The Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Abba Kyari, has died of complications from coronavirus infection.
The death of of the closest aide to President came more than two weeks after he tested positive for COVID-19.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, announced Mr Kyari’s death on Twitter.
Another of the President’s spokespersons, Mr Garba Shehu, who also tweeted about the development said Mr Kyari died on Friday.
News that Mr Kyari had tested positive for COVID-19 first broke on March 24, about 10 days after he returned from a trip to Germany during which he met with officials of Siemens in Munich on Nigeria’s electricity expansion programme.r
Buhari named Kyari, a former chief executive officer of United Bank for Africa Plc, as his chief of staff in August 2015, and renewed his appointment after winning a second term in office. Behind the scenes, he was regarded as one of the powerful politicians in the country of more than 200 million people.
Kyari tested positive for the virus after returning from a trip to Germany, the presidency said in a statement.
Mr Kyari confirmed the news in a statement on March 29, the same day President Buhari made his first nationwide broadcast on the pandemic and announced a two-week lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
In his statement, Mr Kyari revealed that he would be transferred to Lagos from the FCT for treatment and expressed the hope that he would recover and return to work soon.
At the time, Mr Kyari said he felt well and did not exhibit any signs of the disease, which has now infected 493 people in the country and claimed 17 lives, according to theh Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
Kyari had widely been seen as one of the three most powerful people in Africa’s largest economy and said to have the complete trust of Buhari.
For this, he was seen in many circles as the defacto head of the government because of the amount of responsibilities the Buhari delegated to him in a country where the presidency holds an inordinate amount of centralized power and government funds, deciding who has access to the president accords immense power and influence.
A Kanuri from Borno, Mr Kyari was one of President’s Buhari’s closest allies.
Appointed Chief of Staff in August 2015, he became considered one of the most influential and powerful members of the Buhari administration.
Abba Kyari was a Kanuri from present day Borno State; though little is known about his early life. In 1980, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Warwick, and also received a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Cambridge. In 1983, he was called to the Nigerian Bar after attending the Nigerian Law School.
A well-read man, he obtained a master’s degree in 1984 in law from the University of Cambridge and later attended the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland as well as participated in the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School, in 1992 and 1994.
Kyari worked for the law firm of Fani-Kayode and Sowemimo for some time after his return to Nigeria before venturing into journalism from 1988 to 1990, when he was Editor with the New Africa Holdings Limited Kaduna.
In 1990, he served as a Commissioner for Forestry and Animal Resources in Borno State.
From 1990 to 1995, Kyari was the secretary to the board of African International Bank Limited, a subsidiary of Bank of Credit and Commerce International.
He was also an executive director in charge of management services at the United Bank for Africa, and was later appointed the chief executive officer. In 2002, he was appointed a board director of Unilever Nigeria, and later served on the board of Exxon Mobil Nigeria.
