SPEAKING ILL OF THE DEAD - By Remi Oyeyemi

Your comments please...


"The evil that men do live after them." -- William Shakespare

I  am aware that this is breaking with the conventional wisdom. I am conscious that this is a rebuke of tradition. I am not oblivious to the fact that it is against the norm. I am not unaware that this is not in tune with the mainstream. I am aware some would loath me for it. Some would deride me. Others would call me names. Those who really never liked my guts, would have this reinforced it for them. But those who have the objective ability to see things the way they are and are able to call them as exactly as they should, would see some sense in this.


   
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The idea of not speaking ill of the dead is not a good idea, especially if the dead person did nothing deserving of praise. The idea of praising the dead, regardless if the dead during his or her life was mean spirited, greedy, selfish, inconsiderate, odiously acquisitive, ruthless and disdainful is totally unacceptable. It is wrong and should be done away with. We should be able to say exactly what kind of person someone was during his or her life.

I take serious objection to the rain of praise that has been cascading down on the corpse of the late Mrs. Stella Obasanjo. In my own view she is not deserving of any praise whatsoever at least in the public domain. It is alright for President Olusegun Obasanjo to cry himself hoarse, because no one likes to see another person dead, even if the person was not close to you. It is acceptable if he cries to mourn his wife. It is acceptable for her only son to mourn his dear mother. It is very acceptable for the family of the dead to mourn their loss. I also believe that it is alright for the rest of us who are victims of the first family to acknowledge the loss of a soul, not because of any other reason other than the fact that we are all human beings. And this is where it ought to end. No more, no less.

What is unacceptable is to mourn on a national scale the Nigerian version of Marie Antoinette who never cared how many times her husband raised the fuel price to further pummel the down trodden. Stella Obasanjo never cared about the unemployed youth in Nigeria. She never raised her voice in their support once. If she did I missed it and someone should call my attention. She never spoke up for once on the deteriorating health standard of Nigerians and the Nigerian hospitals as they turn into slaughter houses. Probably, this was because she believed she could always go to Spain for whatever she needed medically.

Stella Obasanjo never tried to convince her husband, the president, to reconsider his policies of genocide against the Odi people and the suffering people of the Niger Delta for once. She never tried to appeal to the humaneness of her husband, if he ever had any, about the "shoot at sight" order of her husband against Nigerians who had and still have legitimate complains about her husband's policies. She never tried to show that she was a mother or cared about the plight of mothers who keep losing their children to hunger and disease on daily basis by influencing her husband to do the right thing by them.

When Chris Ubah was terrorizing the people of Anambra State, what role did Stella Obasanjo play to bring sanity and succour to the people of that state? How many times did she prevail on her husband to do the right thing and allow the rule of law in that state? Never for once did she speak out about the corruption in the Nigerian polity and tried to shore up support for her husband's anti-corruption war. May be this was because she never believed in the war just like her husband was fighting it selectively and half heartedly.

It is very easy to argue that what was she expected to do when she was not elected? But no one could deny the fact that wives of powerful men always have influences on their husbands, and one way or the other, get their powerful husbands to be more positive or more negative. I read that she did some work regarding the physically challenged. I am not in position to assess whatever she might have done, because I still see quite a number of them begging for arms on the streets of Lagos and other Nigerian cities. But I am of the view that she could have done better in positively influencing the policies of her husband for the benefit of Nigeria and she failed to do that because she was more preoccupied with vanities than anything else as the circumstances of her death revealed.

For those who are Obasanjo's sycophants and who still hope to benefit from the misery he is visiting on the Nigerian nation, it might be acceptable for them to shed their crocodile tears even if they really did not like the woman when she was alive. For Ahmed Yayale, Head of the Federal Civil Service to insinuate that "Nigeria is going through a trying time" with Mrs. Obasanjo's death is unconscionable. Others give a variety of reasons that bothers on insane to ridiculous as to why her death was "a great loss to the country." Chief Ufot Ekaette felt that because "she (Stella) stood beside the president throughout the presidential campaigns and all the election process in 1999 and in 2003," then she has done what a First Lady has never done before and hence her death was "a great loss?"

How can anyone project the death of Nigeria's Imelda Marcos who periodically went on spending spree on the "national purse" as a national tragedy? For any one with any iota of sanity to project the death of Stella Obasanjo as a national tragedy is disgraceful and condemnable. It is insulting to the suffering people of Nigeria. Nigerians may be poor and pulverized by the policies of Olusegun Obasanjo, but they still have some intelligence and no one has the right to insult it.

Nigeria is under the leadership of sick minds. Every one of them is trying to outdo each other in shedding crocodile tears for Stella because of what they could get from Olusegun Obasanjo. Their fake mourning is not because they thought the dead first lady was a great woman or a woman of substance by any means, but because they hope to be recognized by the Emperor later on. What is the sense in 3 days of mourning for Stella by the federal government? What is the sense of 7 days of mourning by the Abia State Government? What is the sense of 30 days of mourning by the Edo State Government? What is the sense of several days of mourning declared by several other states in the country because of this woman's death? At what cost to the Nigerian people is this first lady going to be mourned? Must Nigeria disappear from the surface of the Earth because the first lady died?

I have not heard any of them saying anything seriously and satisfactorily about the over one hundred Nigerians who died in that plane crash as a result of absence of a serious aviation policy and monitoring by Obasanjo's administration? I am not satisfied with the comments of the public officials on the Lisa tragedy. Their comments did not convey any serious concern for Nigerians dead in that tragedy. Who will mourn those innocent souls? I am not buying those half hearted comments euphemised as concerns or mourning about the Lisa tragedy victims. Their death, in my own opinion, is more of a national importance than that of Stella Obasanjo.

All the governors and other public servants have been visiting Aso Rock and Otta to commiserate with Olusegun Obasanjo on the death of his wife. I have not read of one of them - Federal Ministers, Governors, Commissioners or what have you - visiting one of the families that lost someone in that Bellview crash. Are they lesser human beings? Are those public officials not in power to protect the public, some of whom were killed in that crash? All of them, including Obasanjo are there because of the public and it is the dead among them (the public) now that are being relegated to the background. What a travesty!

The idea of not speaking ill of the dead is a VERY WRONG one, especially if that dead person never did anything to deserve it. If this practice was to continue, it means every criminal in our midst should look forward to being praised after he/she was dead regardless of the crimes committed. This would also mean a genuine disincentive for those who strive to do positive things and improve their communities.

It is very important to ensure that dead people's memories be imbued with their acts of omissions and commissions when they were alive. It is an act of injustice to arrogate false achievements to Liliputian figures more famous for their kleptomania as they gallivant through the inner rooms of power. It is unfair to give state burial to those who have contributed to the Nigerian misery simply because they are relatives of those in power.

Presedent Obasanjo is doing everything he could to appropriate as much political capital from this death of his wife. I am aware he visited the crash site and laid some wreath in the memory of the victims. In my view, this is tokenism. It is not enough. If he were a man with heart, he should have requested for a modest burial arrangement for his wife in light of those families who lost their relatives in that unrelated crash. It is at times of personal adversities like this that you know a true leader which Obasanjo has never pretended to be and some of us never expected him to be. Well, it could be argued that he was bereaved, confused, still grieving and was not in his right mind in the last couple of days. But what about the days, weeks and months preceding the tragedies?