HOW NOT TO HONOUR ABBA KYARI - By Tony Eluemunor

The unbridled beatification of Mallam Abba Kyari, who suc­cumbed to Covid-19 disease on Saturday, April 18th, ex­emplifies the strange inability of the present administration’s members to own up to mistakes and accept correc­tion. Yet, as friends and colleagues decorated Kyari’s head with a saint’s halo, they could not justify why they termed him “the best of us”.

What have they said about the way Abba Kyari faced his duties? Noth­ing! Obadiah Mailafia in the Tues­day April 21st Vanguard called Abba Kyari “the most powerful Chief of Staff our country has ever known”, a de-facto Prime Minister. In the next paragraph, he said that “posterity would judge” whether Kyari was ef­fective or not” in serving his princi­pal or for his “self-aggrandizement.” That Buhari called him the Best of us” should make us rethink his contributions though! Buhari’s trib­ute remains the best so far: “Work­ing, without fail, seven days each and every week, he acted forcefully as a crucial gatekeeper to the presidency, ensuring no one – whether minister or governor had access beyond anoth­er – and that all those representing and serving our country were treated equally. He made clear in his person and his practice, always, that every Nigerian – regardless of faith, fami­ly, fortune, or frailty – was heard and treated respectfully and the same. Mallam Abba Kyari was the very best of us. He was made of the stuff that makes Nigeria great. Rest In Peace, my dearest friend”. Buhari made no superhuman claims for Kyari, his words were measured, restrained and touching. I felt his pain.

Mailafia offered one rare insight; Kyari, “like Rasputin, never wasted an opportunity to amass ever greater and greater power and accoutrements that went with it” because nature ar­bours “vacuum”. And I ask, where exactly was the vacuum? Was it in the Vice-President’s office? No, is the answer because every time Vice-Pres­ident Yemi Osinbajo acted for Buhari, people usually applauded him. That vacuum could not have been in the National Security Adviser’s Office be­cause the NSA, General Mohammed Babagana Mongono, accused him of meddling in his duties and watering down the anti-Boko Haram fight, thus betraying Nigeria. The only person, who didn’t complain was the Presi­dent, though the First Lady whined. It is instructive that Mailafia, in all se­riousness, likened Kyari to Rasputin, who mesmerised the Russian Tsar Nicholas Romanov and his Czarina Alexandra, and thereby acquired and abused much powers. I don’t know if Mailafia knew that Rasputin was nicknamed the devil because many thought he was demonic.           

Refreshingly, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu’s testimonial:“Mallam Abba Kyari: Brother, Friend, Patriot”, was insightful; he was well read and bought books for friends as Waziri Adio and Simoen Kolawole had said. But he dug deeper into Abba Kyari’s life; he used to accompany the man to Mallam Mamman Daura’s “residence where a small crowd of distinguished Northern Nigerian technocrats used to gather for the mandatory cup of evening tea, small chops and the dis­cussion about the state of the nation”. From Kawu’s other writings I have little reason to doubt that such dis­cussions rested on the interest of the North as against that of the South. Kawu has always seen Nigeria from North versus South lenses.

So, would I be wrong to conclude that such discussions may have en­deared Kawu to Kyari and Daura? If not, how would the Aso Rock where the same Mamman Daura and Abba Kyari called the shots have been? In such an Aso Rock, the discussion that used to be held in Daura’s house must have been upgraded from mere discussions to the actualisation level!

Modibbo Kawu was, until recently, the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). Just as controversy had trailed his tenure there, a controversy that have led to his recent suspension from of­fice and his being arraigned in court on corruption charges by the Inde­pendent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission), so has controversy trailed Abba Kyari’s ten­ure as Buhari’s Chief of Staff.

Kawo once wrote in an article on Mamman Daura: “For me, what I found most admirable about Malam Maman and his generation of elders, was the way that they retained a loy­alty, not only to themselves, but also to their elders and to the memory of their earlier years of service to Northern Nigeria. It was something that I noticed with the late Chief Sun­day Awoniyi, the late Malam Adamu Ciroma, Alhaji Adamu, Wazirin Fika; and that community of trust, I also witnessed with the late Malam Ya­haya Gusau. We were preparing for Maghrib prayers on a Saturday eve­ning, at Malam Mamman Daura’s res­idence, when Chief Sunday Awoniyi was driven into the compound. There immediately formed, what resembled a mini welcome party, as Dr. Mah­moud Tukur, Malam Mamman Dau­ra, the younger Malam Abba Kyari, and others, including this reporter, joined the cue to receive the venera­ble Chief Awoniyi. ..In that moment, I saw a re-enactment of the traditions of leadership and respect, which was the foundation upon which service and social existence were construct­ed in the old Northern Nigeria. Of course, these welled up nostalgia and deepened fascination for those times past”.

Please, don’t misunderstand me; any Nigerian has a right to think or reminisce about any part of Nigeria from Aba to Zaria and Akure to Soko­to but we also know that a man must be a product of his milieu. Perhaps, I need to define this term so as not to be misunderstood: the Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as “the people, physical, and social condi­tions and events that provide the environment in which someone acts or lives”. Kawu’s milieu remains that of Northern Nigeria which ceased to exist with the creation of 12 states in 1967. Was that Abba Kyari’s too? I hope Kawu misunderstood him and Mamman Daura.

