Abba Kyari: Blessed is the dead

The outpouring of printed  mourns and tributes in memory of the late  Mallam Abba Kyari, former Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari reminds me of similar spontaneous word counts of grief and praise when both Chief Sunday Awoniyi (the late Aro of Mopa), and Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, the Danmasanin Kano, elder statesmen who […]

The outpouring of printed  mourns and tributes in memory of the late  Mallam Abba Kyari, former Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari reminds me of similar spontaneous word counts of grief and praise when both Chief Sunday Awoniyi (the late Aro of Mopa), and Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, the Danmasanin Kano, elder statesmen who died in 2007 and 2017 respectively.

Received wisdom has it that praise is the reflection of virtue. Mallam Abba Kyari was truly in good company of the few statesmen in Africa who through their selfless imprints endeared millions. So far, it has been complementarity of superlatives, intense personal and distant testimonies on the worth and stuff of the former Chief of Staff. An additional testimony might prove an excessive word count /overload. Too much praise, they say, is a burden for  the living and the dead. Therefore, my interest here  is  largely academic. As a  multiple Degree holder (Sociology at Warwick University in England and learned  law graduate from  Cambridge University), a critical post-humous review  of tributes for Mallam Kyari, an intellectual in his own right, would not be out of place.

To a new acquaintance, the  demeanour any day,  of the former proof reader at New Nigeria newspapers, “an articulate member at the daily editorial conferences”,  “an Editor of  Democrat”, (then the  most ambitious (but now defunct) national newspaper in Nigeria:,  alumnus of Ivy League universities, cut the image of a measured, reserved and disinterested intellectual bureaucrat.

On Tuesday July 23, 2019, President Buhari received the National leadership of Textile Workers Union (of which I was then the General Secretary). That singular historic courtesy visit was enthusiastically facilitated by both the late Mallam Kyari and Mr Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation. There the President unveiled a comprehensive Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) policy which aimed at reviving the entire moribund value chains of cotton growing, textile, ginneries, spinning and weaving, printing and garments production.

Mallam would be excited if all the face masks now made compulsory to fight COVID-19 (which sadly claimed his life) are locally produced by local textile and garment workers and tailors thus creating new jobs and protecting existing ones as espoused by President’s vision of 100 million jobs in a decade!

Sometime in September last year, I was with him at the Villa to register the union’s appreciation for the administration’s consistent push in collaboration with CBN for textile industry revival. Having interacted with all the Chiefs of Staff in the current democratic dispensation, I bear witness that AK was academic in disposition in  his aloofness (some dignified physical distancing well before COVID-19!). Will President Buhari get another philosopher-loyal servant/ Chief of Staff? Many thanks to Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim, his teenage mate and intellectual soul mate who brought to the fore in his tribute “Abba Kyari: the Life and Times of a Gatekeeper”, the pedigree of a man of ideas (not easy money and undeserved power)  which AK was.

Certainly whoever must have  engaged Dr Jibrin in polemics on the works of French philosopher, Louis Althusser and Italian communist Antonio Gramsci among others  on critical themes “like state, ideology and how ruling classes constructed discourses that enabled them to control the masses” must have had his share of frustrations with the Federal Executive Council which increased the price of fuel from N 85 to N145 and even muted the idea of a Naira devaluation in an import substituting economy. Even at that, he strived to make a difference.

AK  was the only member of Buhari administration who brilliantly offered intellectual legitimation of the new Deep Offshore (and inland basin production sharing contract) PSC bill commendably signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in November last year, a historic development news which the ever politicised Nigerian media under-reported no less than it appreciated. Witness   Mallam Kyari’s  ThisDay Back page of November 1, 2019, entitled “Towards a New Deal for Nigeria” in brevity (less than 900 words!). He simplified the importance of the new legislation which for once in recent times commendably balanced what I called the “age long corporate greed” in oil and gas sector with urgent national needs in terms of Tax Justice. According to him:” The articles and clauses of complex legislation may not appear to be the stuff to set pulses racing. But there should be no doubt: this is a watershed moment for our economy, our institutions and our people… The amendment … should not be seen in isolation, or as a ‘one off’. President Muhammadu Buhari pushed for the amendment as part of an ambitious programme to overhaul a corruption-saddled and under-performing oil and gas sector…The amendment is important for three reasons: it brings our laws and taxes into the 21st century; it shows that our institutions are effective and resolute in support of the National Interest; and that President Buhari means business.” As an activist of the campaign for quick passage of the  Petroleum Industry Bill, AK’s intervention inspired my article of November 11, 2019, in both Daily Trust New (Production Sharing Contract) Act: A land-mark and  “Beyond PSC Act” of November 13, 2019 ThisDay Back page. Indeed I acknowledged that he “was right on the point: to write that, Nigeria could earn an extra billion dollars a year from our oil…funds that will help restore our schools and hospitals, repair our roads and infrastructure and give our armed forces the support they need to keep us safe.” With benefits of hindsight today, it is fulfilling that I recognised his patriotic contribution to national development while alive. This then raises another academic question; should Nigerians celebrate nation builders while alive or post-humously out-do-each-other with belated tributes? Is appreciation a post-humous passing fad or a defining feature of deserved motivation for the few that serve selflessly in a continent of leaders-dealers?

It’s high time we celebrated lives and times of those who truly choose to selflessly serve. A critical quality and (quantity) check of the tributes for AK reveal an inclusive  mix-bag of our ever divisive, competitive  and conflictual crowd. Even both the APC and PDP  had a momentary truce at AK’s graveside. Must we always find a common purpose at gravesides of compatriots? Blessed are the dead because they will no more be suspected of worsening poverty, power outages, corruption, election rigging, unemployment and COVID-19 which still rampages  lives and livelihoods. Mallam Abba Kyari,  like those before him, namely Alhaji Maitama Bello and Chief Sunday  Awoniyi  with candour and remarkable guts, made great sustainable contributions during  his almost 5 decades of public service. Lest we forget, it’s certainly not academic that Mallam Kyari’s death confirms President Buhari’s admonitions that COVID-19 remains “a life and death issue, not a joke”.  The best tribute to the man who initiated the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on the dread virus is to obey the guidelines of NCDC on physical distancing, personal and workplace hygiene. May Allah grant him mercy the holy month of Ramadan confers on all. Ramadan Kareem!