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It was the irony of life that Abba Kyari, the late Chief of Staff to the President, had posted on his social media handles that he hoped to be back on his desk shortly after he tested positive to coronavirus, and was taken to Lagos for treatment, but never returned alive from that trip. No one has control over his life though everyone is bound to be careful about how they lead their lives. The late Chief of Staff had access to the best medical care within and outside Nigeria. I had stated that one of the biggest lessons of the prevalent pandemic is that no one would be flown abroad for special medicare because the place you are headed has a deluge of cases to deal with. It is sad that Kyari contracted the ailment while he was in active service. He reportedly travelled to Germany to firm up transactions concerning moves to get a German firm to intervene in the seemingly intractable power problem in Nigeria. He reportedly returned via Egypt and shortly tested positive to the virus. As they say, the rest is history. He has passed to the great beyond, a move that awaits all human beings.
It has become clear that Abba Kyari was fiercely loyal to President Muhammadu Buhari, and was the (un)seen hand that ran the nation. As I did note in an intervention here, the President can only let him do so because he reposed a very high level of confidence in his late chief of staff. Those who have inferred that Kyari turned himself into the power house ought to know that Kyari was the President’s alter ego. I understand that the President could sign a document from Kyari without reading same. In other words whatever Kyari did had the full support and imprimatur of the President. Buhari is the substantive Minister of Petroleum, little wonder Kyari was on the board of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the President’s eye in that organisation. The point being made is that the late CoS did not usurp presidential powers. They were handed to him. If he appointed his friend and schoolmate Geoffrey Onyeama, into the cabinet and made him do a second tenure, it was because the President endorsed it.
Those who hold that history would be hurt if the picture put out as that of the late chief of staff is that of a saint insist that his foibles be brought to the fore, too, given that he held a public office that impacted the nation. Those who would step into his shoes are bound to avoid the banana peels he stepped upon. He was reputed to have stood against moving the presidency out of the North, and had begun to scout for a replacement for his boss from among his stock. He was also reputed to have been instrumental to the lopsided appointments for which the President was knocked from different quarters. Some ministers said he stood between them and the President, and even refused to present their memos to the President for approval. He dabbled into matters that ministers ought to have handled. He was also said to have undermined the Vice President, which was the reason he flew to London to give a President who was on vacation a document to sign.
Among the lessons from Kyari is his burial. The Presidential Task Force on COVID19, which the late Chief of Staff expectedly played a vital role in setting up, has apologised for the plethora of mistakes made at the burial. There would be no need calling back the mistakes made at the burial. It would have been an uphill task to stop the crowd that surged to the burial of the man who ran the Presidency. Many of them would have benefitted from the fallen man. The tendency would be for the virus to increase exponentially in the Federal Capital Territory. The committee says it has ensured that those at the burial ground have gone into isolation. It’s also been said that such corpses are not infections. The minister of information said such corpses would not be released to family members, an indication that the rule may have been bent for Kyari.
The committee says it would retrace all the wrong steps in the process. The number of infected people have continued to increase, which is why every wrong move must be stopped. The task force stands to profit in doing its task by righting the wrongs.
The President may have appointed Kyari’s replacement as you read this or not, but he would ultimately do so. That person must reap from the Kyari era. The person needs to make a dispassionate study of what his predecessor did in office, and take a bearing. He ought to ensure that no wedge is put between the President and his family, because disconnection at the family level might affect productivity. The position becomes more delicate where it is perceived that the Chie of Staff takes virtually all the decisions, and actually runs the Presidency. Kyari’s replacement is bound to be another confidant of the President who must not usurp presidential powers, and yet run the Presidency for a man who is old, and debilitated by health challenges. It’s a rather delicate position to hold, where you hold the levers of power, and must not be seen by the public as holding same. You are in power but must not be seen as such. It would require the height of wisdom to do so, yet Kyari’s replacement must find a way of doing so in order not to portray his boss as a television set whose remote control is with his Chief of Staff. Kyari appeared to have given that impression to the public. The new Chief of Staff has a delicate job to do viz: He must run the Presidency must not be seen as doing so given that the country must have only one President. The critical job for us all is to stay safe, and survive the virulent virus.
