Malam Abba Kyari
The raging COVID-19 pandemic claimed its biggest victim yet in Nigeria with the death on Friday night of Malam Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari since August 2015. It was first announced on March 24 that he had tested positive for the virus, contracted during an official trip to Germany nine days […]
The raging COVID-19 pandemic claimed its biggest victim yet in Nigeria with the death on Friday night of Malam Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari since August 2015. It was first announced on March 24 that he had tested positive for the virus, contracted during an official trip to Germany nine days earlier. He then went into isolation and later transferred to a private hospital in Lagos for treatment. Although initial reports said his health was improving, Abba Kyari died on Friday from COVID-19 complications. In line with prevailing guidelines of social distancing, only a small crowd of family members and close associates attended his funeral in Abuja yesterday, conducted in accordance with Muslim rites.
Abba Kyari, born in Borno State in the early 1950s, was a very bright young man who was chosen early in his life for study abroad. He earned degrees in Sociology and Law at the University of Warwick and Cambridge, both in the UK, and was called to the bar in Nigeria in 1983. He attended many prestigious management courses including at the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland and the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School, USA. Before that, he worked first as a reporter at New Nigerian newspaper in the mid-1970s. In 1983 he became editor of The Democrat newspapers, after which he worked for the law firm Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo.
He then began a long and meritorious career in banking. Kyari was Company Secretary of the defunct Africa International Bank, AIB. He later became an Executive Director and still later the Managing Director of United Bank for Africa, UBA. In 1990, he was Borno State Commissioner for Animal Health and Forestry. Abba Kyari however shot to the top of political reckoning in Nigeria when President Buhari appointed him as his Chief of Staff in August 2015. He also sailed into dizzying controversy. Due to a combination of factors that are not easily understood by the public, Kyari came to be regarded as the most powerful Chief of Staff since the return to democratic rule in 1999.
His importance increased after the last election when President Buhari ordered all ministers to, in effect, report to Kyari on virtually all matters. From the beginning of his tenure as Chief of Staff, a notion was fostered in the Nigerian public mind of a “cabal” running the Buhari Presidency. Kyari was widely alleged to be at the center of the cabal. His public quarrels with some of his colleagues, notably the former Head of Service Mrs. Oyo-Ita and more recently with National Security Adviser Babagana Monguno did not help this public image.
No doubt, Abba Kyari was a loyal, hard and diligent worker who earned the trust of his boss, the President. His visibility and perceived power probably stemmed from the president’s taciturnity and reduced vigour due to age and health issues. Abba Kyari took a lot of flak on behalf of the president. As a very loyal officer, he took them in his stride and never tried to push blame to others, least of all the president.
His departure at this very trying period for the administration, for the country and for the world presents President Buhari with an opportunity as well as a dilemma. It is an opportunity to correct some of the administration’s perceived shortcomings. Buhari’s choice of a new Chief of Staff will speak volumes about the quality of his decision making. More seriously, if power remains concentrated in the hands of the next Chief of Staff, it will not augur well for Buhari’s public image.
We mourn the passing of Malam Abba Kyari, who lived and died in the service of his fatherland. He contracted COVID-19 in the line of duty, for which he should be justly and fairly honoured. We condole with members of his immediate family, the government and people of his native Borno State, with President Buhari and Abba Kyari’s former colleagues and with all the people of Nigeria. May his soul find eternal rest in Aljannat Firdaus.