Nigeria’s celebrated crime fighter, Abba Kyari, has emerged as the country’s youngest Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) at 41.
Kyari began to gain national prominence in August 2013, when he arrested Abbey Godogodo, a notorious armed robber linked to the killing of over 300 people. He recovered 42 AK47 Rifles, GPMGs and RPGs from Godogodo.
He had solved several crime mysteries and arrested kidnappers across the country, including the abductors of the wife of the Governor of CBN and those who killed the Chief Security Officer of Dangote Group.
His promotion to the substantive rank of ACP was recommended by the Inspector General of Police, (IGP) Ibrahim Idris for what he described as “gallantry, superlative and outstanding performance”. And it was confirmed by the Police Service Commission (PSC) on December 15.
“This promotion is in recognition of your hard work, discipline, and dedication to duty,” says the promotion letter from the PSC.
Born on March 17, 1975 in Gombe State to Alhaji Baba Kyari and Hajiya Yachilla Baba Kyari, the young officer began his education at the University of Maiduguri Primary School in 1981. He later attended Government Secondary School, Maiduguri, in Borno State from 1987 to 1993.
After his secondary school education, he attended the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) from 1993 to 1997, where he bagged a Bachelor of Science (B.sc) degree in Geography.
He was a member of the 1998/1999 National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Akwa Ibom State, after which he enlisted into the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) as a Cadet ASP on May 1, 2000. He had his basic Police Training in Nigeria Police Academy, Wudil, Kano, from May 1, 2000 to November 27, 2001. He was thereafter posted to Adamawa State Police Command, where he served for three years before he was mobilised into 14PMF Yola in 2005.
He was posted to Lagos State Command Headquarters as the Officer in Charge of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in 2010, after serving in the PMF for about five years.
Impressed by his performances in the war against armed robbers and kidnappers in Lagos then, his boss, Umar Manko, described him as a “very hardworking young man with lots of patience”.
He was later moved from Lagos to the Force Headquarters, Abuja, by the then Inspector General of Police, Dr. Solomon Arase, as Head of a newly established Intelligence Response Team (IRT).
Arase established the IRT to act as a highly mobile, elitist, technology-driven, fully equipped and well-motivated unit that can consume and utilise quality intelligence deployed for special operational intervention in support of State Commands in the management of high-profile and complex cases like kidnapping and armed robbery.
The IRT’s latest accomplishment is the arrest of a member of a militant group that was about to blow up the Third Mainland Bridge with dynamite on Boxing Day.
Kyari, who had received awards from the Federal Government and the Lagos State Government among several others, is married to Mrs Ramatu Abba-Kyari. The marriage is blessed with three children.
Sentiments apart, this is a well deserved promotion to a devoted and determined officer working tirelessly to get rid of all thr criminal elements in our country . I pray the bad cops in the system would not sabotage his hard work.
To God be the glory.