April 18th, 2020 at 08:15 am
Nigeria’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, has died two weeks after contracting the deadly coronavirus.
The Presidency’s Spokesman Garba Shehu announced the loss of President Buhari’s top aide in a series of tweets.
“The Presidency regrets to announce the passage of the Chief of Staff to the President, Mallam Abba Kyari,” said presidency spokesman Garba Shehu in a tweet on Friday, using an honorific title for Kyari.
“The deceased had tested positive to the ravaging COVID-19, and had been receiving treatment. But he died on Friday, April 17, 2020.”
Mr Kyari, who was in his 70s had underlying health issues, including diabetes and was the right-hand man to the 77-year-old Nigerian President, who had himself struggled with his health in the recent past, spending months in London in 2017 to treat an undisclosed illness.
He becomes the second highest-profile West African to die from coronavirus. The Speaker of Burkina Faso’s National Assembly died from the disease in February, days after returning from a trip from France.
Nigeria has reported almost 500 cases of coronavirus, but the West African country is said to be testing less for the size of its almost 200 million populations. Nigeria has tested only 5,000 people as of Thursday.
Kyari acted as the gatekeeper to Buhari. He travelled to Germany in early March with a delegation of other Nigerian officials for meetings with the company, Siemens. He attended meetings with senior government officials upon his return to Nigeria.
The coronavirus has killed 1,000 people across Africa since the pandemic emerged late last year, and the continent has recorded nearly 17,000 infection, according to Johns Hopkins university data.
Algeria has the highest number of deaths at 364, followed by Egypt with 205, Morocco 135 and South Africa 50, according to the figures compiled on Friday.
Africa has so far suffered less than other regions from COVID-19. But experts say limited testing in many countries has deprived the continent of a full picture of the disease’s spread.