Abba Kyari – Nigerian Army Brigadier

Now retired, Abba Kyari used to serve as the Governor of the former North-Central State in Nigeria as it was made by General Yakubu Gowon. When the outbreak of violence happened against the Igbo people in Central and Northern Nigeria back in 1966, Kyari helped Igbo soldiers to escape from Kaduna.

In fact, Kyari has helped some key leaders escape, like Major Samuel Ogbemudia, who was later appointed as the Governor of the Mid-West State after the liberation from the secessionist Biafram forces. After he was appointed the governor he made a plan for the Kaduna metropolis, but it was never used by his successors.

As governor, he was not tolerant of the free press and would attack them when they published pictures of officers. At the end of Gowon’s administration, Kyari was cautiously advocating the return to civilian rule in Nigeria. In 2016, Kyari was named one of the 100 most influential people in Nigeria by Y! Or Ynaija.com.

The masculine name Abba is taken from the Aramaic word ada that means “father”, which was ultimately taken from the Proto-Semitic ab that means “father”. The name has been used since the 1st century AD as a given name for men in many languages like Hebrew and Jewish. However, the name is often confused with the Arabic name Abbas, which means “austere” in Arabic. There are many famous people with the name, like Abba Kovner, who was a Lithuanian-Jewish Hebrew writer, poet, and partisan leader.