The death of Abba Kyari greatly saddens me. He was one of the Nigerian government officials I abused the most here. Until one fine day last December
I was driving when a call came in.
“Hello, is that Feyi?”
Yes
“This is Abba Kyari. I’ll like to meet you and show you I’m not a monster”
“Hello, is that Feyi?”
Yes
“This is Abba Kyari. I’ll like to meet you and show you I’m not a monster”
About a week later, I drove down to cambridge to meet him. I took 2 books for him and he also brought 2 books for me. We spent close to 2 hours talking about everything in Nigeria from Buhari to 2nd Niger Bridge
I assumed it would be like the usual Nigerian big men you meet and never hear from once they return to Nigeria. But we continued chatting daily and even when he landed in Abuja, he sent a message from the airport saying we should keep in touch
Since then we’ve chatted very regularly until the last 2 weeks when his illness took a turn for the worse. Sometimes light capitalism vs socialism banter. Sometimes more serious stuff
If you call me a hypocrite I will accept the charge. But I confess that I had started to like the man. It may be that I fell for the old trick of a powerful person treating you with respect but I always found him to be courteous and quite different from the image I had of him
This is not an image washing exercise - many people dislike him strongly (I was one of them too not long ago).
But hearing the news of his death has left me deeply deeply sad. And I pray that God grants his soul eternal rest and comfort his family
But hearing the news of his death has left me deeply deeply sad. And I pray that God grants his soul eternal rest and comfort his family
