The Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari has died of the deadly Coronavirus.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, confirmed this in a press statement.
Adesina said the Chief of Staff to Nigeria’s President Muhammadu died on Friday, about 25 days after testing positive for COVID-19.
He said, “The Presidency regrets to announce the passage of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari.
“The deceased had tested positive to the ravaging COVID-19, and had been receiving treatment. But he died on Friday, April 17, 2020.
“Funeral arrangements will be announced shortly.”
It can be recalled that on March 24, the 81-year-old Kyari had contracted the coronavirus.
The late Kyari, who was one of the most influential and powerful members of the Buhari regime, visited Germany and Egypt after Nigeria recorded its first coronavirus case on February 27.
In Germany, he and the Minister of Power, Saleh Mamman, on March 9, met Siemens officials over the power deal signed with the company.
Barely a week after the report on his status, Kyari announced his decision to leave Abuja for Lagos to receive medical treatment in a private facility.
Upon his arrival at Lagos, the State and Federal Governments refused to disclose his whereabouts.
The NCDC revealed that the confirmed cases of coronavirus have increased to 493 in Nigeria after 51 new infections were recorded on Friday, with 17 deaths in total.
Out of the 17 coronavirus-related deaths recorded in Nigeria, 11 patients died in Lagos, two in Abuja, one each in Kano, Edo, Delta, and Katsina.
President Buhari initially appointed Kyari as his Chief of Staff on August 27, 2015 and reappointed him on July 5, 2019 after winning his second term election.
The late Kyari held Bachelors and Masters Degrees from the University of Cambridge and the University of Warwick in Law and Sociology. He had worked with the New Nigeria Development Company, New Africa Holdings, African International Bank, United Bank for Africa, Unilever, and Mobil in various capacities over the years.
He remained a very close friend and trusted ally to President Buhari till his death. Click to signup for FREE news updates, latest information and hottest gists everyday
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Mehn this powerful man don go
ReplyDeleteRIP Abba Kyari.
Hope our leaders lean a lesson to fix up our health sector better
This will serve as a lesson to some greedy politicians who never knew when death will come...
ReplyDeleteNigerians suffered alot in the hand if this man
Abba Kyari's Death, End of a Surrogate Presidency, and the Coming Chaos
ReplyDeleteBy Farooq Kperogi
To say I was shocked by Abba Kyari's death would be to tell a lie. Being an asthmatic patient who routinely had "breathing problems" that necessitated periodic trips to London hospitals—in addition to being a diabetic who was older than 65—it would have been nothing short of miraculous if he survived COVID-19.
In spite of who he was, especially the last five years of his life on earth, as a Muslim, I won't speak ill of him in death. But I won't write undeserving and deodorizing posthumous extolments of him, either. That would be as bad as, or even worse than, celebrating his death.
With Kyari's death, Nigeria is now truly leaderless. Buhari is practically in the land of the living dead. He's a breathing mannequin whose only reason for living is to prove he isn't dead in order to justify the continuity of the rule in his name.
Abba Kyari ruled the country on Buhari's behalf. In my viral February 22, 2020 column titled, "The Tragedy of the Abba Kyari Surrogate Presidency," this line appeared: "Sometime in the midpoint of last year, a northern retired general told me Abba Kyari said in private that people who vilify him don’t realize that without him Nigeria would be rudderless and descend into chaos."
Now, he is gone, and the chaos he talked about would start in the coming days and weeks. Mamman Daura, Buhari's nephew who introduced Kyari to Buhari, isn't only old (he is now in his early 80's) he is also now isolated from Buhari thanks to Kyari.
Babagana Kingibe who has been acting on Kyari's behalf and who will probably formally replace him, doesn't quite know Buhari in the same way that Abba Kyari did.
There is a yawning, potentially disorienting power vacuum in the presidential villa now, which actually emerged really visibly since Kyari went out of circulation before his eventual death.
Watch out for Aisha Buhari to assert herself more aggressively and to work to grab power in the fashion that Turai Yar'adua did. In fact, she already started this the moment Kyari took ill.
One of the first things Aisha did was to cause Jalal Arabi, Permanent Secretary of the State House and Kyari's dutiful protege, to be redeployed from the Villa.
The remnants of the cabal will, of course, fight back. But the fight between Aisha and members of the cabal who are merely Kyari's proteges, would be a fight in the dark because Buhari who is supposed to intervene is an insentient being who's barely aware he's alive.
The in-fighting will create noticeable cracks in the Buhari group that Osinbajo, Tinubu, and other interest groups would exploit to feather their nests and advance their interests. In other words, in the coming days and months, expect the cessation of any pretense to governance and an unprecedentedly factious, dog-eat-dog, recriminatory fight between competing power blocs.
May Allah grant him Aljanat firdauz.
ReplyDelete