By Charles Awuzie

When my aged father fell into the net of Fraudsters, it was Abba Kyari that saved his life.

My father is the OLDEST man in my Clan and has been battling all kinds of age-related diseases. If it wasn’t for the kind intervention of DCP Abba Kyari, my father would have died a long time ago because he had borrowed money from his fellow pensioners to invest in what he later discovered was a scam.

DCP Abba Kyari didn’t only bring justice on the criminals, he followed up on my father’s health every day… First thing in the morning, DCP Abba Kyari would phone my father and say “Daddy, you have no reason to worry, the criminals will bring your money back.” And  that was exactly what happened.

The criminals were arrested and they returned every cent to my father and my father in turn paid the other pensioners what he borrowed from them.

DCP Abba Kyari spent his personal money, airtime etc on that case. When I asked if I should take care of his AIRTIME, he declined and said to me “Charles, what we do is for God, our nation and humanity”.

Up to this moment, I have NEVER sent DCP Abba Kyari one kobo. But whenever I shared security concerns with him, he paid attention to it. He regularly shared messages of his team’s exploits via whatsapp and he showed great passion for his job. The reward was that he emerged the most decorated Police Chief in Nigeria.

Yesterday, the first person who called me to discuss the indictment of DCP Abba Kyari was my father. He said to me “my son, let us pray for Abba Kyari. I am alive today because of this young man. He didn’t allow me to be put to shame. I owe him my prayers at a time like this.”

Now that you know how much I love and respect DCP Abba Kyari, let me delve into the merits of the indictments and share some lessons.

First, in my personal capacity as a Cybersecurity Expert, I knew that Hushpuppi was a fraud. By close observation, I knew he was involved in internet scam. I said this many years before he was arrested.

I understand the passion and compassion of DCP Abba Kyari, and I also know that what is a strength on one hand can be a weakness on the other hand. This is the major lesson you should take home – your kindness can be a strength but also a weakness. Your ability to build friendships with both the poor and rich can be a strength and also a weakness.

Abba Kyari is not a friend of only the rich, he is a friend of the poor, the old and the young. This was his greatest strength but also his greatest weakness.

Hushpuppi took advantage of that strength and used it as a weakness to control, manipulate and now drag him into his mess.

Having studied the communication between Hushpuppi and our brother DCP Abba Kyari, I know for sure that the FBI wants his head on a plate…. I know the FBI. I understand their mentality. My job brings me in the way of major security agencies around the world and I am trained to understand how they operate individually.

At this point, the FBI is not after Abba Kyari but the entire Nigerian Police Force. The FBI is angry with how the Nigerian Police treats wealthy internet Fraudsters and they feel that by going for our most decorated, they will achieve their aim. If you study the US court report, you will understand that the indictment wasn’t actually on DCP Abba Kyari but on the Nigerian Police and the alleged monetary transactions were not paid to Abba as a person but an entire Police Team.

Now the FBI knows that they can’t go for an entire team of the Police Force of a sovereign nation, so they are using the media to blow hot on the team.

Just in case you don’t know, the Nigerian Government will do her best to protect her most decorated officer because by so doing, they are also protecting the NPF. The same way that FBI will not deliver their agent to Nigeria to answer to any allegation, is the same way Nigeria will resist delivering Abba Kyari to the FBI.

While we condemn the relationship DCP Abba Kyari maintained with Hushpuppi, we must also understand that he too was manipulated by Hushpuppi. The Court papers revealed that Hushpuppi told him that Vincent is taking his job (the job wasn’t specified).

Remember that Hushpuppi packaged himself as a Real Estate investor, Influencer who was a brand ambassador to many top brands including Gucci. Those who got closer to him like Daddy Freeze were manipulated to believe his lies.

I believe DCP Abba Kyari may have been a victim of Hushpuppi’s manipulation. A mutual friend told me that DCP Abba Kyari always thought that Hushpuppi was wrongly labeled by those who didn’t understand him. Hushpuppi had a way of convincing everyone around him that he was legit. He was good with words and manipulation.

This is why I choose to stay far from MONIED NIGERIANS who became wealthy over night. I don’t want to get close because I know that by getting close, you will have the opportunity to manipulate me, so I stay away.

