Malam Abba Kyari’s advice to me, by Ibrahim Sheme

I have seen some people recounting their personal experience with the late Malam Abba Kyari and wish to say my little own now.

It is as if our paths never crossed, but it did about ten years ago when I was working at Leadership Newspapers in Abuja.

The publisher, Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah (whom everybody in the company calls Chairman), was Malam Abba Kyari’s close friend.

There was a time Kyari frequented Leadership, hanging around in Chairman’s office and in the boardroom in his austere dress. I think he was living in retirement as a top banker and found the newspaper house a place to while away his time. I was the top man in the Editorial Department then, as Editorial Director. I had previously worked as the longest-serving editor of the newspaper.

When Chairman constituted the company’s first Board of Directors, he made Malam Abba Kyari and I members of the Board. But the position was ceremonial since none of us owned a share in the company. Nonetheless, we were attending meetings any time it was called. Chairman called the shots mostly, but I guess he was tapping from the best brains around. There were about ten of us on the Board if I recall correctly.

I remember a time when, during one of the Board of Directors meetings, Mr Nda-Isaiah went into one of his known occasional fits of anger. His bullets this time were being fired at me. He accused me of being too soft on the editors, especially the Editor of the daily, Ali M. Ali, who was my classmate way back in BUK. He said I could not query Ali, and that was why some serious typographical and or grammatical errors were manifesting in the paper.

In a way, he was right. Honestly, I found it awkward to query my friend. I had, instead, been encouraging him to continue with his work in spite of the constant harassment he suffered from Chairman. At a time, huge cuts on his monthly salaries as punishment for the errors had rendered him almost without pay for two or more months, and he was thinking of throwing in the towel. I knew we would be in trouble if Ali left because, warts and all, he was the best hand we had as editor. Unknown to Chairman, I was “managing” Ali’s discontent so that he would not run away! Hence my failure/refusal to query him.

Also, I knew that the errors were not entirely the editor’s fault. He was grappling with some incompetent staffers in the production chain, whom we could not replace right away. Some were imposed on us.

So, on that day of the Board of Directors meeting when Chairman was yakking at me, I felt so enraged inwardly that I did something hitherto unthinkable. As he was talking and talking and talking and…, I simply gathered my papers, got up quietly from my chair and walked out of the room. I could hear the deathly silence stabbing me in the back as Chairman’s censorious words hung in the air. Everybody was aghast. In retrospect, I should say it was like walking out on Mr Donald Trump.

As I walked quickly down the stairs, I heard a voice calling me from behind. I knew who it was and refused to stop. As I reached downstairs, a handheld my shoulder. It was Mr Azu Ishiekwene, the Managing Director. He pleaded with me to return to the meeting, please. It took minutes before I relented, and I followed him back.

The deathly silence was still pervasive in the room as I sat down again. Nobody had said anything. Chairman did not continue with his diatribe but went to the next item on the agenda. I never uttered a word again up until the end of the meeting.

However, as the meeting rounded up, Chairman closed with the remark: “And nobody should walk out on me again! NOBODY!”

As the so-called Board members filed out of the room, Malam Abba Kyari signalled to me to wait. I sat back in my chair, which happened to be close to his. Chairman must have noticed that we were remaining behind as he strolled out of the room, which was adjacent to his office down a short corridor.

Malam Abba addressed me in a soft-spoken voice, admonishing me to always contain my anger in a meeting. He said it was better for one to decide on a course of action after the meeting, rather than during the meeting. He expressed satisfaction with my work in the company and my contributions during the Board meetings. He added that while Mr Nda-Isaiah might appear difficult to deal with, he was generally a good man and well-focused. I agreed with him entirely about Chairman and thanked him for his fatherly advice, which I have used on several other occasions at Leadership and beyond.

A year or so later I left Leadership, never to see Malam Abba again. When in 2015 he was named the Chief of Staff to the President, a former colleague of mine at Leadership phoned me and asked: “Hey, is that not that Borno man always in a white gown and red cap who used to come to Chairman’s office and keep his face in newspaper pages?”

“Yes, he is the one,” I replied.

May the soul of Malam Abba Kyari rest in peace, ameen.