Death came calling for President Muhammadu
Buhari’s powerful Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, on
Friday, after weeks of battling the deadly
coronavirus which has claimed thousands of
lives across the globe.
Mr Kyari’s death was announced by the
presidential spokesperson, Femi Adesina, in the
early hours of Saturday.
Mr Kyari tested positive for coronavirus and
subsequently moved to a private medical
facility in Lagos for treatment.
In a March 29 statement, Mr Kyari said his
health was improving and urged Nigerians to
remain calm about his situation and keep a
hygienic lifestyle to avoid contracting the virus.
Lifetime
Mr Kyari, from Borno State, graduated with a
bachelor’s degree in Sociology from the
University of Warwick in 1980 before bagging a
degree in Law from University of Cambridge.
He was called to the Nigerian Bar after
attending the Nigerian Law School in 1983.
He returned to University of Cambridge where
he obtained a master’s degree in Law in 1984.
He also attended the International Institute for
Management Development in Lausanne,
Switzerland, and participated in the Programme
for Management Development at the Harvard
Business School, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.
Career
After his return to Nigeria, he worked at the
Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo law firm, for a few
years before becoming the Editor of New Africa
Holdings Limited Kaduna between 1988 to
1990.
Immediately after he left his job as an editor in
1990, he was appointed Commissioner for
Forestry and Animal Resources in Borno State.
He also served as the secretary to the board of
African International Bank Limited, a subsidiary
of Bank of Credit and Commerce International
till 1995.
He later became the executive director in
charge of management services at the United
Bank for Africa, and was later appointed the
chief executive officer. By 2002, he became a
board director of Unilever Nigeria, and later
served on the board of Exxon Mobil Nigeria
until he was appointed by Mr Buhari.
He also served as Honorary Member of the
Presidential Advisory Council on Investment in
Nigeria between 2000 and 2005.
In August 2015, Mr Buhari appointed Mr Kyari
as the Chief of Staff.
Powerful but controversial
His time in office was marred by different
controversies even as many believed he worked
mainly behind the scenes to implement the
president’s agenda. At some point, he was seen
as the de-facto president of Nigeria.
He was known to be one of the ‘cabal’ who
always had the ears of the president alongside
Mamman Daura, the president’s nephew. He
often shared the blame and the credit
attributed to Mr Buhari.
The wife of the president, Aisha Buhari, once
accused him and others of hijacking the
government.
In 2016, the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-
Rufai, in a memo accused Mr Kyari and a
sacked Secretary to the Government of the
Federation, Babachir Lawal, of being clueless.
“You appear to have neither a political adviser
nor a minder of your politics. The two officials
whose titles may enable them function as such
generally alienate those that contributed to our
success. The SGF is not only inexperienced in
public service but is lacking in humility,
insensitive and rude to virtually most of the
party leaders, ministers and governors.
“The Chief of Staff is totally clueless about the
APC and its internal politics at best as he was
neither part of its formation nor a participant
in the primaries, campaigns and elections. In
summary, neither of them has the personality,
experience and the reach to manage your
politics, nationally or even regionally,” the
governor wrote then.
Scandals
Mr Kyari was also allegedly enmeshed in the
MTN N500 million bribery scandal. While the
Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC),
fined the company $5 billion for a security
related infraction, Mr Kyari was accused of
collecting N500 million bribe to help cut down
the fine. He denied the allegations.
Recently, the National Security Adviser,
Babagana Monguno, accused Mr Kyari of
‘jumping’ into the affairs of the security of the
nation. He warned all service chiefs to desist
from taking further directives from the Chief of
Staff without President Buhari’s knowledge.
“Chief of staff to the President is not a
presiding head of security, neither is he sworn
to an oath of defending the country. As such,
unprofessional practices such as presiding over
meetings with service chiefs and heads of
security organisations as well as ambassadors
and high commissioners to the exclusion of the
NSA and/or supervising ministers are a violation
of the Constitution and directly undermine the
authority of Mr President.
“Such acts and continued meddlesomeness by
the chief of staff have not only ruptured our
security and defence efforts, but have slowed
down any meaningful gain that Mr. President
has sought to achieve,” he said.
In 2017, the then Minister of State for
Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, accused Mr
Kyari of blocking him from seeing the president
over matters relating to the ministry.
His daughter was also ‘secretly’ appointed as an
assistant vice president at the Nigerian
Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).
Nigerians were riled that the position was never
publicly advertised.
The most trending controversy was perhaps
how Mr Kyari reportedly influenced the
President to ‘discard’ Vice President Yemi
Osinbajo’s request for approval for funds to
continue his role in resolving the deadly
farmers-herdsmen crisis.
Mr Kyari was said to have approached the
president with a similar proposal after
‘rubbishing’ Mr Osinbajo’s request before the
president.
He was also allegedly involved in scrapping of
the Economic Management Team (EMT) which
Mr Osinbajo headed and this was replaced with
the Economic Advisory Council (EAC).
Mr Buhari further strengthened the position of
his ally when he warned that only memos that
go through the late chief of staff would get his
(Buhari) attention.
Mr Kyari was buried at a military cemetery in
Abuja on Saturday.
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