Abba Kyari's Death, End of a Surrogate Presidency, and the Coming Chaos
Farooq A. Kperogi
Saturday, April 18, 2020
Abba Kyari's Death, End of a Surrogate Presidency, and the Coming Chaos
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
To say I was shocked by Abba Kyari's death would be to tell a lie. Being an asthmatic patient who routinely had "breathing problems" that necessitated periodic trips to London hospitals—in addition to being a diabetic who was older than 65—it would have been nothing short of miraculous if he survived COVID-19.
In spite of who he was, especially the last five years of his life on earth, as a Muslim, I won't speak ill of him in death. But I won't write undeserving and deodorizing posthumous extolments of him, either. That would be as bad as, or even worse than, celebrating his death.
With Kyari's death, Nigeria is now truly leaderless. Buhari is practically in the land of the living dead. He's a breathing mannequin whose only reason for living is to prove he isn't dead in order to justify the continuity of the rule in his name.
Abba Kyari ruled the country on Buhari's behalf. In my viral February 22, 2020 column titled, "The Tragedy of the Abba Kyari Surrogate Presidency," this line appeared: "Sometime in the midpoint of last year, a northern retired general told me Abba Kyari said in private that people who vilify him don’t realize that without him Nigeria would be rudderless and descend into chaos."
Now, he is gone, and the chaos he talked about would start in the coming days and weeks. Mamman Daura, Buhari's nephew who introduced Kyari to Buhari, isn't only old (he is now in his early 80's) he is also now isolated from Buhari thanks to Kyari.
Babagana Kingibe who has been acting on Kyari's behalf and who will probably formally replace him, doesn't quite know Buhari in the same way that Abba Kyari did.
There is a yawning, potentially disorienting power vacuum in the presidential villa now, which actually emerged really visibly since Kyari went out of circulation before his eventual death.
Watch out for Aisha Buhari to assert herself more aggressively and to work to grab power in the fashion that Turai Yar'adua did. In fact, she already started this the moment Kyari took ill.
One of the first things Aisha did was to cause Jalal Arabi, Permanent Secretary of the State House and Kyari's dutiful protege, to be redeployed from the Villa.
The remnants of the cabal will, of course, fight back. But the fight between Aisha and members of the cabal who are merely Kyari's proteges, would be a fight in the dark because Buhari who is supposed to intervene is an insentient being who's barely aware he's alive.
The in-fighting will create noticeable cracks in the Buhari group that Osinbajo, Tinubu, and other interest groups would exploit to feather their nests and advance their interests. In other words, in the coming days and months, expect the cessation of any pretense to governance and an unprecedentedly factious, dog-eat-dog, recriminatory fight between competing power blocs.
Related Article:
The Tragedy of the Abba Kyari Surrogate Presidency
Kennesaw State University
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
Cornelius Hamelberg
The Hon. Abba Kyari is not yet three days in the grave and the wizard Kperogi is already at it again, happily violating a decent, standard, post-funereal convention, one dictated by conventional wisdom. He says, “as a Muslim, I won't speak ill of him in death.”, So far, so good. And then in the next breath, he continues in an entirely opposite direction: renouncing and negating what he said he would not do, just a few second earlier, he then declares his intended direction: “But I won't write undeserving and deodorizing posthumous extolments of him, either. That would be as bad as, or even worse than, celebrating his death.” It rings a bell: Song Number 10 : The Wicked Messenger
It stands to reason that when the nation is grieving and praying for the consolement of the bereaved’s family and the President’s head is bowed in mourning the untimely loss of his right-hand man it’s not the right time for even the most austere or callous of critics to be bad-mouthing the nation’s fallen hero. To quote directly from Israel Shahak, at the very least even the most callous could take refuge in the La Roche-Foucault’s maxim that “ hypocrisy is the tax which wickedness pays to virtue”. The worst that I have heard so far was from the Israeli chap who said that the norm is you do not speak badly of the dead and immediately followed that up that with “Chairman Arafat is dead. Good!”
Kperogi’s funeral oration only consists of one calumny after another. More libel and slander. How else do you label this kind of babble: “Buhari who is supposed to intervene is an insentient being who's barely aware he's alive.” Isn’t that more than enough reason for e.g. Baba Kadiri to want to tear Kperogi to pieces?