I mentioned Kawu most respon­sibly, because his background and events surrounding him contributed to give Kyari a bad name, and those who praise him need to go further than they have so far and convince Nigerians that Nigerianness and nothing but Nigerianness drove Kyari in all he did. I will use Kawu’s case (as he stated it in an article) as an example. When this man who was born in 1960, graduated from second­ary school in 1976, became pioneer DG, of Kwara Television in 1977 (that came from him, too) barely a year of his working with Radio Nigeria (Ni­gerian Broadcasting Corporation) was appointed head of NBC in 2016, which regulates Broadcasting in Ni­geria, he wrote, in a widely publicised article of June 2nd of same year: “I come from a background of scholars and public servants with a very proud tradition dating back into the histo­ry of the empires of the old Western Sudan.” This includes the Savanna and Sahel lands north of the West African tropical rainforest belt, the rivers of the Senegal, Gambia and Ni­ger systems, as well as the highlands of Fouta Djallon from which these rivers flow, and up to the Lake Chad, as Wikipedia shows. .

Resuming at NBC, Kawu had at the back of his mind his uncle’s advice: ‘“Please ensure that you uphold our family name and your own honour”! It is an admonishment that I have tried to truly live by and it will still condition my attitude in the new po­sition at the NBC. I will work with dedication and give the best to our country as I know it, and will also be true to the change-for-the-better, that President Muhammadu Buhari represents and promotes for our country”.

Ah, that All Progressives Con­gress’ change mantra! Then the al­legations came thick and fast: The ICPC in February 2019 filed a 12-count charge before a judge, Folashade Ogunbanjo-Giwa, against Mr Kawu, Lucky Omoluwa, and Dipo Onifade, the Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of Pinnacle Communications Limited respectively, for allegedly misappropriating N2.5 billion.

A year later on 14th February, Kawu was suspended and should return to the NBC if he is found in­nocent. Now, how does this impact on Kyari’s reputation? It contrasts with the treatment of former Chief Justice of the Federation, Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen and the former Head of Service, Mrs Win­nifred Oyo-Ita. She, for instance, was suspended September 2019 but arraigned March 2020. In fact, some people might even conclude that Mod­ibbo Kawu was suspended just before Mrs Winnifred Oyo-Ita was arraigned to deflect the expected criticism of favouritism against the powers that be at Aso Rock. Unlike Oyo-Ita who was suspended from office ever before she was arraigned, Kawu remained in office for a year, despite having been arraigned, and despite the numerous calls for his removal or suspension. In fact, if things have moved fast, a judgement could have been delivered and Kawu would have remained in office all through his trial.

Some have even reminded us of how Mrs. Oyo Ita stood up to Kyari at a Federal Executive Council meeting over how Abdulrasheed Maina was smuggled back into the Civil Service. An angry Oyo-Ita nexplained she had warned of the implication of reinstat­ing Mr Maina into the civil service.

Please note that I have not com­mented on the merits of the cases; those are left for the courts. I have only referred to the different treat­ments both received with regards to being allowed to remain in office while their cases lasted. Now, would anyone blame anybody for conclud­ing that Kyari must have protected Kawu who was a close associate of his for years prior to his appointment?

How much Abba Kyari reserved official appointments for his friends and acquaintances has been exhibit­ed. How much did this hurt or help the nation? A national government is not supposed to be formed by a cult of friends, but by a wisely assembled team, from diverse backgrounds, of those best able to advance the nation­al cause. And because of the unique nature of the Nigerian federation and its weak unity, not yet totally healed from the effects of the civil war, the idea of a Federal Character has been entrenched and obeyed by past administrations. Buhari’s ad­ministration, driven by Kyari, the much-hailed Caesar of our time, never cared a hoot about such. How a man with much vaunted academic brilliance and common sense could not understand that such a stance would rip the nation apart beats the imagination.

What remains is this: was he an effective Chief of Staff ? All his sup­porters have said that he was fierce­ly loyal to Buhari and that he was a highly intelligent workaholic. But did he disturb the functions of the Vice-President? The NSA? The First Lady? Did he even control the Minis­ters –supposed experienced leaders from around the country who have some combination of executive ex­perience, policy expertise, partisan credentials, or personal loyalty to the President? Ministers are supposed to represent presidential priorities, represent demographic groups and marshal the support of the clien­tele of their ministries. Ministers, because they are confirmed by the Senate, are officers of the state as opposed to mere presidential aides; but did Kyari understand such fine points? Perhaps, I need to educate some commentators about how the White House, and the Chief of Staff too, acquired powers that it never con­trolled before during the President Richard Nixon administration – and we all know that Nixon was disgraced out of office.

Did the insurgency in the land catch Kyari’s attention? Could the writers of the Epic of Abba Kyari tell us how the man sacrificed and toiled to halt the menace of killer herdsmen?

Sundry friends of Kyari have been justifying the man’s octopus-like ten­tacles that controlled everything in Nigeria, and likening it to how the American version operates. That is a lie. The White House Chief of Staff oversees the Executive Office of the President (EOP) of the United States. May the present distortion not be cop­ied by future administrations.