On reflection, I think Abba Kyari’s problem can be summarised under the American adage that says “nothing fails like success”.
No doubt, Kyari has been a super cop with superb records. But somewhere along the lines and in Nigeria’s temptation-infested climes, he let his guards down and fell into the traps of shady characters, including political carpetbaggers and sensation-hungry journalists that he should have kept at pole’s end.
Such characters were the ones that seemed to have lured him slowly, surely but definitely into taking the wrong steps to perdition. They kept records, sniggered while he sunk into complacency. As Shakespeare stated, “security gives way to conspiracy”.
I shuddered and shock my head when I watched Kyari being decorated by members of the House of Representatives. These, of all praise singers? I thought the lawmakers ought to be spending long nights in thinking of how to move Nigeria out of the socioeconomic and political morass into which the country is sinking? One is tempted to ask if the invitation to so honour Kyari was done through the Inspector General of Police or, improperly conveyed directly to Kyari out of legislative “privilege”? I don’t know but if that was the case indeed, what transpired amounted to procedural indiscipline on everybody’s part. Come on! We have a Police boss but the House of Representatives by-passed him to shower accolades on some “Supercop”, on prime-time national TV?
Perhaps Kyari never read Robert Greene’s “48 Laws of Power” where the author warned anyone climbing the ladder to success never to allow themselves to out shine the boss!
Obviously, Kyari went along, self-assured and self-confident, oblivious to the Tafa Balogun-Nuhu Ribadu saga, nor learnt anything from Ibrahim Magu’s still-hot travails? Apparently, not paying attention to the slippery organisational political terrain Kyari basked in glory as colleagues and seniors were watching. Wrong and monumentally unwise move!
I think in this case, Kyari allowed complacency and smugness to breed in him a false consciousness of invincibility.
The opportunistic Hushpuppis and Cubanas were waiting in the wings, following closely like a pack of very hungry salivating hyenas after a mortally wounded giraffe. Not to forget the eyes and ears of envious but mediocre or incompetent professional colleagues in the Nigeria Police Force; as well as seniors who ought to have mentored Kyari on the need, otherwise, to cultivate the virtues of humility of self-restraint and self-effusion or, better still, to tread most softly and with caution, ensuring not to leave behind any forensic evidence of malfeasance in his path to the heights of glory.
The investigations initiated by the Police authorities may hopefully shed more light on the matter but the issues do not just look good for the now hapless Kyari. From the little publicly available, Kyari was in an inexplicable correspondence with Hushpuppi who claimed to have influenced Kyari to arrest a rival gang member. This ostensibly did happen, with Hushpuppi receiving a photo of the victim in custody from, wait for it, Kyari! Ugh!
In turn, media reports have quoted Kyari as saying that he availed Hushpuppi with an account number into which money was paid – It was a direct payment to a “tailor” for “native attires” the purchase of which Kyari facilitated for Hushpuppi. N300,000 for “native” attires? For what occasion, one is tempted to ask, a presidential inauguration? In befriending such a person, shouldn’t Kyari have tried to avail himself with advice from sister agents in the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), given the sensitivity of his duties and assignments in Nigeria?
As if not bad enough, there was the revelation of an ostentatious display of living an opulent life by a brother to Kyari, the evidence of which was removed from Instagram only when the American FBI released, for public consumption, incriminating data obtained from Hushpuppi’s interrogations. Also, adding to the conundrum has been the frenzy of glaringly sponsored press write-ups seeking a reinterpretation and representation of the saga to the general public, instead of the matter being dealt with quietly. Ordinarily, a top cop famed for hightech intelligence facilities as the bedrock of his sleuthing arsenals, one would ordinarily expect greater circumspection. This, unfortunately, is not to be.
Add a public appearance at a lavish burial ceremony for the deceased mother of a money bag of heretofore unknown industry or means of livelihood, one has all the scripts for a tragic and gripping soap opera.
Here, I do not mean to judge Kyari as innocent or guilty. Obviously, further evidence on which to base such a position will unfold in due course. Until then, one can only point to characteristics of the saga which were perhaps completely avoidable.
Suffice it to conclude here that this may, just may, be a sad end to an otherwise glorious career in the service of the nation.
Very sad, indeed.
Baba is a professor of Sociology with Federal University, Birnin Kebbi
