Opinion
Abba Kyari: Not so, Mamman Daura and Jallal Arabi


By Tony Eluemunor

Why are some people unreasonably and immoderately intent on accusing Nigerians of ingratitude or stupidity? They do that when they accuse Nigerians of failure to appreciate the uncommon qualities they claim for the former Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, late Mallam Abba Kyari. Alhaji Mamman Daura and Jalal Arabi inferred that much in their tributes.
In his tall tale about how Kyari nearly became Olusegun Obasanjo’s vice president, Daura said in his tribute: “These times coincided with the country’s return to democracy and Malam Abba was among those enthusiastically espousing the cause of General Obasanjo. On his selection as PDP candidate, a group of women and youths in the PDP lobbied Obasanjo to pick Malam Abba as his Vice Presidential running mate. After heated debates, Obasanjo eventually picked Alhaji Atiku Abubakar”.
Please give Daura the former Editor some credit; though he had let it be known that Abba Kyari was proposed to be Vice-President to People’s Democratic Party’s presidential candidate in 1999, only a careful reader would notice that he attributed this proposal to, women and youths. Were the women and youths combined in one group or were they in two or more groups? The aged former Editor didn’t say. He didn’t even mention the names of the groups. Then, he added, imprecisely again, that “after heated debates,” Obasanjo picked Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Who engaged in those debates? Where were they held? He gave no further suggestion.
So, it was clear that he was trying his best possible to elevate the fallen Chief of Staff to a higher pedestal, just to confound those who thought he bombed as a Chief of Staff. I watched out for the person who would jump into the sweltering and stifling Abba Kyari discussion turf to correct him. And such a correction came; from Dr. Saidu Maidare, former SA to Chief Sunday Awoniyi, late ACF Chairman.
While it is difficult to find the title of Daura’s eulogy to Abba Kyari, (if you find it please alert me) Dr. Maidare’s rebuttal’s is a screamer: “When an old man lies. Mamman Daura’s elegy of Abba Kyari”.He wrote: “Ordinarily I avoid joining issues with you, because as customary in Africa we defer to elders on account of age. However in (an) instance where an old man distort, falsify or even out rightly concoct stories on account of history, it’s mandatory to put the record straight.
The Northern Political Elites presented two candidates for Obasanjo to choose from after the PDP presidential primaries in Jos 1998.
OBJ (Obasanjo) settled for Atiku, as vice president. Atiku on the other hand appointed Bugaje as his Special Adviser political.
“Mamman Daura, Gen Buhari was not even in politics more or less you his appendage. In the period under review you were neither a power broker or warehouse but financially ruined and bankrupt director of BCCI on the radar of American Justice system. Abba Kyari as a VP of Obj?…are you kidding? From which power block…Pls spare us your….b…
sht.”
Tough words, those, but please note that he rightly named the group that nominated Atiku. Unfortunately, I have to correct both Daura and Dr. Maidare. Here we go: About two months to the 1999 elections, Obasanjo’s campaign train was running out of steam. Source of money dried up; a vast sum that was collected by many, included members of Obasanjo’s own family, could not be accounted for. Then, Atiku intervened and injected the badly needed funds into the campaign just when Obasanjo did not know what next to do.
He also activated the PDM machinery and put it to work for Obasanjo. Then Atiku, who had his own state governorship campaign to handle, brought Chief Tony Anenih to Obasanjo as someone who could revive the dying campaign. PDM members across the states were called up for action.

So even after Obasanjo had agreed with a group of elders representing Northern interests on four candidates for the Vice-President’s slot, he still remembered Atiku, who in the Abacha years had remained unwaveringly loyal to the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and had openly, instead of discreetly, visited both Yar’Adua and Obasanjo in jail.
The four names given to Obasanjo for consideration were Senator Jubril Aminu, Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Bamanga Tukur and a much younger person, Waziri Muhammed, who would later head the Nigeria Railway Corporation and die in air crash while championing Obasanjo’s Third Term bid. Some Northern elders were on their way to the Abuja Nicon-Hilton Hotel to meet Obasanjo over the issue when they heard it on that day’s 4pm radio news that Atiku had been chosen vice-presidential candidate.
