The message from the Abba Kyari saga is very simple. Nigeria is mostly a criminal enterprise. Those in positions of authority are mostly criminals who work with the criminals outside.
Sad to say, the best way to reform the police is to abolish it and recreate it. The police is a criminal enterprise. Those who rise through the rank are rarely clean officials and are mostly in cohort with top criminals.
Another lesson of Abba Kyari is that we should be slow to canonize and lionize temporary achievers. Clearing illegal structure in Abuja or bursting a few kidnappers does not make one a hero and a potential messiah. It is so nauseating always hearing about making Okonjo-Iweala or Akinwunmi president of Nigeria because they head one international organization or the other. It is annoying claiming new heroes everyday because a man cleared some debris. Some Nigerians are already claiming we should have Marwa as President because he arrested a roguish cop. Nigerians, please stop this hero-making. Be rigorous, be slow and look deeper. Abba Kyari’s relationship and mannerisms should have raised red flags. But we were carried away by swagger and brute force.
A rule of thump: any Nigerian office-holder who is very cosy with criminals of different sorts, including those claiming to be hard working entrepreneurs, is a suspect of criminality.
Again, we have few (a few) real business people who worked clean and legally to become millionaires. Forget inyanga. They are mostly criminals. Damn criminals. They are mostly pen robbers, drug peddlers and 419 people. Some of your governors are plain criminals who should have been in jail if there was a real criminal justice in Nigeria.
Some of your presidential aspirants are common thieves who ought to be smelling the rod in prison. It is as simple as that. No better way to conclude about Nigeria of Abba Kyari than in the words of a Times Columnist: “Nigeria’s leaders are indistinguishable from its criminals”