Late Chief Of Staff To PMB Laid To Rest In Abuja
Oru Leonard
Abba Kyari, the late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has been laid to rest in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria today at Gudu Cemetery after short prayers.
Kyari had widely been seen as one of the three most powerful people in Africa’s largest economy and said to have the complete trust of Buhari. Some had even described him as the defacto head of the government because by PMB’s order, Nigeria’s government ministers and state governors had to go through Kyari before getting to the President.
Mr Kyari tested positive for COVID-19 on March 24, about 10 days after he returned from a trip to Germany during which he met with officials of Siemens in Munich on Nigeria’s electricity expansion programme.
Mr Kyari confirmed the news in a statement on March 29, the same day President Buhari made his first nationwide broadcast on the pandemic and expressed hope that he would recover and return to work soon, a optimism that COVID-19 did not allow him to fulfill.
In a statement signed in Abuja on Saturday Morning by Mr. Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President (Media and Publicity): “The Presidency regrets to announce the passage of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari.
According to Wikipedia, Abba Kyari is from Kanuri in Borno State. He graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Warwick, and also received a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Cambridge. In 1983, he was called to the Nigerian Bar after attending the Nigerian Law School.
In 1984, he obtained a master’s degree in law from the University of Cambridge and later attended the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland and participated in the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.
Kyari worked for the law firm Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo for some time after his return to Nigeria. From 1988 to 1990, he was Editor with the New Africa Holdings Limited Kaduna.
In 1990, he served as a Commissioner for Forestry and Animal Resources in Borno State. From 1990 to 1995, Kyari was the secretary to the board of African International Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
Kyari was an executive director in charge of management services at the United Bank for Africa, and was later appointed the chief executive officer. In 2002, he was appointed a board director of Unilever Nigeria, and later served on the board of Exxon Mobil Nigeria.
Kyari was married to the sister-in-law of Ibrahim Tahir and had four children.
On March 24, 2020, it was made public that Kyari tested positive for COVID-19 on March 23, following an official trip to Germany nine days before.
Meanwhile, Nigeria still has a relatively low number of confirmed coronavirus cases with just 493 and 17 deaths, relative to its 200 million population. But there have been significant concerns that the country is not giving enough tests to be certain with just around 7,000 tests.
May the soul of Abba Kyari and all others who lost their lives in the covid-19 pandemic rest in peace.