In conclusion, I know DCP Abba Kyari will come out of this season stronger and wiser. Like my father, he has helped many aged pensioners to get justice and have fought for justice for those whose loved ones were kidnapped by the likes of Wadume and Evans.

DCP Abba Kyari is not what the FBI and media are making him to look like. Evans could have paid him Billions of Naira. Wadume could have paid even more. But he chose to bring these Billionaire suspects to justice.

While I am grossly disappointed by his relationship with Hushpuppi, I still believe that he will have a second chance to separate himself from these events and focus on the huge responsibility that Nigeria has placed on him.

May we all learn how to disconnect from people who do not share our values because a day may come when they would drag us into their mess.

Before you condemn Abba Kyari, ask yourself, DO I HAVE A FRIEND WHO IS A YAHOO BOY, A DRUG DEALER OR FALSE PROPHET?

If yes, disconnect from such because even if you are HONEST, one day, the crimes of those people will destroy your good name, values and good work. And people will forget all the years you have been honest and righteous. Think deeply about this.

I once had a friend who I later discovered was involved in crimes. I disconnected from him immediately. He got arrested in Johannesburg on a day he was driving with another mutual friend. Both he and that mutual friend are in jail today. The mutual friend knows nothing about his crime. He used to talk about Jobs, jobs, etc so if you are not critical, you will think he’s legit. He is serving jail time but unfortunately, he took another naive friend down with him.

This is why I choose to be CRITICAL. I don’t see the ‘doings’ in Oba and just celebrate ‘Grace’. No.

I critically analyze before I connect or agree. You can call me jealous but  being critical has saved me. If you post cash, I stay away from you – it’s my policy. Be careful.. Don’t be naive… Be intentional… Be critical.

Learn from these events and don’t ever celebrate the pains of a man who may have been manipulated by a criminal friend.

By Farooq A. Kperogi, PhD

Twitter: @farooqkperogi

Although there is no art to decipher the cunning of crooked cops, DCP Abba Kyari gave us many red flags to cause us to be suspicious of his policing, but many people ignored it.

I, for one, have an abiding suspicion of people who are given to gratuitous self-congratulation and ostentation, who are aggressively self-promotional, and who perpetually have a need to invite the public to witness their good deeds.

I think excessive showiness often betrays an inner emptiness at best, and an artful concealment of untoward impulses and deeds at worst. This sentiment is encapsulated in such enduring pieces of folk wisdom as “Empty vessels make the most noise,” “Still waters run deep,” etc.

This isn’t universally true, of course. Some genuinely ethical and kind people may be outwardly flashy and given to offensive displays of self-importance. And some businesses thrive on vulgar outward displays, so people who are in these kinds of businesses can’t help but be showy out of a professional imperative.

But policing is no show business. Governance isn’t, either. Nor is morality. And so on. For the most part, it is my experience that people who are overly exhibitionistic in the performance of morality and of such run-of-the-mill duties as policing and governance are often shady and use exhibitionism to conceal their shadiness.

Although he has been accused of being a brutal SARS operative in Lagos, Abba Kyari clearly has his good sides. I have read many accounts of his kindness to total strangers, of his pan-Nigerian cosmopolitanism, and of his dogged sleuthing that resolved knotty criminal cases.

His admirable detective work attracted notice and approbation. But then he got intoxicated by praise and attention, and made it his life’s calling to hanker after the limelight— in a job that should be done in the sedate quietude of the background.

He routinely invites cameras and press people to record him doing his job. One of the absurd extremes of his exhibitionism, for me, was when he invited journalists, videographers, and photographers to show him looking for kidnappers in the bushes. Of course, he apprehended no kidnapper because those crafty monsters of depravity aren’t imbecilic sitting ducks waiting for Abba Kyari to capture them on camera. He just wanted to showboat.

And he got a lot of reputational mileage from this dumb stunt. I didn’t see any groundswell of discursive repudiation against a famed sleuthhound ignoring detective work that is central to the fight against kidnapping and instead staging a fatuous media show.

What is worse, the man who earned a reputation as a ruthless annihilator of criminals started to openly cavort with people that, at the very least, he should be suspicious of. He has been photographed with people whose source of wealth is questionable and whose conspicuous consumption should put them on his investigatory radar.

