Does Abba Kyari deserve a second chance?
I’ve never really been a fan of the Nigeria Police Force. It’s perhaps the only security agency I’ve never admired since I was a child. The intelligence agencies have always had my love, if I wasn’t doing journalism maybe I’d have been in the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) or the Department of State Service (DSS) but not the Police. My parents’ perception of the Police contributed to how I feel about them.
“None of my children will ever join the police,” my mom would say and seal it with the name of Jesus after regaling us with stories of their many atrocities – how Police arrest innocent citizens and use them to replace criminals in detention. But out of my mother’s many stories, one stands out. stuck with me for over two decades. It is the story of a Nigerian who returned from abroad and went to seek protection at a Lagos police station because he arrived in the country very late. My parents told me the police officers on duty that night killed him and shared his valuables (I’ve been searching for this story for the last two years). My Mom believes the atrocities have earned many Police officers curses that would be transferred to their unborn generations. Sometimes I would taunt her that I was going to join the police, she would ‘reject it in Jesus name’. Of course, I didn’t join the Police. I did something more noble: I chose a career in journalism.
Now that I’ve grown older, not much has changed to prove my parents wrong. My interaction with the Police as a journalist and the ordeals of young Nigerians who are victims of police brutality and extortion have not helped change my perception of the police. A few years ago I started paying attention to one cop – Abba Kyari – whose name evoked hard work and service. He appeared to show another version of the police. The one that has been doing amazing work, bringing down some of the very bad guys who have made Nigerians lose sleep, peace and funds.
A report by SB Morgan (SBM) Intelligence released in 2020 says Nigerians paid at least $18m as ransom to kidnappers between 2011 and 2020. The Nigerian kidnap industry is booming with characters like Chukwudumeme ‘Evans’ Onwaumadike, Henry ‘Vampire’ Chibueze and Hamisu Bala Wadume as the biggest players in the industry before they were brought down by the ‘Super Cop’. In a system where corruption and mediocrity reign, Kyari was ticking the right boxes.
Sadly, that demon, the police as crime enablers, was reinforced in court documents released by the U.S Department of Justice on Wednesday, July 28, 2021. The disturbing reports raised several questions about Kyari.
Abba Kyari, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, found himself in the witness box of the court of public opinion on Thursday, July 29, 2021, explaining without interrogation.
His explanation, using Nigerian street and social media parlance ‘salaye’, wasn’t by accident, a 69-page criminal complaint document released by the DoJ indicted him for allegedly engaging in actions that aided the fraud schemes of world-famous Ramon ‘Hushpuppi’ Abbas. Kyari’s name appeared 122 times in the document sent to me by Thom Mrozek, spokesperson of the Department of Justice in Los Angeles.
Hushpuppi has been in detention in the U.S since June 2020 for an alleged conspiracy to launder hundreds of millions of dollars and other scams. Since his arrest, he has made confessions leading to the arrest of his international network of suspected fraudsters in South Korea, Kenya, the U.S and Nigeria, and there are no signs he’s ready to stop. He’ll do anything for the DoJ as long as his freedom and lesser sentence are guaranteed. I deduced this from my conversation with his lawyer Louis Shapiro on Friday, July 30, 2021.
In the court documents, Kyari was accused of obtaining funds from Hushpuppi to arrest and keep one Vincent Chibuzo in detention for at least a month for interfering with his fraud scheme. Hushpuppi allegedly connived with Chibuzo and Abdulrahman Imraan Juma of Kenya to defraud a Qatari businessman of more than $1.1 million. U.S prosecutors told us that Chibuzo’s role in the scheme was creating a fraudulent website and automated phone line that would convince the victim that a $15m loan had been secured and he made multiple payments purportedly for taxes and other fees, which they told the victim were necessary to secure the loan.
In several chats between Hushpuppi and Kyari obtained by the FBI and quoted in the complaint document, Hushpuppi allegedly instructed Kyari to arrest Chibuzo who was based in Abuja for complaining over his share of the proceeds and contacting the victim to “convince him to stop making fraudulent payments to ABBAS and JUMA and to make fraudulent payments to him instead.