By then, Atiku had been elected Adamawa State Governor. So he had to hand over to his deputy, Bonnie Haruna. And that is the way it was.
Really, except to point out the facts for fastidious souls who would want Nigeria’s contemporary history to be crisp, I never wanted to intervene because Mamman Daura’s rendition never appeared as something even he regarded as serious. Otherwise, he would not have added that really amusing opinion that Kyari’s intelligence towered above those of all the other of Buhari’s aides and Ministers. Was that supposed to be a justification for Kyari’s alleged supplanting of the Vice-President, sacking some of his aides too, taking over the job of the National Security Adviser? We have been told that Kyari used to buy books for his close acquaintances, so how many books did he buy for the Professor, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo? How many counter-insurgency books did he buy for the NSA? Or didn’t Kyari know that Osinbajo, in secondary school (1969-75) won the State Merit Award (1971); the School Prize for English Oratory (1972); Adeoba Prize for English Oratory (1972-1975); Elias Prize for Best Performance in History (WASC, 1973); School Prize for Literature (HSC, 1975); and African Statesman Intercollegiate Best Speaker’s Prize (1974). At the University of Lagos, he also won the Graham-Douglas Prize for Commercial Law. How many such honours did Kyari win?
Now, what do we call Mr. Jalal Arabi, an out-going State House Permanent Secretary’s write up on Kyari? It is not an encomium (enthusiastic and warm praise) or eulogy (a prepared speech or writing extolling a person’s virtues or services), panegyric (an elaborate often poetic compliment) or a citation (a formal expression of praise say, in a military dispatch for bravery or in the award of a university degree). It came closest to a tribute, not that respected genre of deeply felt praise conveyed either through words or through a significant act but the gutter level type of the original sense of “things given from a weaker group to the dominant power of a region—a bit like the “protection money” the Mafia gets from small businesses after making them offers they can’t refuse, though the older form of tribute actually did buy the weaker group some protection from enemy forces”, according to the Merriam Webster dictionary. Smart Perm Sec; Kyari may be dead but the Mafia (sorry, Cabal) still lives and reigns, so it pays to remain in its good books.
Or, what on Earth could have made a real Permanent Secretary to exhibit his total lack of knowledge of how to pay real tribute to the memory of his champion? How did the late Chief of Staff seed the Aso Rock (Presidency) staff? How did he change the organogram? How did he brand its decision-making process razor sharp? How did he make it welcoming for every Nigerian despite his ethnicity and religion? How many of his close aides were not from his own part of the country? How did he place merit above crude prebendalism? He didn’t reckon with such matters that could have told us how effective a Chief of Staff Kyari was. Many commentators have made it appear that Kyari’s life justified why the word PREBENDAISM was invented. Richard A. Joseph, Director of The Program of African Studies at Northwestern University, is usually credited with first using the term prebendalism to describe patron-client or neopatrimonialism in …Nigeria! Since then the term has commonly been used in scholarly literature and textbooks. The Catholic Encyclopaedia defines prebend as the “right of member of chapter to his share in the revenues of a cathedral.” Joseph used the term to describe the sense of entitlement that many people in Nigeria feel they have to the revenues of the Nigerian state. Joseph wrote in 1996, “According to the theory of prebendalism, state offices are regarded as prebends that can be appropriated by officeholders, who use them to
generate material benefits for themselves and their constituents and kin groups. Any who has ever attacked Kyari has always included favouritism and ethnicism as part of his ills.