Now we know why.

FBI’s charge sheet against Ramon “Hushpuppi” Abbas revealed phone chats that Kyari and Abbas exchanged in which Abbas instructed Kyari to arrest Abbas’ rival in internet fraud.

It is reasonable to draw the conclusion that the wealthy but dodgy people Kyari frolics with use him as a cudgel against their enemies and rivals.

The FBI’s affidavit implicating Abba Kyari in Hushpuppi’s fraud captures this sentiment. It reads: “Kyari is a highly decorated deputy commissioner of the Nigeria Police Force who is alleged to have arranged for Vincent [Abbas’ rival in crime] to be arrested and jailed at Abbas’ behest, and then sent Abbas photographs of Vincent after his arrest.

“Kyari also, allegedly, sent Abbas bank account details for an account into which Abbas could deposit payment for Vincent’s arrest and imprisonment.”

In other words, Kyari was probably initially a good cop whose excellent work earned him plaudits from his superiors, plausive publicity from the news media, and veneration from a grateful public. Then he gradually started to seek out the news media, insert himself into public consciousness, and promote opportunistically self-serving narratives about his unparalleled detective machismo with a predetermined motive to profit from it.

He parlayed his popularity and carefully cultivated larger-than-life media image into “big-men-protection” security gigs. He obviously not only protects “big men”; he also torments their less connected rivals and victims for financial gain, as the FBI’s court documents indicate.

But the fact that he flaunts his association with flashy, questionable characters without fear of consequences from his superiors suggests that he is not alone. He obviously has powerful backers in the police establishment who also benefit materially from his ethically stained exploits.

Given how morally rotten the institution of the police is in Nigeria—and the rampant crab mentality in its ranks—the fact that the only “consequence” Kyari has faced for his unconventional, publicity-seeking, show-and-tell policing and open cavorting with suspicious personages is a meteoric climb up the promotional ladder is an indication that the police establishment is in on what he does.

Unfortunately for the police establishment, Kyari’s transgressions have now transcended the bounds of Nigeria and can’t be dismissed with the same blithe impunity with which previous indiscretions were treated.

For instance, on October 28, 2020, TheCable reported that a Lagos businessman by the name of Afeez Mojeed accused Abba Kyari of defrauding him of up to 41 million Naira.

In a petition to the Judicial Panel set up by the Lagos State Government to address abuses by SARS, Mojeed alleged that Kyari and his SARS team forcefully broke into his home in 2014, accused him of being an internet fraudster, seized 280,000 Naira from his wardrobe, another 50,000 from his car, which they took away and never returned, detained him for 14 days, and later charged him to court but never showed up or brought any witness against him, forcing the court to strike out the internet fraud charge against him.

Mojeed also alleged that Kyari forced him to reveal the password to some of his bank cards, sign checks, and electronically transfer money to designated bank accounts, which added up to tens of millions. When Mojeed’s lawyer reached out to Kyari to resolve the matter, the petition alleged, Kyari told the lawyer that Mojeed was an internet fraudster, and that he proposed a deal with the lawyer to help him get another 15 million Naira from one of Mojeed’s bank accounts. Kyari allegedly offered the lawyer a 5-million-naira reward as compensation for his cooperation, but the lawyer declined the offer.

Neither the EFCC nor the ICPC even acknowledged, much less acted on, Mojeed’s petition for a redress of what he said was gross injustice against him by Kyari. And Kyari didn’t even find it worth his while to respond to TheCable’s request to hear his own side of the story.

So, clearly, Kyari is habituated to immunity from the consequences of his transgressions and indiscretions. That happens only when you have powerful backers.

But it’s different this time around. You don’t mess with the FBI and get away with it.

Court documents quote the FBI to have pointedly said Abba Kyari, “together with others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, knowingly conspired to commit wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343.” This leaves no room for rigmarole. I think the game is over for the “super cop.”

I also think the Nigerian society should take some blame for nurturing personas like Abba Kyari. Our insatiable but often unmet hunger for heroes predisposes us to be susceptible to frauds masquerading as saviors.

We can avoid this if we take as a rule of thumb the idea that most people who have a compulsive need to be overly showy and self-congratulatory about a virtue or a deed often have something to hide.

© Farooq A. Kperogi