If the press briefing and video evidence released by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) indicting the suspended head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), DCP Abba Kyari of alleged drug offences is anything to go by then every Nigerian should weep for our country.
The super cop who is currently facing investigations following his indictment by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) $1.1 million fraud, involving an alleged international internet fraudster, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi has been declared wanted by the NDLEA for alleged drug offences.
Recall that FBI Special Agent, Andrew Innocenti, had said he obtained voice calls and WhatsApp conversations between Abba Kyari and Hushpuppi, showing that Hushpuppi paid Kyari N8m or $20,600 for the arrest and detention of a “co-conspirator,” in an internet fraud deal, Mr Chibuzo Vincent.
This revelation then prompted the United States Attorney’s Office at the Central District of California to order the FBI to arrest Abba Kyari but the inability of the FBI to effect the arrest brought about the suspicion that the Nigerian Police authorities and the Ministry of Justice may be protecting Kyari from the arrest.
This time around, the alleged crime is local. Unlike the FBI cases that were about documents, calls, voices and money transfers, the NDLEA went ahead on Monday to release video evidence of the alleged offence.
Is this not a time one has to recall that old Igbo adage that says that when death wants to kill a puppy, it blocks its nostrils from perceiving the odours of excreta? For a man who is under FBI:s surveillance cameras to be involved in another damning case as big as this is just odd.
With the recent revelation by the NDLEA, many Nigerians who felt that the FBI’s indictment and the invitation were more of a Western intrusion into the local affairs of a sovereign Nation are shocked to their bones, muscles and marrow.
No wonder an old Igbo adage says that it is only when a man’s character and his reputation meets in the dark that his true identity will be unmasked.
DCP Abba Kyari remains innocent until proven guilty by a competent court of law, but there is a huge gap between the reputation he has built out there and the character the NDLEA and the FBI are telling the entire world that is his.
Reputation is the general opinion of others of a person whereas character is the distinctive qualities of an individual. An individual’s character takes years to build whereas reputation is built in a very short period. Character is who you are (internal), but reputation is how society sees you (external).
When NDLEA spokesperson, Femi Babafemi, at a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, narrated how Kyari belonged to a drug cartel that operates the Brazil-Ethiopia-Nigeria illicit drug pipeline, the narrative is a total shock to the man Nigeria entrusted her IRT to.
When Babafemi said that Kyari contacted an officer of the NDLEA in January 2022 and tried to seal a deal for his alleged drug cartel, it became obvious that nothing spells shame like living what feels like a double life.
How does anyone explain to a young Nigerian who has on so many occasions seen DCP Abba Kyari eulogized for capturing hardened criminals and tough kidnappers that the man who was being celebrated for catching criminals dines and wines with criminals?
Babafemi while giving a synopsis of what transpired between Kyari and the said NDLEA officer said that the saga started on Friday, January 21, 2022, Kyari initiated a call to the NDLEA officers in Abuja at 2:12 pm.
While briefing the press on chronicled how NDLEA nabbed DCP Abba Kyari in a drug deal, Babafemi said, “When the officer returned the call two minutes later, Kyari informed him he was coming to see him, to discuss an operational matter after the Juma’at service.
“He (Kyari) appeared at the agreed venue of the meeting with the officer and went straight to the crux of the matter. This was it: His team had intercepted and arrested some traffickers that came into the country from Ethiopia with, according to him, 25kg of cocaine.
“He proposed a drug deal whereby he and his team are to take 15kg of the cocaine and leave 10kg for the prosecution of the suspects arrested with the illicit drug in Enugu. In the meantime, the purloined cocaine will be replaced with a dummy worth 15kg. He asked the NDLEA officer to persuade men of the FCT Command, to play along as well.
“By 11: 05 am on Monday, January 24, after the Agency gave the officer the green light to play along, he and Kyari began a WhatsApp call for the rest of the day. The officer conveyed “their” willingness to play the game.
“At this point, Kyari disclosed that the 15kg (already taken out) was shared between the informants that provided information for the seizure and he and his men of the IRT of the Nigerian Police. According to him, the informants were given 7kg while his team took 8kg which was already sold.
“He (Kyari) then offered to pay the NDLEA team (that is the officer and the FCT commander) by selling, on their behalf, half of the remaining 10kg, thereby further reducing the original cocaine for the prosecution to just 5kg. At N7m per kilogram, the proceed from the 5kg would amount to N35m, at the exchange rate of N570 per dollar being the black market rate for the day, January 24, 2022. In effect, he would be delivering $61, 400 to the NDLEA team.
“He (Kyari) put pressure on our officer to wrap up the arrangement with the commander of the FCT Command to take custody of the drug and suspects from his men who were on the ground in Abuja. At the time, he was speaking from Lagos, where he allegedly travelled for private business.
“The next day January 25, Kyari offered to send his younger brother to deliver the payment while his men deliver the suspects, but our officer turned down the suggestion, insisting he would rather deal with him in person and was therefore prepared to wait for him to return from Lagos.
“And by 5: 23 pm Kyari was in Abuja and met with the officer at the same rendezvous where they had the first meeting. In their discussion, he disclosed how his team received the information from a double-crosser who betrayed the traffickers to him, showing a sordid connection between law enforcement agents and the drug underworld; he narrated how acting on the tip-off, his team departed Abuja to Enugu and arrested the traffickers, removed part of the consignment on his instruction and replaced same with dummies.
“He (Kyari) also indicated how to identify the remnant of the original cocaine that would be delivered to NDLEA, five original packages marked with red dots. The reason for this was to avoid the dummies being subjected to test. He forwarded a picture of the marked original cocaine package.
“According to the plan, once the 5kg cocaine has been tested in the presence of the suspects and confirmed positive, there would be no need to test the remaining ones, being dummies.
“He (Kyari) also brought with him the money from the sale of the 5kg share of the NDLEA team, a total of $61, 400. Our officer, however, preferred to take the money inside his car. Well, the car was wired with sound and video recorders. And the moment was documented, part of which I will play for you at the end of this briefing.”
Babafemi went on to say that DCP Abba Kyari was invited by NDLEA for debriefing on Thursday, February 10 through two main channels because there is a whole lot of questions begging for answers.
He said that the invitation was legitimate and formal according to our protocol, but up till the close of office hours on Friday, February 11, he refused to respond, up till the moment of the press briefing on Monday, Kyari has not responded.
He said that as Kyari has failed to honour the official invitation, NDLEA has no option but to declare him wanted from Monday, 14th February 2022.
For records purposes, Abba Kyari is just one man. The press briefing by NDLEA shows that he has loyalists: But it is disheartening to hear straight from the horse’s mouth the kind of sleaze engaged in by this team of rogue law enforcement agents led by Kyari, the members of whom he described this way: “the boys are very, very sharp, they are very loyal,” Babafemi said.
Babafemi also said that in just 12 months, even the most cynical of Nigerians now agree that the country is really in a drug quagmire and unfortunately, some law enforcement agents who should be partners in the pursuit of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s mandate are at the forefront of breaking the law, as they aid and abet drug trafficking in the country.
What more is there to be said than to quote Abhijit Naskar, one of the world’s famous Neuroscientists and an untiring advocate of global harmony and peace said, “the world doesn’t need more bent police who pretend to uphold the law in front of an investigation, it needs more just police who practice justice even when nobody is looking.”
However, Abba Kyari has been arrested by the police.