Arabi wrote about Kyari: “Dear to his heart as legacy projects for our administration include the National Council on Food Strategy; Presidential Fertilizer Initiative; Presidential Infrastructure Fund; Presidential Artisanal Gold Mining Initiative; Completion of Second Niger Bridge; Initiation for the Funding of 18 Key Road projects across the country; Rehabilitation of Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Road Network; Presidential Power Initiative – Siemens; 10MW Grid Solar Power Project In Kano; Planting of 26 Million Trees to address Desertification; Establishment of 16 Federal Science and Technical Schools in the States; Creation of Special Public Works Program to provide part time employment to 40,000 Nigerian Youths across eight (8) states on a pilot basis; and Federal Government’s Covid-19 palliatives; etc”.
Haba Arabi, there must be an end to sycophancy! Are you claiming that everything the Buhari administration ever did came from Kyari’s unrivalled incandescent mind? Well, if we believe you on that what about the government’s sins of omission? Now answer these questions: Kyari was a member of the NNPC Board, how many petroleum refineries did he cause to be repaired and remain fully operative? As he took over the duties of the National Security Adviser on the Boko Haram insurgency, what stopped him from ridding Nigeria of Boko Haram? And did he end the general insecurity in the land? Thursday 30th April, the Vanguard newspaper had a special report of how suspected herdsmen have held the Issele-Uku, Ubulu-Uku, Issele-Azagba and Ogwashi-Uku and Ibusa axis, the entire Ughelli and Kwale areas of Delta state, hostage. They would come into peoples’ homes, force them to cook for them, then they would take the food and drinks before marching off their victims into the surrounding bushes. It is a sad story that contained that horrendous abduction and killing of Ubulu-Uku’s king, His Royal Highness Obi Akaeze Edward Ofulue III, a murder not yet solved. It is like Abuja has forgotten that those parts belong to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but have been surrendered to suspected herdsmen. Poor Governor Okowa; how distracting this must be to him!
Haba Arabi, Haba! You even credited Kyari with having the Covid-19 palliatives close to his heart. Yet, was he not the same person who got the Ministry of Health banned from purchasing anything directly but to go through the Agriculture ministry? Have you, a Perm sec, told us how that helped Nigeria’s anti-Covid-19 fight?
Abba Kyari is dead; may his soul rest in perfect peace. From the bottom of my heart, I wish his family well. The bookish man must have been nice to friends and some colleagues and earned their tears. But to cast him as a supper patriot and unrivalled achiever on behalf of the down-trodden, is to accuse Nigerians of either ingratitude or stupidity. And that is not right. Again, R.I.P, Mallam Abba Kyari.
Mr. Eluemunor, an authority on the Presidency, lives in Abuja.
By Adamu Muhd Usman.
“If you can think of it, you can plan it; if you can plan it, you can dream it; if you can dream it, you can achieve it.”
—Unknown author
Farming and livestock are Jigawa’s main occupations. The Jigawa people and its government are always interested in farming. So talking about farming, farmers, commodities and livestock prices are interesting issues for Jigawa people.
The prices of cash crops, grains, etc., are recording a steady drop in Jigawa State occasioned by the yearning and interest of the people of the state and also some state government commitment for both farming of animals and farm produce.
A check and investigations by yours sincerely showed and proved that the prices of many things had dropped by 20-30 per cent in the last four weeks and thereabouts in Jigawa state.
A 10 kg local rice farm (produced) in Jigawa State was sold at ₦9,000 as against the previous price of almost ₦12,000. Millet, sorghum, beans, wheat, Benny seeds, etc., indicated a similar price decrease.
People are of the opinion that the situation of a high supply of the produce from farms in Jigawa State has committed itself to producing a large quantity of farm produce and livestock to meet the demand in the region or the country at large. Surely, the increase in the supply of the produce from the farms or farmers had forced prices down in the recent past.
Others still attributed this price drop to the fear of Allah instilled in the hearts of hoarders because the clerics kept preaching against hoarding, which is seriously frown upon by God Almighty.
While some political critics viewed it as the bad economic policies of the President Tinubu administration, in which Allah used it to bring relief to the common man.