The Wiz kid is certainly no Mark Anthony, not even as prosaic and as brief as a Brutus ( and is certainly not a Dennis Brutus either) - but here is Mr. President, showing the human side of love, friendship, Stewardship, and appreciation: To my friend, Mallam Abba Kyari a eulogy from Muhammadu Buhari
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Obuzor Enebeli
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Cornelius Hamelberg
For Chidi: The World Is Too Much With Us
For Jazz lovers: Joe Pass
To Obuzor Enebeli: More history as gossip
The world is wide enough, there’s enough room for consensus, there’s enough room for freedom and for us to roam freely like space monkeys in cyberspace. There’s even enough room for unity, if we want it, so it’s perfectly OK for you to endorse or to “share” Sheikh Kperogi’s views. Please feel free, at least the word is free. In my world, you have to be careful in saying that you agree, without reading the fine print and readily signing where it says, “Sign here.”
To absolve you of any ambiguity or future remorse and regret I suppose that when you say that you “certainly share” Sheikh Kperogi’s views and you seem convinced that there’s “Nothing to add except to say-let the games begin” you mean that you share his views, as expressed in this thread, and that without any reservations, you share them in their entirety ( with nothing to add or subtract)
(In passing, let me say that that’s one of our problems, when certain self-opinionated so-called professors think that the purpose of a university or indeed, the purpose of God’s universe is for them to teach and purvey their own cherished bigoted opinions and partisan perversions as gospels of the unadulterated ”truth” or truths, to the extent that they are unwilling to brook any criticism or opposition, whatsoever. )
I suppose that you willing share Kperogi’s derogatory opinion of his president, that (his words) “Buhari who is supposed to intervene is an insentient being who's barely aware he's alive”?
I thank the Almighty that I am not sufficiently altruistic or dumb enough to plead forgiveness for Kperogi when Kperogi adamantly does not plead for forgiveness for himself. But who knows, it’s possible that Kperogi abuses, ridicules and denigrates President Buhari in public, as an unrepentant quack and charlatan MD he maliciously diagnoses Brother Buhari as suffering from ” dementia”, but privately does tawbah (tauba) and pleads for forgiveness from the Almighty. What I know is that the Almighty is not even going to listen to Kperogi’s pleas for forgiveness, if Kperogi doesn’t first ask President Buhari himself for forgiveness. This is my Judaic understanding. I am not familiar with the Christian understanding beyond what is known as “The Lord’s Prayer” – which requires the Almighty to forgive the sinner in the same way that the sinner forgives those who offend or have offended him.
So far, as we can also see, to some extent, Kperogi is capable of taking the heat in the kitchen. This can prove to be very good CV experience for him in the unforeseeable future
Let me explain, this afternoon I got an interesting communication from my good Hon. Friend from Kano - this is a real and true friend, but I don’t have to reveal his name. I have a few Hon. Friends from Kano and Kaduna and other parts of Northern Nigeria. I’m not like the other guy who keeps on saying that he got a secret communication from someone in Brother Buhari’s inner circle. (When Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was president of Sierra Leone, on a daily basis, sitting in Stockholm, I could have told you exactly what he had for breakfast. I cannot tell you what transpired during the eleven days when he was Gaddafi’s guest in Libya. Ditto, with Ernest Bai Koroma, but wasn’t interested. Ditto with the current president Bio. It’s not a big deal, it’s just that it takes a little effort and could be somewhat time-consuming; it has nothing to do with “extra-sensory perception”, but the Breaking News” level of information, is always interesting, even wherever corruption blooms like grass and is the order of the day. I understand that Brer Bio is trying to punish the transgressions committed by the previous regime, and like Brother Buhari, he would also like to wipe out corruption in the country)
My Kano Bro said about Kperogi’s latest diatribe: “The dude is desperate to be in govt and is refusing to partake in the political process.”
My reply to him is that a true Muslim should wish blessings, make dua and ask for forgiveness and a clear path to Jannah for Mallam Abba Kyari, our dearly departed.
On the other hand, Kperogi (Professor of Buckingham Palace English) apparently doesn’t have any time or inclination for expressing any sentiments of public grief (that he does not feel) and cannot even wait for a decent interval because he is always hungry to criticise Brother Buhari. As our Kano Brother puts it, “to Kperogi, politics is war.”
I pray that my Kano Bro stays safe from the Coronavirus. We should not become victims of innocence.
What another opinionated friend ( also a real friend, not an imaginary or fictitious informant) tells me endorses what the Kano Alhaji says, that Kperogi wants to get a good footing in the present or future government and that’s why he is following in the footsteps of Reuben Abati , hoping to use what he’s got to get to where he wants to be, by using Abati’s proven formula. Apparently, Abati was a fierce critic and a bone in the throat of Goodluck Jonathan who finally silenced him by appointing him Special Adviser, Media, and Publicity and as Official Spokesperson to the President.
