Pple wake up as early as 4am yo go to where n close from where. Working hours can be reviewed to suit d present directive. Be conscious of the time and stay safe.

On Abba Kyari’s Death

The truth of the matter is that no matter what anyone says, feels or does about Abba Kyari’s death, the man himself is completely oblivious to it. He cannot see us celebrating. He cannot hear us ululating. All our hallelujahs, hosannas in the highest and Amens are merely blowing in the wind never to be heard by Kyari. Not for Kyari our loud guffaws or our high-fives that he is no longer with us. He can never feel the pains of our insults, our derisions or our denigrations again. Kyari died a painful death from a pandemic ravaging the world. He can never feel any pain anymore. As is the case with all mortals, by dying, Kyari is freed from pains and sorrows, from joys and laughters, from worries and anxieties. He can no longer thirst for water or fura da nono. Suya and kilishi would never again grace his lips. It is no longer for him, the burden of life. His legacies can continue to make the living happy or sad, mournful or joyful but he himself is now above all that. He is no longer of the flesh and the things of the flesh are no longer of him. If you laugh at him that he is dead or you cry for his death, it makes no iota of difference to him. The dead feels no sorrow or delights in joy and laughter. As my grandfather used to say, funerals are for the living, the dead is dead and gone. We cannot even console ourselves that our celebration over his death should serve as a lesson to our traducers. What celebration did we not engage in at the news of Abacha’s death? How many million liters of alcohol did we not quaff that the dictator was dead? What lessons did Abacha’s successors learn from our celebration? How did our celebrations empower us? What excuses do we not continue to make to exculpate ourselves from reducing ourselves to people only rejoice and celebrate when our hated leaders die? I have a feeling that Kyari’s is not the only death we shall celebrate. Some people are already chilling the champagnes that they would uncork when sadistic and atrocious governors holding them at the jugular pass on, but as the piece of meat on the cutting board asked when it was told that the butcher had died, “is the knife dead, too”? Our butchers die but their knives remain alive and very sharp. The revelers over Kyari’s death are even too impotent to influence the choice of his successor. A more “tyrannical” person than Kyari could emerge to take his place.

I found it ironical that in a country where male life expectancy is only 54 years, anyone would dance at the grave of a man who lived up to 80 years. Kyari is dead but his 80-year sojourn on this side of heaven would outpace, by decades, the lives of many of those rejoicing at his death. He did not just live the 80 years. His 80 years were years of stupendous accomplishments and, I am sure, of personal fulfillments. I was astounded to learn of how old Kyari was. He looked as fit as a fiddle and if I can be as physically agile and as intellectually vibrant as he was at his age, I would consider myself part of a rare breed. Heck, Kyari looked younger and more active at 80 years than me at 65. If Kyari was not of a different religious persuasion that does not celebrate death, his death would have been celebrated with pomp and pageantry for the longevity of his life. Masquerades of all shades and colors would have graced his funeral as an old man who had joined the ancestors. Mountains of food and drinks would have been consumed at his second funeral. His casket would have been made of silk and gold and would have cost more the annual wages of a thousand Nigerians on minimum wages. So, in a way, those celebrating his death thinking that they are mocking him are actually giving him the ultimate send-off as an African elder statesman, father, grandfather, etc.

Unfortunately for some of us, all the vilifications being heaped on Kyari are based on rumors, innuendoes and bad belly. We have been told he was the head of a cabal controlling all the affairs of Aso Rock. We were assured that President Buhari was so out of it that Kyari was the de facto president. Our know-it-all informants told us that Buhari had become so senile or so brain-damaged that he did not know his left from his right, and that the entire apparatus of the federal government would come crashing down without the iron-fist of Abba Kyari. Buhari, we were assured, was just a television set that would not function without a remote control and Kyari was supposedly the remote control. We had no way of challenging all these until Kyari took ill and all the doomsday clocks were wrong. The television worked even without the “remote control.”

We cannot derive even a vicarious pleasure from Kyari’s death. We cannot heave a sigh of relief that our “tyrant” is gone as his alleged tyranny is in our heads and in our minds and unless we are ready to bury our heads and our minds with Kyari’s corpse, our “victory” and our celebration are a pyrrhic one. Utterly empty and senseless celebrations. I also found it interesting that if Kyari was as tyrannically-powerful as he was alleged to be, those celebrating his death were very cowardly. None of them challenged his tyranny when he was alive. Despite their celebration, they would derive no satisfaction from his death. It is a measure of a man’s impotence if all he can do is to spit at the corpse of his tormentor. It’s a sputum that cannot obliterate the bitterness and the resentment at the object at whom the sputum is thrown.

My condolences to President Buhari, Mallam Abba Kyari’s family, his friends and colleagues. The death of any Nigerian diminishes us as human beings and foolishly celebrating the death of anyone further diminishes us a people.

...copied from the master of the words; Prof. Pita Agbese.

May his soul rest in peace

How prepared are we awaiting our death?