Abba Kyari: A Nation Personified?

When a renowned legal luminary in Nigeria, Prof. Itse Sagay, heard that DCP Abba Kyari was fingered in a 25kg cocaine bust by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), along with other high-ranking members of the IG’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT), he noted that the news marked the end of an era of crime busting in the Nigeria Police.
This turn of events for the super cop is by far the worst stain on the Police in recent times. He was highly decorated and grew rapidly through the ranks. However, behind the curtains, he has been eating the forbidden fruit even as head of the disbanded Special Anti-Robery Squad (SARS) in Lagos State. Since his unmasking, there has been a torrent of unsavory reports about his ‘boys’. How they exploit and convert the property of suspects for themselves; and withdraw from suspects’ accounts.
Aside from Kyari’s connection with the Instagram celebrity, Ramon Abbas, popularly known as Hushpuppi, there is now circumstantial evidence that he is a lynchpin in a drug cartel operating between Ethiopia, Nigeria and Brazil. But this piece is not about the details of Abba Kyari’s crime; rather, it is about the fact that he is a metaphor for the Nigerian condition, and he represents everything wrong with our system of governance, the structure of the country; politics, religion, security, education and culture as earlier defined.
His case, call it the Abba Kyari Syndrome (AKS), seems to reflect a condition which cuts across every institution and every level of government from Aso Rock to the smallest local government; from national behemoths like NNPC to small units in departments; from big national icons like Dangote Plc to street corner small businesses. But, unlike other terminal conditions like cancer, AKS is contagious, and it is everywhere, even in religious organisations.
In recent times, we have seen major symptoms of the AKS in the army’s inability to account for funds meant for the purchase of arms. Under Gen. Buratai, the sum of $1billion was approved by the Senate against the wishes of most Nigerians, but the Army is still crying for lack of a munitions. In Rivers State, Governor Nyesom Wike recently accused an Army captain of giving exit cover to illegal refiners of petroleum products. In the South East, there is an uncountable number of checkpoints manned by the Army, and available report indicates that AKS is in full glare.
But among all the security agencies, the Nigerian Police is regarded as the worst, even though they are the closest to the people; and if AKS were to be cancer, its level in the police would have been considered to be stage four, which is why this condition is named after one of their own. In the police, AKS has metastasised from the police headquarters to zones, state commands, divisions, outposts, and checkpoints.
Last week in Port Harcourt, while in a bus, a police officer after taking N100 from our driver, he commented that more than 90 per cent of the commercial drivers in Port Harcourt lack driver’s licences and complete car papers. So, why are they on the road? Very simple, the AKS in them. Also in Rivers State, it was recently discovered that a divisional police officer owned an illegal refinery. But he was supposed to be fighting this scourge; this is killing Rivers people and the economy.
AKS amongst Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) is unprecedented, like a stage-four cancer, most MDAs are waiting for the doctor to call the time of death. Remember how Abdulrasheed Maina, a civil servant and head of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, fleeced over N2 billion belonging to the pensions board. What about the accusations levelled against the current Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Abubakar Malami, by the publisher of Sahara Reporters, how he has amassed so much wealth while he has been in office. Or, should we even contemplate the Home-Grown School Feeding Programme of the federal government?
According to Governor Wike, recently, the Nation is bleeding, and for me, the epicentre of this financial haemorrhaging is among the MDAs saddled with revenue generation. But of course, due to endemic AKS, they continue to fail the country, leading to a humongous debt burden. In NIMASA, it was alleged that former MD, Dr Dakuku Peterside, missed a second tenure due to corruption and wastage. During his tenure, N3 billion was reported to have been spent on removing litters and water hyacinth, but his crime was spending $600,000 per day hiring patrol vessels for rapid intervention, neglecting those owned by the agency. As if Dakuku’s tendencies were not bad enough, the current MD, Mr Bashir Jamoh, has been accused of corruption amounting to the tune of N1.5 trillion and $9.557million by one Jackson Use. If this is true, it means that more than what is equivalent to ten percent of the 2022 budget is unaccounted for in NIMASA.
The history of NNPC’s sins runs very deep and wide, and its tendency of pilfering the federation account dates back to 2012. But the subsidy which it tried to dismantle gave the NNPC another layer of covering to do more economic harm to the country. For instance, the NNPC helped itself with an additional N402.423 billion after the CBN has already paid it N407. 801 for subsidy in 2010.
The current dirty petrol saga is another vivid indication of how sick the NNPC is. We, as ordinary Nigerians, lack words to articulate our pain and shame at this huge national embarrassment. We now even hear that this colossal mess will be cleaned up with N201 billion. But since Aso Rock is also sick no one has been fired.
Space will fail me to continue on this trajectory to talk about the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) that has spent almost N2 billion with nothing tangible to show for, not even the very important East-West Road. Extant records even reveal that the NDDC is owing contractors as much as N3 trillion. Or, religious leaders who are exploiting millions in the name of prosperity; lecturers who sell grades for sex and money; or the workers who kill the small businesses where they work. Or what shall we even say about politicians who promise and fail? Our woes are many; but the question remains, who will heal our disease? Who is able to bring about a final remedy for our AKS? I have no crystal ball to see 2023, but if President Muhammadu Buhari is an honest man, let him fulfil his promise by signing the Electoral Bill into law. For us ordinary Nigerians, our hope is God but our weapon of choice is the PVC, come 2023. If we miss it again, we may not survive as a nation.

By: Raphael Pepple