(BTW, before the last elections I thought that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Atiku Abubakar appointed Kperogi as his Buckingham Palace English speech-writer. – and so, the Atiku type from rags to riches story could continue…
BTW ( smile), I hope that I agree with all of the above…
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Obuzor Enebeli
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Cornelius Hamelberg
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Julius Eto
Are you a Judaist, Muslim or Christian? I get confused when I read your posts.
To say I was shocked by Abba Kyari's death would be to tell a lie. Being an asthmatic patient who routinely had "breathing problems" that necessitated periodic trips to London hospitals—in addition to being a diabetic who was older than 65—it would have been nothing short of miraculous if he survived COVID-19.
In spite of who he was, especially the last five years of his life on earth, as a Muslim, I won't speak ill of him in death. But I won't write undeserving and deodorizing posthumous extolments of him, either. That would be as bad as, or even worse than, celebrating his death.
Abba Kyari ruled the country on Buhari's behalf. In my viral February 22, 2020 column titled, "The Tragedy of the Abba Kyari Surrogate Presidency," this line appeared: "Sometime in the midpoint of last year, a northern retired general told me Abba Kyari said in private that people who vilify him don’t realize that without him Nigeria would be rudderless and descend into chaos."
Now, he is gone, and the chaos he talked about would start in the coming days and weeks. Mamman Daura, Buhari's nephew who introduced Kyari to Buhari, isn't only old (he is now in his early 80's) he is also now isolated from Buhari thanks to Kyari.
Babagana Kingibe who has been acting on Kyari's behalf and who will probably formally replace him, doesn't quite know Buhari in the same way that Abba Kyari did.
There is a yawning, potentially disorienting power vacuum in the presidential villa now, which actually emerged really visibly since Kyari went out of circulation before his eventual death.
Watch out for Aisha Buhari to assert herself more aggressively and to work to grab power in the fashion that Turai Yar'adua did. In fact, she already started this the moment Kyari took ill.
One of the first things Aisha did was to cause Jalal Arabi, Permanent Secretary of the State House and Kyari's dutiful protege, to be redeployed from the Villa.
The remnants of the cabal will, of course, fight back. But the fight between Aisha and members of the cabal who are merely Kyari's proteges, would be a fight in the dark because Buhari who is supposed to intervene is an insentient being who's barely aware he's alive.
The in-fighting will create noticeable cracks in the Buhari group that Osinbajo, Tinubu, and other interest groups would exploit to feather their nests and advance their interests. In other words, in the coming days and months, expect the cessation of any pretense to governance and an unprecedentedly factious, dog-eat-dog, recriminatory fight between competing power blocs.
Related Article:
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogiAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global WorldNigeria's Digital Diaspora: Citizen Media, Democracy, and Participation
Cornelius Hamelberg
Julius Eto:
Let’s try not to be bigoted now. I am a creature of God.
This is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the perfect truth: I am the voice of one shouting in the wilderness of cyberspace, these are the last days, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight!”
I know that the Synagogue faithful would throw the rabbi out of the temple, if he as much as quoted a single line from the Quran or “The Gospel According to Brother John”, instead of the Torah. Ditto, the Children of Jesus would be up in arms against the pastor who would start speaking in tongues in Arabic and start quoting Muhammad (s.a.w.) instead of praising Paul.
For the sake of convenience, let us assume that there is a ( one ) Supreme Being, the Oga of Ogas, the King of Kings, reigning in Heaven, with the Royal Court consisting of members of His cabinet of Archangels and their deputies, the poets who compose hymns and sing the Lord of Lord’s praises all day and all night accompanied by the Royal Orchestras comprising ensembles of Court Musicians, drummers, pianists, trumpets, saxophones, harpists, flutists, conductors, choirmasters, choirs, choreographers, dancers. There are no police or military or Commissions of Inquiry in heaven.
Over here on planet earth, we have our various counties and our various earthly governments; instead of a “Supreme Being”, invoking the concept of “The Divine Right of Kings” on which basis some of these countries and governments have “Supreme Leaders” - in the case of Iran for example, based on Wilayat-e faqih, so you have Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei as Iran’s Supreme Leader, assisted by the Guardian Council. Maybe it should be a good thing if Nigeria and Cameroon adopted such a system. Supreme Leader Muhammadu Buhari & The Council of Experts. What do you think? Bishop Kukah and Pastors Adeboye, T. B. Joshua, the Christian Congregations of the South, the East, the West and the North aided by the congregations of the Polytheists would oppose such an idea, vehemently?
