Friday, April 17th, was a day filled with raw emotion nationally. The Coronavirus which has been on rampage for up to five months finally claimed in death a Nigerian top government official – the former Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari. In fact, as many Nigerians have always considered Abba Kyari to be the de facto president of Nigeria, it seemed like the country has particularly lost its number one citizen to the deadly coronavirus disease.
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In the middle of the saddening development, the Federal Government had to fly Kyari’s corpse back to Abuja for burial in accordance with Islamic doctrine. But that process too did not go without some deserving knocks. A policy of the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), which was corroborated once on live television by the Minister of Information was that corpses of coronavirus victims cannot claimed by family members for safety reasons. In fact, many other countries just cremate the remains of the victims whereas little or no burial ceremony is done. Yet, Abba Kyari was buried openly without observance of social distancing by the officials and family who attended.
However, aside the new knowledge now being revealed to the ignorant portion in society that the virus does not know poor, rich, weak and the powerful but strikes anyone just as hard; the death of Abba Kyari continues to plug into some of the internal failings of the presidency.
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On February 23rd, Punchng, a national newspaper reported that the effort of the Federal Ministry of Health (MOH) in procuring essentials and preparing early for the pandemic were futile as Abba Kyari had revoked the rights of Health Ministry to do so. In fact, since the December 2018 face-off between Kyari and former Health Minister, Isaac Adewole, all contracts were to be routed through the Ministry of Agricultural Resources and Rural Development.
With all due respect to the memory of the late Chief of Staff, such a decision can only be described as intra-governmental sabotage and should be liable to litigation under public service rules in a sane society. If only the Ministry of Health had been able to procure essential Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), ventilators, reagents and other necessary items required for early action on the coronavirus pandemic, perhaps Abba Kyari might have lived.
Moreover, when the news of Kyari’s coronavirus infection was revealed; many Nigerians surely made a mental note of his trip to Germany, in the heat of the viral spread of the disease, to sign an energy deal with Siemens on behalf of the Federal Government.
Germany was already battling with its own coronavirus cases as of then. And perhaps, in a fit of arrogance that he could escape contracting the virus, Kyari went ahead traveling for a deal that could have been postponed or for the Minister of Power to seal. In fact, Nigeria was supposed to have shutdown international air travel, but since Kyari calls the main shots in the presidency, he perhaps did not think it was necessary. It is hugely ironical and sad that Abba Kyari became a victim of the supposed incompetence, nepotism and bigotry which has plagued policy-making in Nigeria for a long time.
Now that the unfortunate deed has been done and there is a gaping hole to be filled in the presidency, other more notorious opportunists are reportedly struggling to occupy that vacant stool of the Chief of Staff to the President which Abba Kyari left. The seat is now more attractive as it signals raw power due to the president’s rather inactive governance.
With the impending crisis and unintentional consequences of the pandemic which the country might be facing in coming weeks, we need the type of leadership which can only be provided by the presidency – but which at the moment is lacking due to the absence of a substantive Chief of Staff.
Whatever the political vultures and/or President Buhari decide as choice of the next Chief of Staff, they must be reminded particularly that no leadership vacuum must be left to fester nationally at a time as crucial as this.
Source:
The African Report
Punchng
Featured Image Source: Daily Nigerian
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