Quite obviously, Jigawa is amongst the three states in the federation that produce and supply the nation and some neighbouring counties with grains, livestock, fish and frogs. Jigawa state is also first in Hibiscus, sesame, gum Arabic, datefarm and also Jigawa is not left behind in the farming of cotton and Siemens. —-Jigawa is blessed.
But at the overround investigations, findings and outcomes, it was largely concluded that all these results and achievements were attributed to the people’s interest and passion for farming, but it is mostly because of the government’s commitments to assist, promote and enhance agricultural production in the state to make it a priority in Jigawa as a means of livelihood, occupation and income for the Jigawa populace and to be a source of internally generated revenue (IGR) for the state and also make the state feed the nation formula. Thank God, the airport (cargo) built by the former governor, Dr Sule Lamido, will now be very functional and useful.
The big question now is, can the state government sustain its support for the agricultural sector and continue to pay more attention and also sustain the package and gesture?
We hope that farmers in the state will continue to enjoy maximum support in crop production, including the use of mechanised farming. This will encourage livestock farming, which will go a long way to reduce or stop farmers’/herders’ clashes.
Also, the issue of soil erosion should be given due attention, and more roads should be constructed across the state in order to facilitate bringing out farm produce from villages and rural areas to urban areas.
As the saying goes, Success is getting what you want, and happiness is wanting what you get.
Adamu writes from Kafin-Hausa, Jigawa State.
By Abiodun KOMOLAFE
The concepts of power, privilege and governance are complex and multifaceted. Power refers to the ability to influence others, while privilege denotes unearned advantages.
Governance encompasses institutions, structures and processes that regulate these dynamics. Together, these concepts raise fundamental questions about justice, equality and resource distribution.
It emphasizes the importance of considering marginalized groups’ experiences and perspectives. The main problem in Nigeria today is its political economy, which is rooted in rent-seeking and fosters a mindset that prioritizes patronage over production.
The country’s politics are characterized by a patron-client relationship, where everything revolves around government handouts rather than effective governance. This has led to a situation where “politics” in Nigeria is essentially a scramble for resources in a country with severely limited opportunities for self-improvement.
When French agronomist René Dumont wrote ‘False Starts in Africa’ in 1962, he inadvertently described Nigeria’s current state in 2025. Nigeria’s missteps have magnified themselves in the theatre of the absurd, such as the construction of a new vice presidential residence and Governor Chukwuemeka Soludo’s boasts about the lavish official residence for the governor of Anambra State, currently under construction.
It is to be noted in contradistinction that the newly sworn-in Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, is looking for somewhere to live. The official residence of the prime minister, 24 Sussex Drive, the Canadian equivalent of 10 Downing Street, is in disrepair and uninhabitable. No Canadian government can dare ask the parliament to appropriate the $40m needed to refurbish the residence.
Canada’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) exceeds $2 trillion, while Nigeria’s GDP is less than $400 billion. Still, Nigeria claims to be a giant! With an electricity generation capacity of less than 6,000 megawatts, Nigeria’s proclamation seems absurd, especially when compared to cities like Johannesburg, Singapore, Hong Kong and Mumbai. Even Lagos State alone should be generating, transmitting and distributing at least 15,000 megawatts, which would be a basic expectation rather than an achievement.
Nigeria today needs a comprehensive overhaul of its governance crisis to build a new political economy and social services that are fit for purpose. Although the government is on the right path in some ways, a root-and-branch transformation is still necessary.
A notable breakthrough is the decision to recapitalize development finance institutions, such as the Bank of Industry and, crucially, the Bank of Agriculture. This move is significant in a rent-seeking state, as it addresses the need for long-term capital – a prerequisite for achieving meaningful progress.
The development finance institutions require annual recapitalization of at least N500 billion, ideally N1 trillion. Achieving this necessitates a thorough cost evaluation of the government’s machinery, starting with the full implementation of the Oronsaye Committee’s recommendations.