(My friend Korro says that those who like the idea of having a centralised government are usually the monotheists who believe in a/one Supreme being. The polytheists believe in a less centralised government so they usually have a / one Supreme Being sitting at the apex of the Pyramid, and his deputies (the lesser deities) commanding elements such as the wind, the thunder, the lightning, the Seas. Etc. “ Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines”
There’s also this kind of image
Are you confused because you are Christian and therefore do not accept what non-Christians say about salvation? What else could Jesus have meant by saying, “ In my Father's house there's many a mansion “?
The Torah, the Tanakh, and the Talmud are also books. There’s a fence around the Torah and I know that there are borders and a clear distinction between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Nonetheless, I often quote from the so-called “New Testament” and the Holy Quran, because those are the books of the majority of people in this forum. When it comes to basic ethical questions such as the illegality of murder, corruption etc, they have much in common (Two-thirds of the Holy Quran is about the Prophet Moses, there’s also, considerable mention of Jesus described as the Messiah of the Jews, miraculous birth, and a whole chapter of the Quran is devoted to his Mother: Mary
I am not so acquainted with the “New Testament” or with “the new Judaizers”
You should not assume that if I quote Marx it means that I am a Marxist. Or that if I quote Kofi Annan, I am a Ghanaian. Sometimes, what is most important is the things that people do not say. I like Jews, Christians, Muslims. I also love Arochukwu, Buddhists, Chinese, Hindus, Jains, Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Seven-day Adventists, Sikhs...
This is for you: Multikulti Soothsayer
Me? I’m an orderly mass of electrons, I’m a freewheeling being of light temporarily walking on the surface of this planet which is situated in God’s universe.
Reminds me of Jesus saying, “I have been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know who I am? “
I Am a Cowboy in the Boat of Ra
Julius Eto, exactly what is it that confuses you? What is that you don’t understand? What is it that you don’t understand about Judaism, Islam and Christianity? Don’t be shy, just tell me what confuses you. That’s why I’m here. I’ll try to straighten you out of your confusion. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
“They tell you, “Time is money,” as if your life was worth its weight in gold”
Judaism (Jewish ideas) is the mother of Christianity, which started as a heretical Jewish reform sect and then branched out into a full-blown mission to the gentiles, Cornelius (the Roman centurion) being the first gentile convert to the sect. As you may already understand, there are several Jewish denominations and to get out of your own personal confusion (if you are indeed confused by me or by anyone else) you could try to learn a little about mainstream Judaism and some of the branches – if you are interested. If you are already confused and on top of the confusion there’s the still small voice of the semi-sceptic and a little small voice of the anti-Semitic (“ they killed Jesus” etc) if you want to decrease personal confusion, in order to save yourself some time you could start with Dan Cohn-Sherbok and take a look at his Modern Judaism.
I was at the synagogue library one day when a group of students visited and were shown around the synagogue. One of them was very surprised, he thought that in the synagogue (these cruel Jews) the centrepiece would be a statue of Jesus hanging on the cross and the main synagogue service consisted in the Jewish worshippers being led by the rabbi dancing around the cross and mocking Jesus.
Don’t forget, there are various schools of Hinduism, there are also several schools of Buddhism and don’t forget that those religions are older than Jesus of Nazareth. Of the Hindus schools, I’m acquainted with Vedanta, Yoga, Kashmiri Shaivism, the Bhagavad Gita, The Guru Gita, the Shiva Mahimna Stotram, the Vishnu Sahasranamam, of course, some of the Upanishads, there’s the Hatha Yoga Pradipika ( the best commentary is here) , all of Sir John Woodroffe. The Hindu literature is vast. If it comes to mere reading, you can be buried in that forever. I was.
(This afternoon (20th April) I told my Californian Sufi friend that in 1972 sitting in meditation in Gamla Stan in Stockholm, Sweden, I visited the moon several times. He didn’t say anything. He was not confused. He probably thought that I’m or was a nutter. He didn’t ask me any further questions, such as, “Did you meet her, up there? “ You know that psalm by Sir Philip Sidney, “With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!”
I’m sure that there are enough Muslims in Nigeria to tell you all about the great religion of Islam. The Muslim Holy Month of Ramadan starts on the evening of the 23rd of this month, and everyone is wondering how the Corona pandemic is going to affect the Muslim faithful during this most merciful month of Ramadan. In advance, let us wish our dear Muslim brothers and sisters a Ramadan Karim, Ramadan Mubarak, and pray that their fast will be light…
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Julius Eto
Thanks