What Kyari’s Death Means For Buhari

By Emmanuel Aziken

All chiefs of staff are powerful given that they act as direct intermediaries between the outside world and the president. However, Kyari was exceptionally powerful.

Many attributed his power and influence to President Muhammadu Buhari’s style of devolving powers and authority to trusted subordinates. With Buhari’s trust and confidence, Kyari was believed to have exerted power and influence that particularly touched on the sensibilities of other functionaries of government.

A leaked memo from the National Security Adviser, NSA. Brig-Gen. Babagana Monguno was an example. In the memo, the NSA was said to have directed service chiefs not to take orders from Kyari saying that their orders should only be taken from the commander-in-chief.

Within a week of the memo last February, the president held a meeting with the service chiefs with Kyari in attendance and the NSA absent!

Besides the security services, Kyari was believed to be privy to most issues in governance. It was his involvement in the Federal Government delegation negotiating a business arrangement with Siemens AG in Germany in early March that led to him contracting the virus.

He had following the trip to Germany reportedly passed through the United Kingdom and Egypt before returning to Nigeria.

Once Kyari’s illness was confirmed and he became unavailable for duties the power play in the presidential palace immediately came into action. The first casualty was Jalal Arabi, the long-serving permanent secretary in the State House.

Arabi, a former State House counsel who rose to become the Permanent Secretary in November 2015. He became to Kyari what Kyari was to Buhari.

“Arabi was Kyari’s brain box in the State House and was the one behind many of the actions of the chief of staff,” a source privy to the developments told GreenWhiteGreen.

Once Kyari became indisposed the many enemies that Kyari had developed within and outside the State House went for Arabi and he was removed and posted to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs.

He was removed through a memo issued by the Head of Service, Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan dated March 23, 2020.

Few doubt that the HoS could have given the memo and the directive heeded had Kyari been well and in office.

Since Kyari fell ill and his Man Friday, Arabi was removed the State House has continued to function albeit with minimal impact on the functioning of the presidency.

The import of Kyari’s death is that it would affect the style of governance but of little import to the structure and system of governance.

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