By Yinka Odumakin

I PRAYED that Allah grants repose to the  soul of the late Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari who died of COVID-19 complications last Friday. May He also comfort the family he has left behind.

I knew Kyari in 2011 when I worked with Major General Muhammadu Buhari and he came around on a few occasions to see my principal. He was a taciturn man who returned greetings with his head or a wave of hand.We spoke just once when he discussed some media issues with me. The type of man he was could be seen in the fact that after five years as CoS, his age was not known by the country. He of course looked like a very old person. It was Comrade Supo Sonibare who made me to know some weeks back as we both flew  from Abuja that he was under 70 years. He had said he was his friend and should be in his late 60s.

After he died, the media started putting his age between over 70 and 81. I had to call Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, his room mate at Cambridge to ask his age because of the confusion in the media. He too said he had earned a degree at Warwick before they became mates at Cambrige, adding that he should be around 65 or a bit more. The confusion over his age was settled when his friend, President Buhari eventually put his age at 67.

Existential  threat

You should be wondering why I called him a saint in the headline. Well, Mr. President has exhibited again the habit of seeing his friends as saints by canonising Abba Kyari in the order of his other friend, Gen Sani Abacha in his tribute.

“In political life, Abba never sought elective office for himself. Rather, he set himself against the view and conduct of two generations of Nigeria’s political establishment – who saw corruption as an entitlement and its practice a byproduct of possessing political office.”

The President is an old man and it is said you cannot teach an old woman how to suck an egg. It would be futile to ask him at this stage to begin to have a dispassionate view of his friends. Sani Abacha whom the president once said never stole is still sending alerts to Nigeria as a kind ancestor over 20 years after his death, while Kyari would be remembered  for the controversies at UBA, MTN bribery allegations and others during his tenure as chief of staff.

But those are not very important now like the behaviour that led to his contracting Coronavirus, his spreading of it, his burial in violation of all rules and the existential threat that has posed to a wide layers of our citizens and the rubbishing of all the campaigns by government against the pandemic. How was it that a quality mind like Kyari with the best education that money can buy from Warwick, Cambridge and Harvard headed for Egypt and Germany in the midst of a pandemic and became one of the few privileged who did not allow us to close our airspace at a time we should have dome so to secure our people!?

He returned from abroad and instead of self-isolating like other returnees, he was living and mingling with people at Federal Executive Council, meeting governors and attending social events. By the time he was totally down, the public was  kept in the dark about his whereabouts when even the UK prime minister was seen on TV being taken in and out of medical facilities to treat Coronavirus.

The Lagos State Government that denied he was being treated in the state eventually admitted he died in there but not without some scandal. Twenty four hours to the death of Kyari, the Federal Government was warning that it would henceforth close any private hospitals and other health facilities that treat COVID-19 patients without authorisation.

Newspapers had reported mounting concerns about the danger to public health, the growing number of private health care providers managing infected persons without accreditation. Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, responded to these concerns in Abuja during the media briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, saying the Federal Government would come down heavily on any unauthorised facility offering treatment to infected patients.

The state had to give what looked like a retroactive accreditation to the facility where Kyari died. Said its Health Commissioner: “Following enquiries on the passing away of the Chief of Staff to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Mallam Abba Kyari on Friday, April 17, 2020, the Lagos State Government states that:

“Mallam Abba Kyari died from complications of Coronavirus infection at First Cardiology Consultants in Lagos. This hospital is a Lagos State designated high care, biosecurity-compliant, COVID-19 facility, accredited by the Health Facility Management and Accreditation Agency, HEFAMAA, of the Lagos State Ministry of Health.”

The  statement added that as a basis for its accreditation, the private hospital “established a separate specialist wing with staff dedicated to the treatment of complicated cases of COVID-19, under the supervision of the Lagos State COVID-19 emergency response team.”

However, this is contrary to the earlier position of the Health Minister, Osagie Ehanire, in his response to enquiries on whether any private hospital had been accredited for the management of COVID-19 or not.

Information Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, further declared matter-of-tacitly on April 3, that families of dead Coronavirus patients would not be allowed to have their bodies for burial because such corpses are property of the Federal Government. He said: “Coronavirus is very dangerous and contagious; there is no medicine for it yet and it is not just capable of killing, overwhelming health care system but it will destroy the economy.”

