In Nigeria, when beggars die, there are no comets seen. But when a politician dies, we have to contend with hagiographic writings that fly into the public space seeking to beatify these dubious saints. As noted when the President’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari, died recently, the attendant obituarisation-the effusive rain of tributes poured on him and which was at dissonance with the inept government that he served till his death-was a strong indication of how the living was using the dead to rewrite public memory. Since that time, a few more people that have served in public offices have died and the story has been the same. People could barely wait for rigor mortis to happen before setting off a series of cute tributes about their lives. The underlying tactic seems to be preemption of the vitriol and the indifferent shrugs that would have followed their demise.
On Saturday, a former Ogun East senator, Esho Jinadu (aka Buruji Kashamu), succumbed to COVID-19 complications. A federal lawmaker who spent many quality days fighting extradition to the USA for alleged crimes of narcotics smuggling and peddling, he was no hero. Yes, he was adulated by the so-called masses for his acts of benefaction towards them, but so what? There are people out there who will worship at the grave of Sani Abacha if you let them. From time immemorial, the poor and the wretched of the earth have always venerated the same leadership class that denigrates them. That impoverished people saw a fugitive as their god proves nothing.
Hardly had the news of Kashamu’s death been announced when former President Olusegun Obasanjo picked up his pen and committed his renown hypocrisy to paper. In a letter he titled, ‘Letter of condolence,’ and addressed to the Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, Obasanjo noted that although Kashamu might have manipulated the instruments of law and politics to evade justice, he could not escape the judgment of death. In a sharp response, former Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, faulted Obasanjo and reminded him that he too would “still die.”
Then came the punchline when an All Progressives Congress chieftain, Bola Tinubu, signed a statement that said, “Again, Kashamu’s sudden death has demonstrated the transience of human life and rekindles the fact that death is inevitable for every mortal. As such, it behoves us to be kind to the dead.” We were all socialised into believing it is socially inappropriate to speak poorly of the dead. They say since they can no longer defend themselves, we should zip it. However, what Obasanjo said was pretty factual and would have needed no rejoinder even by Kashamu himself.
It is curious how politicians who served in public office without a distinguished record of service now remind themselves about the transience of life and the universal fate of death. People who are truly sobered by the thought of the end of life do not bicker over someone already dead; they demonstrate their conviction by pursuing a better life for the living. If the thought of inevitable death sincerely has a moderating influence on the actions of our leaders, they would not spend so much time and effort dispossessing the public of collective resources.
We should not be obliged to the dead at the expense of the living. Dead people have no anxiety about how they are remembered. The living politicians who are consumed with kindness for the dead are simply anxious that some of the angst that drives people to hiss at the dead would eventually be redirected at them. What does kindness to the dead mean when the dead are out of the reach of generosity? When living politicians ask us to be kind to their dead counterparts, they are manipulative. They do not want us to speak for the fear we will get to the subject of their shortcomings. Kindness is a desirable ethic for any society to thrive, but when politicians, especially those with all kinds of baggage nudge us toward it, they are not being charitable. They are trying to rewrite the terms of social relations in their personal favour. For a society where accountability is missing, it would be naïve to take them seriously.
People who have occupied leadership positions in Nigeria should not be granted a blanket privilege of kindness. The deeds of dead public officials should especially be subjected to critical analysis. Not because it makes a difference to the dead, but because those whose minds are still open to learning can be instructed. How else can we learn from history if we do not maintain a moral standard that we apply to judge even the dead? We do not owe the dead kindness for the sake of it. To ask people to be kind to the dead is nothing more than an effort to suppress their instinct to dissent.
Not only should our dead leaders be judged, even the living should not be spared as well. The case of another fugitive, former Petroleum Resources Minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, demonstrates the necessity of this to a hilt. She was reported speaking against the erosion of societal values at a forum that took place online recently. This is a woman on the run from the law over her alleged crimes, yet she still had the gumption to evangelise on social values.
In the early days of this administration when people thought the anti-corruption fight had some genuine bite, this woman surfaced online claiming she was battling cancer. Today, all of that is forgotten. Now that she has made an appearance, she will be back again. This time, probably as a motivational speaker and with enough clarity to diagnose what is wrong with Nigeria.
It was bad enough that Alison-Madueke had the effrontery to talk about negative social values, she even dragged in her son. But which one of her sons might she be talking about? The same ones who demonstrated their version of “swag” in 2012 while their mother was still minister and photos of them flying private jets, riding limos, and flaunting dollar notes were splashed on the Internet? What honest job did her children do for a living to have been able to afford all of those luxury items? Or was the son she talked about the same one the EFCC wanted to arrest in 2016 for alleged money laundering? When did this woman and her children earn the right to lecture the rest of us on social values?
The tone-deafness with which the woman spoke on social values should tell us that trying to be kind to our class of leaders, whether dead or alive, is an error. They do not deserve it, and they are not even aware of what they do not deserve. They lack any sense of accountability. It is bad enough that people with corruption cases around their neck preach to us about values, they even drag in their children. Sometime in the future, it is not only the superciliousness of those leaders that we will have to deal with, even their children will forget the role their parents played in plundering the country and become preachy.
These characters do not care about anyone, and nothing they have to say about values should ever be considered as containing any merit. They should all be thrown out along with their lousy opinions. When they remind us about the imminent fate of death, it does not mean they have an epiphany. The death they are talking about when they ask people to be kind is not the death of the masses. If they had the masses in mind, they would take their knees off their necks and let them breathe. But that will not happen. Life does not matter to them. That is why nobody should be obliged to be kind to them whether they are alive or dead.
Credit: Abimbola Adelakun, Punch