrance. You come, you see and you depart. Machiavelli tells us that there are only two most important qualities at the heart of leadership in any field. They are courage and intelligence. Those are mysterious ingredients that allow great leaders to have a sense of where fortune will lead and how best to take advantage of it. Mallam Abba Kyari displayed frightening courage and mysterious intelligence. Farewell to thee. The song is ended but the melody lingers on.

Ohakim is former governor of Imo state.