THE Chief of staff to the Nigerian President, Abba Kyari, is dead.
He died in Lagos due to complications from Coronavirus .
The spokesmen to President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adeshina and Garba Shehu, announced this on their verified Twitter handles hours ago.
Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari, passes on. May God rest his soul. Amen. Funeral arrangements to be announced soon.
— Femi Adesina (@FemAdesina) April 17, 2020
The Presidency regrets to announce the passage of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari.
— Garba Shehu (@GarShehu) April 17, 2020
Kyari had tested positive to the new Coronavirus virus on April 17, and had been hospitalized in a private hospital in Lagos.
This followed an official trip he made to Germany on March 7 where he met officials of Siemens in Munich.
Kyari returned to the country and attended another meeting on March 15.
It was at the meeting he started showing symptoms of Covid-19 because he coughed repeatedly, Thisday had reported.
He then submitted himself for a test, which came out positive.
It was reported that he had been flown abroad for treatment.
Kyari later debunked this claim, and was moved from Abuja to a hospital in Lagos.
On March 29th, TheICIR reported how Abba Kyari assured Nigerians that he would soon resume to his duty post through a statement he signed himself.
The late CoS said he had made his “own care arrangements to avoid further burdening the public health system, which faces so many pressures.”
Since then, detail of his health condition had been kept secret.
Kyari died nearly 25 days after testing positive to Covid-19.
He was over 70 years old.
“Funeral arrangements will be announced shortly,” Shehu has tweeted.
About late Kyari
Late Kyari graduated in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Warwick, and obtained another bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Cambridge.
He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1983 after attending the Nigerian Law School.
He later attended the International Institute for Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland and participated in the Program for Management Development at the Harvard Business School, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.
He had worked in various companies including New Nigerian Development, New African Holdings, African International Bank, United Bank for Africa, Unilever and Mobil.
Samad Uthman is a multimedia journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting. He tweets @sarmerdk2 and can be shot through suthman@icirnigeria.org