But the statement Femi Adesina issued on the death of Kyari mentioned that burial plans would be announced soon. And very soon a national burial was underway for Kyari with thousands of attendees, including many operatives of the Presidency who have now been barred from returning to the villa in a big embarrassment to the dysfunctional nature of government in our unserious country.

The height of our irresponsibility was the airing of the burial on major TVs with crowds milling around the corpse on which fluid was still dripping with all the exposures of the attendees to serious infections. It was after all these violations that the disease control agency started issuing some guidelines that must be followed on burials by other Nigerians who may lose relations who are non-cabal.

READ ALSO: COVID-19: NAF produces prototype mechanical ventilator

How can this government in good conscience continue to sing its songs on COVD-19 after all these shenanigans? It must not be lost on us that all that happened around the death of Kyari is an extension of the way he lived with powers, turning democratic government into a totalitarian one with deep personalisation of state authority.

A Chief of Staff, a personal appointee of the President, who is not known to the Constitution virtually became the de facto President of Nigeria with an elected Vice-President rendered  practically impotent. The President who ordered all ministers to report to him, called him a “gatekeeper at the presidency” in his tribute; but he was more of a divisive force. The wife of the President openly cried severally against the unwieldy power Kyari wielded; while the National Security Adviser, NSA, wrote a bitter memo against him.

Mrs. Aisha Buhari took to foreign and local media to rail against Kyari and Mamman Daura on different occasions. At the national women leadership summit organised by Project 4+4 for Buhari and Osinbajo 2019, a political group, she spoke against two men who have dominated a government which emerged through the votes of over 15 million people.

“Our votes were 15.4 million in the last elections and after that only for us to be dominated by two people… this is totally unacceptable. If 15.4 million people can bring in a government and only for the government to be dominated by two people or three people, where are the men of Nigeria? Where are the Nigerian men? What are you doing? Instead of them to come together and fight them, they keep visiting them one after the other, licking their shoes (I’m sorry to use those words),” she said.

She emphasised that taking back the country from the impostors was not about people of the ages of her husband and herself but about our children and Nigerians in the diaspora who should have a home to return to and contribute to its building. Quite reminiscent of her interview with BBC Hausa two years earlier where she said Buhari’s government had been hijacked by only a “few people”.

Her words: “The President does not know 45 out of 50 of the people he appointed and I don’t know them either, despite being his wife of 27 years… some people are sitting down in their homes folding their arms only for them to be called to come and head an agency or a ministerial position.”

An acerbic memo by the National Security Adviser, Babagana Mongunno against Kyari in 2019 December read:

“Framework by unwarranted meddlesomeness

References:

1. SH/COS/46/2/1429 dated 13 September 2019
2. SH/COS/26/5/A/2609 dated 26 November 2019

References A and B were sent in response to the request for presidential intervention to sustain internal security operations of the police within the shortest possible time. However, the contents of the two references were in variance with Mr President’s verbal directives. Consequently, ONSA scrutinised the documents further and sought clarification from Mr. President who has directed that Reference B be disregarded by all parties as it was sent without his endorsement.

2. While it is expected that all heads of security agencies, having spent many years in service would understand means of passing directives from the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, it may be necessary to remind all, in the face of glaring breaches to that procedure. For clarification, other than direct verbal directives from the President, written directives emanating from Mr. President would be conveyed with a copy of his manuscript directive or at minimum, bear his signature.

Additionally, Mr. President may convey directives to the heads of defence and security apparatus through the NSA who chairs the Intelligence Community Committee, Joint Intelligence Board and General Security Appraisal Committee on behalf of the President and the supervising ministers of defence and security agencies. It should be noted that the Chief of Staff to the President does not direct security apparatus of the Federal Republic of Nigeria – his job as it relates to security stops at conveying Mr. President’s written directives.

Continuous  meddlesomeness

 Similarly, you are reminded that the 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 continuous 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.

4. As professionals, you are aware that the security of the Federal Republic of Nigeria requires concerted and centralized effort taking into account internal, external and diplomatic factors. It is, therefore, detrimental to our collective security that the chief of staff who is a non-supervising minister holds meetings with diplomats, security chiefs and heads of agencies.
5. Pursuant to the foregoing, you are by this letter directed to desist from these illegal acts that serve nothing but the continuous undermining of our national security framework. Any breach of this directive will attract displeasure of Mr. President.”

All came to a halt on April 18, when the bell tolled. Would those who are left pick useful lessons and do things differently or carry on as if it lasts for ever? Good night Abba Kyari!

VANGUARD