The Value Abba Kyari Brings
In a setting where you have Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), Mrs. Maryam Uwais, Mallam Abba Kyari, Dr. Eddie Iroh, Dr. Chidi Amuta, Bashorun Akin Osuntokun, Mrs. Uju Baba-Hassan, Mr. Waziri Adio, Dr. Okey Ikechukwu, Mr. Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim, Ms. Ekanem Etim-Offiong, Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi, Mr. Tony Uranta, Mr. Bisi Ogunbadejo and Mrs. Eugenia Abu, you can only expect nothing but intellectual fireworks. And there always were. But there was also almost always tension--the kind that has to do with Nigeria’s delicate fault-lines.
However, that I managed to navigate so many difficult situations as chairman of the THISDAY editorial board, especially in 2011 and early 2012, was because I had a man like Mallam Abba Kyari not only as a moderating influence but also as my adviser and guardian angel. If the discussion of any issue (especially online) got heated and he sensed that some people were crossing the line, Kyari would either call or send me a personal mail on how he thought I should intervene. And his counsel always worked.
Incidentally, until the THISDAY editorial board brought us together, I only knew Kyari from a distance. But today we are almost like family members, given how closely we have interacted in the last four years. And he is a man who has inspired me a great deal just by the way he comports himself. Despite his rich academic, family and professional pedigrees, Kyari, who curiously maintains a leftist disposition to economic issues, lives an austere lifestyle that speaks volumes about his integrity.
A voracious reader and an articulate mind (a good number of the books in my study were bought for me by him), Kyari is most fitting for a job that requires, among others, making critical judgement calls and proffering options from which the President can choose in good and bad times. At this period when a presidential declaration that links appointments to the number of votes secured at the polls from specific areas is fast becoming, not a misspeak, but a Freudian Slip, Kyari is not only an asset to President Buhari, he is invaluable to Nigeria.
As I had cause to argue in the past while making a distinction between ethnicity which promotes harmony in diversity and ethnocentrism which hinders growth and development, equity in appointments and opportunities in a plural society such as ours is very important. Beyond giving emotional satisfaction and sense of belonging, equity is good for social capital, national cohesion and development. And to the extent that there are obvious gaps, to put it mildly, in the appointments made so far by President Buhari, he definitely needs around him at the Villa credible and fair-minded Nigerians. That is the value Abba Kyari brings as Chief of Staff to the President.
I wish him every success in his new assignment.