By Charles Igbo
The Presidency has moved to distance itself from the embarrassment that was the funeral of the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari.
This follows the avalanche of harsh criticism which followed its handling of the funeral of the late Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari.
In what is now seen as a move to assuage angry Nigerians and calm tempers, all members of staff of the Presidency who attended the funeral have, since Saturday, been banned from entering the Villa for the next 14 days. State House Correspondents were also affected.
They have been asked to be in self- quarantine for the 14 days.
But shocked Nigerians want more. They want them arrested and prosecuted before a Magistrate’s Court. Citing the Actress Funke Akindele-Bello incident, they insist that what was good for the goose, must also be good for the gander.
Akindele-Bello and her husband were prosecuted in Lagos and convicted, for holding a birthday party at their residence with more than 25 people in attendance.
In a brazen disregard for the guidelines and protocols rolled out by both the NCDC and WHO on the congregation of people over the pandemic COVID-19, hundreds of people had attended Kyari’s funeral.
Kyari died of the disease in Lagos last Friday, and was flown to Abuja for his funeral on Saturday.
And even though Garba Shehu, Presidential Senior Special Assistant on Media, had announced Saturday morning that the funeral was going to be private, it turned out to be the opposite.
There were no restrictions. There was no crowd control. And there was nothing like social distancing.
At the Defence House, Kyari’s official residence, where his body was first taken to, hundreds of people were present. And hundreds more were present during the funeral held at the Gudu Military Cemetery.
At the funeral were some Government officials, including Garba, as well as State House Correspondents. The funeral had been beamed live on, at least, one Television Channel. The most embarrassing for Nigeria was the video of a man who removed his Personal Protective Equipment, and dumped it on the road. It went viral.
But reacting to the ban from the Villa, Shehu made light of it. He dismissed it as nothing new. And to prove it does not affect their work at the Villa, he said they had, in the past couple of months, been operating on digital technology.