The resulting cost savings can then be redirected to development finance institutions and essential social services like primary healthcare. Furthermore, the government should be bolder, if it can afford to be so, especially since there’s no discernible opposition on offer At the moment, the Nigerian political establishment across the board appears to be enamored by the position put forward by the leader of the Russian revolution, Vladimir Lenin, after the failed putsch. Lenin wrote the classic, ‘What is to be done?’
His observation is that revolutions do not take place at times of grinding poverty. They do so during periods of relatively rising prosperity. Significant sections of the Nigerian establishment believe that relatively rising prosperity could trigger off social discontent.
In their own interest, they had better be right. The caveat is that Lenin wrote ‘What’s to be Done’ in 1905. The world has moved on and changed since the conditions that led to the failure of the attempted takeover of government in Russia in 1905. Therefore, the Nigerian political establishment, for reasons of self-preservation, had better put on its thinking cap. Addressing power and privilege in governance requires collective action, institutional reforms and a commitment to promoting social justice. Nigeria currently lacks a leadership recruitment process, which can only be established if political parties are willing to develop a cadre. Unfortunately, the country is dealing with Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) instead. It’s rare to find leadership in Nigeria operating political boot camps to recruit and groom youths for future leadership roles.
This might be why many young people have a misguided understanding of politics, viewing it as merely a means of sharing the nation’s commonwealth. Mhairi Black was elected to the British House of Commons at 20 years old.
However, the key point is that Black had started becoming involved in politics at a young age. By the time she was elected, she had already gained significant experience, effectively becoming a veteran in the field. In Nigeria, politics is often seen as one of the few avenues for self-fulfillment. However, the economy is stagnant, with few jobs created in the public sector and limited investment opportunities.
This is a far cry from the 1950s and 1960s, when political parties were more substantial. Today, it’s worth asking how many Nigerian political parties have functional Research Departments. Besides, what socialization into any philosophy or ideology do our politicians have? Similarly to former Governor Rotimi Amaechi, many of those who currently hold power are motivated to stay in politics due to concerns about economic stability.
Of course, that’s why the Lagos State House of Assembly has had to revert itself. It is the same challenge that has reduced the traditional institution to victims of Nigeria’s ever-changing political temperature. It is the reason an Ogbomoso indigene is not interested in what happened between Obafemi Awolowo and Ladoke Akintola.
It is also the reason an Ijebuman sees an Ogbomoso man as his enemy without bothering to dig up the bitter politics that ultimately succeeded in putting the two families on the path of permanent acrimony. Of course, that’s why we have crises all over the place! May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
KOMOLAFE wrote from Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State, Nigeria (ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk; 08033614419)
Byabiodun KOMOLAFE
Rivers State is now under emergency rule, and it’s likely to remain so for the next six months, unless a drastic change occurs.
If not managed carefully, this could mark the beginning of a prolonged crisis.
In situations like this, opinions tend to be divergent. For instance, some people hold the notion that the security situation and the need to protect the law and public order justified President Bola Tinubu’s proclamation of a state of emergency in, and the appointment of a sole administrator for Rivers State.
However, others view this act as ‘unconstitutional’, ‘reckless’, ‘an affront on democracy’, and ‘a political tool to intimidate the opposition’. When we criticize governments for unmet expectations, we often rely on our own perspectives and biases.
Our individual identities and prejudices shape our criticism. However, it’s essential to recognize that not all criticism is equal. Protesting within the law is fundamentally different from protests that descend into illegality. Once illegality creeps in, the legitimacy of the protest is lost.
As John Donne wrote in ‘Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions’, “Never send to know for whom the bell tolls.” A protest is legitimate when it aligns with societal norms, values and laws. But when protests are marred by violence or sabotage, they lose credibility. Without credibility, protests become ineffective.
Regarding the validity or otherwise of the emergency rule in Rivers State, it is imperative that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors approach the Supreme Court immediately. They should seek a definitive clarification on whether the proclamation is ultra vires or constitutional.
For whatever it’s worth, they owe Nigerians that responsibility!May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!
Abiodun KOMOLAFE,ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk; 08033614419 – SMS only.
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