Anita Pinto is popular for her writings targeted at children. She knows the importance of filling their malleable minds with things that would help them grow into persons that would make the society better. Pinto once said this of money: ‘It is a beautiful rounded word. Rich and resonant. Do you want me to say it again? Money! It brings smile to every face. Money! It brings gleam to every eye.’ There’s hardly anything wrong in this contention. Think of how a bank credit alert makes you feel. Pinto in the Book 1 of her ‘Elocution Pieces for Students’ series, however cautions on the sweetness of money and building joy only around it. ‘If you have a clear conscience, a good liver, three good friends and a happy home; if your heart has kept its youth and your soul its honesty; if you can cry, yet not make tears your money – cheer up! – You are still one of life’s richest millionaires!’ Pinto’s moral suasion on what riches really are is not for Mr. Abba Kyari and people like him.
Nearly all Nigerians who have attained the age of reason know the police officer who the country recently referred to as ‘the super cop’. The man is Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police. He was involved in numerous successful operations that we thought ended the reign of criminal gangs across the country. He did this as the leader of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT). He was always showing off his (monetary and operational) successes on and off the social media. He was widely known as a ‘happening policeman’ and his impact was felt around the country. Kyari was in the mould and shape of Lee in the 1998 film, Rush Hour. In Rush Hour, starring Jackie Chan (Lee) and Chris Tucker (James Carter), Lee was that trusted, dedicated detective from Hong Kong who had to be called in when the most notorious criminal and kidnapper in the East, Jintao, abducted the daughter of the Chinese ambassador to the United States, in Los Angeles. Lee lived up to his bill, although he worked with a misfit Carter and totally unsupportive FBI.
Our Abba Kyari unlike like Lee. He saw, fell into glitz and his shadow disappeared. The lights and life on the fast lane literally consumed our dear Super Cop Kyari. The klieg lights of fame showed too much of him and blitzed him out. The lights scalded and blinded him so bad he has now crashed headlong into the dark ditch of infamy.
First, it was the FBI that lumped our DCP Kyari in the same group with a man alleged to be a notorious fraudster we popularly know as Hushpuppy. The US FBI arrested Ramon Olorunwa Abass Hushpuppy in his cozy enclave in Dubai, bundled him to the United States and sent words that we send Abba Kyari to them. What the Igbo call ugbo nwa mkpi (the voyage of a he-goat). But we are not into that kind of nonsense, we don’t do that kind of yeye business. Besides, Kyari is yet to be proven guilty by any court of law. Even their man, Ramon Hushpuppy Abass is yet to be sentenced. That was last year.
While that raged, unseen hands from the deep underworld empires reached for Kyari again. Kyari today has been found to not just be a bad cop, against many Nigerians’ thoughts, he is also caught in the maze of an illicit drug cartel. He is in another kind of trouble, the type school teachers of youre referred to as soup. Nigeria’s National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has him by the balls, but some say it is a plot… a script being played by some well connected dramatis personae. To ordinary people, the toiling Nigerian with no electricity to power his fan in the sweltering weather, the NDLEA has finally nailed the coffin of Abba Kyari’s glittering law-enforcement career.
But we remember that the House of Representatives honoured Mr. Abba Kyari and gave him a standing ovation when he was invited to the house for being the cop everyone wants to associate with. Now that he has been found not to be what he claimed to be, can the House of Representatives please reverse itself? Let the house and all of us represented in that chamber assume that the honour done Abba Kyari was in error. The house is made up of our representatives, or so we believe. My representative should please return my standing ovation and everything else you have given him on my behalf. From new evidences, he is undeserving of any of these.
Many Nigerians resort to bitter imprecations to express themselves when talking about our government and our government officials. That’s because they have come to the unfortunate conclusion that nothing good can come out of the people at the helm of affairs in our country. The silence of the House of Representatives on the Abba Kyari matter since 2021 is one of such disappointing episodes. If Abba Kyari’s crash from the pinnacle of his once flowery career to the current abyss of disgrace isn’t a ‘matter of urgent public importance’ for the House to condemn, the House of Representatives should remember that it honoured this same Kyari, and as such, whatever he has become has the chamber’s imprimatur.
The Igbo say that the sheep has seen Obioma as such before it could snatch the piece of yam in his hand. Members of the National Assembly are not the sheep. They are not that gentle. They, however, know that we are a kind of Obioma when it comes to how they treat us. They are not wolves either, otherwise they would have fought for us against the many atrocities of the executive. They are not lions too. If they were, the country should have had the courage to completely rework our constitution by now. That would have saved the country and all of us, including their honourable selves a lot of trouble.
So, this is a clarion call on the man representing me at the lower chamber of the parliament to kindly begin moves to reverse all that Abba Kyari honour. In August last year, the house said it would only do something about the honour it bestowed on Kyari if he was found guilty of the allegations against him by the FBI. The Police Service Commission hasn’t pointedly responded to the House of Representatives in a manner that would say ‘he is guilty’. That might be why there has not been any action along that route. The Reps might also be considering other factors, including the positives of the IRT Kyari led before its recent disbandment.
The house has not acted along the line of the fact that when the music changes you change your dance steps. Perhaps also, the act by the reps might be a deed from the head of Speaker Gbajabiamila mottled by the thoughtful but inconsequential nod of members of his inner cabinet, and which was not resisted by the other members of the house.
The decision to pay public respect to Kyari followed a motion by Ahmad Jaha, representing Chibok Federal Constituency during their sitting of June 9, 2020. The house acted swiftly on the motion by honouring him on June 11, 2020. The House of Representatives draped Kyari in beautiful but borrowed robes for his “exceptional service to the Nigeria Police Force and Nigeria.” There is the need for another motion in the opposite direction.