Abba Kyari: Telling the dead the truth, even when they can’t hear you

By Wale Adedayo

Wickedness is the worst virtue any man can have. I am putting this out here because I know lots of us don’t know this gist.

Two year ago, there was a misunderstanding between the then Minister of Health Isaac Adewole and Abba Kyari. The chief of staff wanted to control the activities of the Health Ministry but the Minister wouldn’t allow him, so Abba Kyari as the de facto president decided to teach the Minister a bitter lesson. He stripped the health ministry of its powers to purchase anything; bear in mind that the ministry of health is responsible for purchasing and distributing medical equipments, hospital supplies and drugs amongst Government owned hospitals such as General Hospitals and University teaching hospitals.

Abba Kyari also immediately mandated the Federal Ministry of health to henceforth approach the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development should they need to ever buy anything or procure anything for all the hospitals and government owned health centers in Nigeria.

What this means is that should the Minister of Health need to procure anything in his domain he would have to first write to his counterpart in Agriculture for clearance, which the Agriculture Minister may or may not give him.

By this single action the chief of staff literally rendered the health ministry useless as they couldn’t function. Just imagine how many lives must have been lost in both the city centers and rural communities because the hospitals didn’t have the resources to attend to their failing health.

Imagine how many pregnant women must have died because of this satanic and diabolic martial order imposed on Health ministry. For ministry staff it was incomprehensible as they all tried to come to terms with one man’s raging power drunkeness. It was beyond humiliating for Isaac Adewole, so when he was replaced after Buhari’s second coming in 2019, staff of the Health Ministry heaved a sigh of relief that it’s now a fresh start as they were sure the absurd injunction would be revoked by Abba Kyari.

Unfortunately for them, even in the abundance of their wild imaginations, they underestimated Mallam Kyari. The new minister on resuming office realized he had no powers whatsoever and proceeded to ask the Chief of staff to reverse it to what is used to be, but he refused! He said it would remain like that until whenever he so pleases. Things continued to deteriorate for the health sector in Nigeria and by February 2020, it all came out in the open.

Following the Coronavirus outbreak, the Federal Government had asked the Central Bank to provide the Health Ministry with all the necessary funds it needed to buy whatever they need to keep Nigerians safe. But Mallam Abba Kyari blocked all that money and refused to allow the new Minister and his team commence work in earnest for things to have a smooth run. They couldn’t buy Ventilators and many other things they had requested. Out of frustration the new Minister told the press in a well publicized press conference that the presidency was blocking it from accessing funds for COVID-19. But out of fear he didn’t go into explicit narration of who is blocking what.

Is it not the same sickness that you withheld the funding for its curtailment that eventually took you out?

My people don’t let any unscrupulous elements and political contractors out there fool you. The Almighty God can never be mocked!

In Nigeria a lot of us acquire degrees and intellect strictly for bragging rights. So many people don’t go to school in this clime to come back and eventually change the society for the better.

You graduated from Warwick University! You read law at Cambridge! You are also a Harvard alumni! You were a successful banker! Yet your best opportunity to fix your country, you dragged it further into the mud. How do you explain to your Harvard and Cambridge community that you transferred the procurement rights of the Health ministry to the Agriculture ministry even in the face of the most deadly virus ever seen by man?

This culture of praising the dead with white lies even when they have deliberately caused us so much pain is primitive, medieval, atrocious, imbecilic and above all mirrors the inherent falsehoods in our culture. If I have the strength of time I might tell you something about his German trip you will never read it any where else.

Whatever position you find yourselves in this life, be humble and most importantly may our subordinates not turn us to their prayer points.

– CRIMEFACTS (NewsTrack only made input in the headline