Nigerian Police and Kyari: Romance with criminals
Daily Times Nigeria
4th August 2021
Promise Adiele – Convener, Third Force Movement

Joining the bandwagon does not hold any attraction for the prudent. Often, the burden of responsibility demands that one does not keep quiet in the face of national malaise especially when falsehood, blatant fabrication, ignorance, and wilful mendacity gradually assume the nature of truth. At such times, the cognitive process is roundly insulted. When events steadily unfold, the arising responses call to question the claims to intelligence by those who react to these events. How indeed can people be so short-sighted and blind to naked truth? Or is it that some people gain undisclosed satisfaction by adorning the garment of dissimulation even when the truth stands exposed in public glare. Could it also be that some people willingly outsource their humanity to the devil to use them in advancing treachery, ignominy, and compound misrepresentation?

Since the news of Nigeria’s former police poster boy, DCP Abba Kyari’s indictment by the FBI hit the news space, many reactions have followed. Some of these reactions are reasonable. Some are the advertisement of base reasoning while some others are the mere personification of idiocy. Some disorientated people have argued along the distorted prism of ethnicity and religion, while some have reacted based on one feeble consideration or another. It grieves the heart because the issues involved are not complicated at all, they are as clear as a sunny sky on a summer morning.

A high-ranking police officer, Abba Kyari is implicated in a scam scheme and people are surprised. That is shocking. With due respect to genuine, hardworking police officers across the country, the force is redolent with officers, high and low, who collude and constantly romance with criminal elements in the country. Anyone who doubts this submission is living in denial and ignorance. There are armed robbers, internet scammers, kidnappers, bandits, and sundry scofflaws who are hand-in-gloves and drink from a common trough with ignoble officers of the police force. Some criminals have police stickers on their cars given to them by their police accomplices. Once they ‘settle’ in heavy sums, they revel in their filthy lucre. This should be common knowledge to any critical social observer. Why do some police officers live like kings and own properties across the country, even outside Nigeria? Why is it that in some robbery scenes, recovered arms and ammunition indicate ownership by the Nigerian Police Force? Why are we pretending not to know these facts as if they don’t exist? Why is everybody surprised about Abba Kyari’s fate? Were we deceived by his poster boy image? Shall we also feign ignorance that some police officers are on the payroll of criminals in Nigeria? No, we should not do that, please.

Right now, Abba Kyari has not been pronounced guilty of any crime. The issue is, he has been accused of culpability in a scam scheme and his presence is required in the US to clear his name. Although the available evidence from the FBI suggests deep complicity on the part of Abba Kyari, his opulent behaviour and rich-boy disposition has not helped his cause. The young man is a billionaire. How did he make his billions? His automobile collection and real estate acquisitions are all mind-boggling. How did they come about? Why would some people ignore the issue and chase shadows over this matter? I am not going to get into the legal technicalities of the issue but if Kyari is the famed super cop he pretended to be and innocent of all the allegations, let him travel to the US, simple.

Some people who query the right of the US to arrest a Nigerian citizen on Nigerian soil are ignorant of Nigeria’s membership of some international organizations. As a sovereign nation, Nigeria has conceded parts of her sovereignty through her voluntary membership of some international organizations and is inevitably bound by international regulations. Nigeria first signed the Extradition Treaty with the US in 1931 and 2014, the Extradition modification Order was signed too. This was followed by the Extradition Acts Proceedings of 2015. Under those acts, Nigeria agrees to extradite Nigerian citizens accused of one form of crime or another against the US to the US. This has nothing to do with ethnicity or religion. Kyari has been accused of involvement in a scam scheme, so let him go to the US and defend himself.

Abba Kyari’s saga has once again beamed a critical searchlight on the activities of police officers and their putrid romance with criminal elements in the country. Of course, we are aware that a man of means, perhaps a criminal or anybody, can call upon the police to deal ruthlessly with a citizen who is considered a threat or a nuisance to the complainant. So anybody who pretends to be shocked that Kyari is alleged to do the bidding of a rich scammer is an enemy of truth. In 1986, the notorious armed robber Lawrence Anini implicated a senior police officer DSP George Iyamu. According to Anini’s confessions, George Iyamu supplied the robbery gang arms/ammunition and gave them security information that aided their operations. DSP George Iyamu also arrested and crushed a rival robbery gang leader and his group in Benin to make way for Anini and his gang to flourish. Anini’s gang and DSP George Iyamu along with some other police officers were found guilty and executed on March 29, 1987. Before his waterloo, DSP George Iyamu lived like a rich prince, drove exotic cars, and had choice women at his beck and call. Yet, before his demise, he was trailed by such accolades as a ‘super cop’.

That Kyari unlawfully detained and tortured Vincent Chibuzor for thirty days to make way for Hushpuppi to prosper is not only heinous but insidious. One begins to wonder if the practice of removing a criminal for another criminal to make progress is a regular practice in the police force. It appears that one drug lord, kidnapper, armed robber, bandit, or scammer can be arrested and put away for a rival group to make progress. Since Evans the kidnapper was arrested, why has he not been convicted? Could it be that he was busted to make a way for a rival criminal to prosper? The last time Evans appeared in court, the trial judge warned that he will be set free if the police fail to come up with convincing evidence. But we had all thought that there was more than enough evidence to send him to jail in a matter of weeks following his arrest, yet, Evans is still standing trial and may walk away as a free man. Abba Kyari arrested him.

Certainly, there are dutiful and responsible police officers but the activities of hoodlums in the Police Force have diminished the image of the force. Kyari has done well as a police officer but he has also defaced the already battered image of the force, bringing it to disrepute. The statement credited to Yerima Shettima, the national president of the Arewa Youth Consultative Forum (AYCF) that “nothing must happen to Kyari” is irresponsible, unfortunate, and shameful. That Miyetti Allah has accused the FBI of conniving with Southern leaders in Nigeria to persecute Kyari is the most jejune, moronic statement I have heard in recent times. The statement oozes of crass banality characteristic of backward, retrogressive savages. Are AYCF and Miyetti Allah not aware that Kyari has been accused with incontrovertible evidence and his presence is needed to refute or admit these accusations?

It is commendable that the IG has suspended Kyari from the Nigerian Police Force. The suspension is to allow independent and transparent investigation into the case because Kyari’s presence could obstruct the cause of justice. While we congratulate DCP Tunji Disu on his appointment as the head of the IRT unit of the Nigerian Police Force, he should know that it will never be business as usual. Let him learn from his predecessor. Kyari may be innocent or guilty. The only way to determine his innocence or otherwise is to encourage him to travel to the US to clear his name. If he does not do so, his image remains tarnished for good and his place in the fetid hall of infamy is historically assured.

© Promise Adiele PhD
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