Igboeli Arinze
One favorite quote of mine was originally rendered in Spanish and it goes like this- “Condenarme no importa, La Historia Me Absolveria” translated in English, it simply means “Condemn me, it does not matter! History Will Absolve Me!!”
Historians I am sure would be very conversant with this quote which was made by former Cuban strongman, Fidel Castro in a four-hour speech while he was facing trial over his July the 26th attack on Moncada Barracks. In making this speech, Castro was defiant of his traducers, by 1959 he was at the helm of affairs in the small Latin American nation to play a huge role in world politics. When he passed on in 2016, the Cuban nation and the world mourned him and as well absolved him!
Away from Castro and Cuba, to my nation Nigeria. Just last week, Abba Kyari, Chief of staff to President Muhamadu Buhari lost his battle with the much dreaded Corona Virus which he had contracted while he was away in Germany on national assignment.
Nigerians were immediately divided in the aftermath of the announcement of his death. Numbers mourned the man who was seen as the powerhouse of the Buhari Presidency, others rejoiced in what I regard as pointless triumph owing to no other fact than that Kyari was Chief of Staff to Buhari. They had simply like heat contraction in physics, transferred their unjustified hatred for President Buhari to Kyari. So when Kyari died, these sons and daughters of perdition took to whatever channels they had to play God, disgusting!
The late Kyari was called every unprintable name, that I quietly thought to myself if it indeed is a crime to serve the country and perhaps serve well. Here was a man who had left his comfort zone as an individual to serve the nation in surely one of it’s most turbulent times, a man who had given his all and had even died in the line of duty to his country.
But we will not blame them much, no, because in a nation where everything is seen from the lenses of misguided public opinion, which is laden with jaundiced ethnic and religious fallacies, it takes near alienation and the perceived threats of ostracism to shake of such views, yes it is costly but then it is the only right thing to do, however, we are in an age where the majority is associated with right and bandwagonism is akin to political salvation!
Shall we examine the alleged sins of Abba Kyari? Was he less fit for the position? Intellectually and by way of experience, he was no lame duck and possessed an impressive CV, far impressive when compared with past occupants of the same office. Did he stop certain interests in controlling the presidency, the answer is yes, his duty as COS did also include the functioning as a gatekeeper of the presidency. His foremost agenda was to protect the President, anything short of that would surely diminish the office and person of the president and in due course affect the success of the president’s program, then the President would be figured as an accident of history and guess one of the people such failure would be associated with?
Abba Kyari’s chief sin was his unalloyed loyalty to his President. His loyalty was such that in his five years as Chief of Staff he never sought to appear within the klieg lights that dazzled around the President, I cannot recall him granting an interview, whether it was on TV or on paper, he was comfortable to work in the backgrounds, an advocate of the one Presidency concept as it is practiced in well-established climes. Perhaps, those mocking Kyari even in death may have not done so had he shirked his responsibilities and allowed all sort of interests to have hijacked a man who at his inauguration had vowed that ” He belonged to everybody and he belonged to nobody”
They have also attempted to assail the man with accusations of corrupt acts while in office and have cast him as a megalomaniac. A close look at the accusations for graft look rather vague and can be described as an opportunistic infection of accusations owing to the fact that the late. Chief of Staff never did anything to defend himself in the avalanche of stories of corruption that rent the air. But on the face of it, let us examine the accusation that he extorted monies from those who successfully became ministers in this second term of President Muhamadu Buhari.
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