The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
–Mark Anthony, in William
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
It has become a disturbing occurrence, gaining uncanny attention by the day. The trend is becoming noisy and lousy. It is full of hypocrisy, insincerity and absolute deception.
Why do we strive hard to thrive in falsity and pretence? And this is pervading every aspect of our national life. Nobody is left out: The leaders and the led; the governors and governed; the rulers and the ruled.
The watchwords are fakery and deceit. We are artificial in all our dealings. We refuse to talk straight. We speak from both sides of our ugly mouths. We don’t talk to our situation, we talk down on it. Sad!
We are forever afraid. We cannot boldly call a spade a spade. Instead, we deceitfully dress it in many fake colours. Can’t we be truthful to ourselves even for once?
All of them were casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Abba Kyari to Abiola Ajimobi to Ismaila Isa Funtua and, lately, Buruji Kashamu, aka Esho Jinadu. The trend remains the same. We half-heartedly poured uncontrolled eulogies, praises, encomiums and accolades all the way on the departed.
It was in utter disregard to how they were perceived when they were with us. A complete turn-around. An exact opposite of what they truly represented. We praise-sang them as if they never did any wrong.
The tiny few among us who braved the odds to differ instantly became subjects of attacks. They were made preys and seen as heartless. Gradually, we are turning known villains to undeserved heroes.
Immediately a fiend drops dead, we try hard to change the ugly narratives. We attempt to dress the dead in a borrowed robe. They forge on to rewrite history in their desperation.
They put up untenable postulations: It is “un-African” to speak ill of the dead. Who says? This has become their unwritten code. And their likes, the do-gooders, are falling over themselves ecstatically buying into it. Arrant nonsense!
This gained undue prominence when Abba Kyari became a past word. It, however, reached its ridiculous climax when Kashamu followed suit. Here, former President Olusegun Obasanjo was cut out as the undertaker-in-chief.
Without holding brief for him, he was particularly singled out for vilification. But he stoutly refused to be crucified. He won’t be taken to the cleaners so easily. His sin? He wrote in his condolence letter on Kashamu:
“Senator Esho Jinadu (Buruji Kashamu) in his lifetime used the manoeuvre of law and politics to escape from facing justice on alleged criminal offence in Nigeria and outside Nigeria. But no legal, political, cultural, social or even medical manoeuvre could stop the cold hands of death when the Creator of all of us decides that the time is up.
“May Allah forgive his sin and accept his soul into Aljanah, and may God grant his family and friends fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.”
Promptly, former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, took him up: “He (Obasanjo) should also remember that his own end will come too and nobody knows how the end will be.
“Can Obasanjo say in good conscience that he did not at some point collaborate with Kashamu and most of the things he (Kashamu) did politically were not with his collaboration?”
Joe Abah, a policy analyst, added his voice: “I thought that our culture is that every fight ends once one of the parties die?”
Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State and national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), opined that people should be kind to the dead, since every man would die someday.
Obasanjo responded in his characteristic stubbornness. He damned all perceived and unperceived consequences: “When I was growing up, in our community, when anyone known with bad character died, we usually only mourned him and buried him. No eulogy. No praise-singing.
“In this case, we are not talking ill of the dead. We are only drawing lessons from the life and history of the dead. I am not gloating over his death. It is sad for anyone to die and we must mourn him.
“But we must learn from such a passage. There will be bad lessons. There will be good lessons. But we should not just be praise-singing or eulogising the dead, especially when there is no need to do so.
“We should not cover up bad histories and conducts so that the right lessons can be learnt.”
He bluntly rounded it off with these profound declarations: “Let people say whatever they like when I transit. Now that I am alive, am I not being abused? Whenever I transit, let people say whatever they know or think about me. Let them say it as it is. What my Maker thinks of me is what matters most.” And that is how it should be.
Even one of OBJ’s arch-critics, Femi Falana, SAN, could not agree less: “Some people have said that it is against the African culture to speak ill of the dead. That is far from the truth.
“In the past, Africans spoke ill of the dead and exposed the dead if they were found to have engaged in abominable activities that brought shame to a community. In fact, the bodies of dead men and women who were found to have brought pestilence to a community were buried in the bush.”
I wholeheartedly align. No ill feelings. That is the gospel truth. I have come to realise that we should tell the good, the bad and the ugly about the dead.
There should be no hiding place for the dead. The whole truth must be told. Yes, all their deeds here on earth. Nothing must be concealed. That would be a disservice to humanity.
We should be able to draw useful lessons from his good and bad deeds. Nothing is wrong about that. It is all about life and living.
We should not be hypocritical about the dead. Since all of us will experience death but once, let us say it as it is. Eulogising the dead and deliberately leaving out the ugly part is deceit. It is half-truth. It has never helped us and it will never help us.
By not saying the truth about the dead, we are not even fair to him or her. We are not gloating over the dead by exposing all his deeds. We are only doing the dead the deserved justice and fairness.
Come to think of it. We still talk of the evil deeds of the tyrant, General Sani Abacha. He ruled and ruined us as if we were in the Stone Age. Yet, we want to exclude some “saints” from the same treatment. That only exposes the deep-rooted hypocrisy in us.
Let us stop deceiving ourselves. Nobody is a saint. None is absolutely clean. Only God is. Why are we feigning innocence and ignorance?
Whether you say good or bad of the dead, that won’t influence wherever he chooses to be. It won’t help his cause either. Neither would it have any bearing on you here on earth.
Have we forgotten that evergreen quote by Mark Anthony in William Shakespeare’s famous Julius Caesar? A quick reminder: “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
The earlier we realise this, the better for us.
So? Blow the trumpet loud and clear. Let’s talk about the dead. Speak out, commend their good deeds. And condemn their evil deeds.