By Paul Onomuakpokpo
An
impediment to the quest for the full return of history to schools is our fear
of excavating the seamy past of our heroes. We want history to be returned to
our schools so that we can learn about our past and its avatars and draw some
useful lessons for an effective response to our contemporary challenges. But we
are trapped in the tragic paradox of the fear of being confronted with the
foibles and peccadilloes of the past heroes who shaped our history. This
paradox is amply expressed in the warning not to speak ill of the dead.
We are even
forbidden from speaking ill of the living. Fawn on the living, credit them with
the virtues they are crassly bereft of and there would not be any problems. But
attempt to draw attention to their less than stellar qualities and a kerfuffle
is provoked. There is a grimmer possibility of this if the subjects are public
office holders. They would deploy all their might to teach the daring offenders
the lessons that they should not traduce a big Nigerian. With the complicity of
the police, they would throw them into jail where they would be forgotten.
It is in
this context that we can situate the developments around the rumoured death of
President Muhammadu Buhari. To be sure, it is wrong to wish anybody dead. For
neither do we have the power to take the life of someone we did not create nor
know when that person would die. Again, we are reminded of Michel de
Montaigne’s warning that we should not consider anyone happy until his death.
In other words, no human being, no matter his or her station in life is immune
from the storms and tempests of life. Thus, we must not be deterred from
discussing the rumoured death of the president and appropriating some useful
lessons from it.
After all,
other leaders like Nnamdi Azikiwe were said to have died while they were still
alive. Even in Zimbabwe,
there have been many rumours of death about Life President Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe who is amused at the rumours has quipped that he has resurrected more
often than Jesus Christ. And just recently, one Pastor Patrick Mugadza
prophesied that the 92-year-old Mugabe would die on October 17, 2017. And
unsurprisingly, Mugadza has been taken to court. But the joke is on Mugabe as
Mugadza’s lawyer has said that the pastor was only relaying a message from God
and the police had to prove that God is not its originator.
The reactions of Nigerians to the rumoured death of the president are a mix of
genuine shock and barefaced humbug. How dare malevolent persons claim that the
president is dead? hollered some. If our president had reacted like this to the
recurrent wastage of lives in the country, we would have disincentivised the
propensity for willful killing by fellow citizens or through government neglect.
We glimpse our president’s lack of respect for human life through his
protection of those who allegedly stole the money meant for starving and
sexually exploited internally displaced persons. Obviously, these lives are not
as precious as the president’s. This is why despite the outrage at the sleaze
of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Lawal Babachir, Buhari is
begging the Senate to allow him to stay in office.
