Death and Destiny
“General Murtala Muhammed moved like a phantom, as though he knew that he didn’t have the time that he needed to do all he wanted to do … he knew he’ll annoy powerful Nigerians, but no matter: good men, men of purpose, do get cut down in mid stream.”
Some words considered quite sound often turn out to sound stupid when their meanings are fully considered. With poetic licence, these contradictions pass. When the unexpected happens, and man is always surprised by death although everyone knows that it shall come when it shall, even a child in elementary school finds himself dabbling in verse. Always sparse, verse say much more than thousands of words of prose. What really can man do about death and such matters over which he has no control, except to resign himself to saying to hell! We may be afraid of death – those already armed with experience of life and death – but not the young who are forgiven their youth. And not John Donne, the 17th century English poet and essayist, who said to death in his sixth sonnet: “Death be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art soe, / For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow, / Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee; / …And death shall be no more, death thou shalt die. “ Of course, death did not die. And, of course, death killed Donne. But he made the wise and courageous decision to damn death and wait for it to strike the way it struck his wife in 1617 after giving birth to their 12th child.
That was Donne’s way with death. But that was not the way a Nigerian child reacted in February 1967 when Patrice Lumumba was murdered in the then Congo, now Zaire. He felt that this African sun was snuffed out in mid-passage by forces of reaction, and he wrote a poem weeping for the passage of Lumumba who died in the hands of the agents of Joseph Mobutu, now Sese Seko. He hated death for killing his hero, snapping the reed of his rose. He wondered why death should reconcile itself of such a heinous crime. It didn’t occur to the child, when penning his verses to the memory of Lumumba, that death didn’t kill Lumumba, but that Mobutu did. That’s the point missed by those who find themselves blaming death for the passage of those they love and consider their heroes. And Donne, whose sense of humour found a way into his discourse on death, noticed that death doesn’t really kill, a way of blaming “fate, chance, kings and desperate men … poison, warre, and sicknesse … poppie or charmes …” Thus, when a hero is felled, it is only proper to balme those and what have killed him instead of restoring to the universal blaming of death for the hero’s passage. Nigeria, as a country, has been unlucky. Those who desire to gevrn it, those who believe that they have what it takes, people of resolve and strength of character, hardy ever get a chance of making the nation’s leadership. Ahmadu Bello was strong, but chose to stay in the north. By the time he made up his mind to come to Lagos, realizing that Lagod was where the action was, he was felled. Obafemi Awolowo fought with all his energy, relinquishing power in the west in search of the real power in Lagos, but unfortunately for him and, perhaps, for Nigeria, he never got the chance.
Tafawa Balewa didn’t want the job, for he knew he didn’t have what it takes, but he got the job nonetheless, costing the nation greatly. Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi didn’t want the job, didn’t know that it was coming, but he got the job anyway, and paid with his life. Yakubu Gown didn’t want the job, but found it on his lap, didn’t know what to do with it and gave t to the civil servants and other sycophants around him who led him down the path of destruction. Those who mercifully relieved Gowon of the burden of leadership sought the right man for the job and found him: Murtala Muhammed. He didn’t seek the job, but once the thrust on him, he accepted it and went as it with his moistest as much as any human being would have. He move like a phantom, as though he knew that he didn’t have the tiem that he needed to do all he wanted to do. He was like John Donne who knew that it was futile for a man to allow the faer of death, at least the agents of death, to stand in the way of what he had to do. Muhammed knew that the plans he had would annoy more than a few powerful Nigerians. He knew also that these characters would kill him in order to stop. But he knew that the fear was more paralyzing than the fear of death, knowing that it must come anyway. He seemed to have made a pact, not unlike the pact made by Donne, that to hell with death, the job had to be done must be done. So he threw overboard the fear of death, and dared it.
That he made a difference is not in dispute. That’s why Nigeria, 10 years after the brutal murder of the man, can’t stop thinking of him, a man they hardly knew. It is relieving that Nigerians knew who killed Muhammed: Dimka and the powers that he represented. But don’t let us miss the point of this discourse: that good men, men of purpose who are true heroes, do get cut down in mid-stream on their way to achieve greatness. Were that something existed that could have kept Muhammed alive for Nigeria, making death irrelevant to the destiny of this tortured nation, and which could also make death irrelevant as the subject of this discourse – but no such thing exists. Death always wins. The fitting paradox is that Muhammed’s death provided Nigeria the link to the future which came almost 10 years after Muhammed’s passage. The man who showed the courage to put a halt to the carnage planned by Muhammed’s murderers is the man who is now Nigeria’s president. He accomplished the feat by daring death, displaying man’s ultimate courage. And he is the first Nigerian, going by all available evidence, who sought Nigeria’s leadership and was fortunate to achieve it. The wish is that he will be able to make death irrelevant to the destiny of Nigeria.
©Newswatch, February 17, 1986
(Pp.285-287)