“ABBAS asked KYARI to have the police administer the “serious beating of his life” and arranged with KYARI to pay to keep CHIBUZO imprisoned for at least a month so that the fraud scheme could be successfully executed, and the money could be obtained. After KYARI arrested CHIBUZO, he sent ABBAS photographs of CHIBUZO in custody and later told ABBAS that he would not allow CHIBUZO’s girlfriend to pay money to get CHIBUZO out of custody as he would have done for a “normal arrest.”
It didn’t end there. On page 53, the USAO said “This was not the only time that ABBAS arranged payments with KYARI. On May 20, 2020, ABBAS sent KYARI transaction receipts for two transactions from accounts at Nigerian banks (GTBank and Zenith Bank) of a person also arrested with ABBAS in ABBAS’ apartment in the U.A.E. by Dubai Police on June 9, 2020—to the Nigerian bank accounts of another person in Nigeria. The amounts on the transaction receipts totalled N8m.”
The allegations are so damning and cringe-inducing that I’ve been feeling embarrassed for the Super Cop.
Kyari tried to quickly offer an explanation. He’s a digital-savvy cop, one of Nigeria’s most active security operatives on the internet, and he uses his social media space very well to promote his work and achievements, including photo ops with bandits after arresting them. Only DCP Tunji Disu, former Commander of the Lagos Rapid Response Squad, who has now been appointed to Kyari’s IRT job following the latter’s suspension, comes close.
He knows the implication of allowing anger to travel on the internet without a swift reaction and he wasted no time offering an explanation. A study by the Beihang University in China in 2013 confirmed that anger is the most viral emotion on the internet. It travels faster than any other emotion.
Kyari didn’t deny having links with Hushpuppi or receiving funds from Hushpuppi, instead, he said it was for a tailor. His reaction has made him a subject of internet trolling and newspaper cartoons. He asked for it.
He should have resisted the urge to ‘salaye’. When the U.S indict, you can be sure they have done their homework. Kyari has spent much of his 20 years of police career tracking down some of Nigeria’s most vicious criminals. He led the team that tracked and arrested notorious robber Abiodun ‘Godogodo’ Egunjobi in 2013 after a decade-long manhunt. Godogodo himself commended the Police for his arrest. How he became Hushpuppi’s willing tool is another disturbing question.
He should have known he was placing his reputation at a bigger risk with his rapport with Hushpuppi. As of 2019 when the DoJ said he started interacting with Hushpuppi, there were already widespread suspicions and media reports about the suspect. Although they were allegations, a smart officer like Kyari should know better.
But perhaps Kyari himself was not the saint many thought he was? Over the years there have been pockets of allegations of extortion, unlawful arrest and conversion of suspects’ properties for personal use against Kyari and his team but I have not heard reports that Kyari arrested criminals and helped them to escape. At the EndSARS Panel in Lagos, a businessman accused Kyari of extorting over N41m and other properties from him. That’s just one of the allegations against him that have been largely ignored because we like to make excuses for people we feel are ticking the right boxes, and Kyari has enjoyed this privilege.
As long as a man is getting the job done, other excesses could be ignored. In the same way, we make excuses for politicians who loot the treasury but have some tangible achievements to their credit. ‘At least he performed even though he stole,’ that’s what we say to exonerate corrupt politicians.
Holding a public office, especially being a senior security operative comes with a unique set of hazards. You’re the target of the good, bad and ugly for attack and friendship that will lead to personal gains for them and rewards, in the form of gifts, for you. And Kyari may have ‘loose guard’ to these hazards.
The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, has now recommended his suspension to the Police Service Commission as Kyari stands on a precipice after blowing his first chance of telling his story by breaking the one rule of redemption: fully come clean.
Does he deserve a second chance? I may not be able to answer in the affirmative. But he should be charged and punished if found guilty.
I wish him well as he pays the price for ‘losing guard’.
