On the Ojukwu gravy train

In a vulgariously materialistic and insincere society, I am stirring the hornet’s nest and I know I will be bit. The sting of insincerity should never stop debates. Not only have we failed as a nation to invest in our hospitals in a manner that helps preserve life, we seem to pray for occasions to celebrate the passage of those whose nuggets of wisdom could have helped our country survive. But wait a minute, do we invest in the preservation of life – no! Any amount spent by government at state and federal level at giving the man we did not give a befitting life a grandiose burial suits our retrogressive way of thinking.

Our penchant for irrationality is legendary. Imagine what succour awaits all if God were truly a Nigerian! At every pace, we show a rational world that we have no measurable standard of depicting honour. Anyone who has the atomic idea of what honour is should avoid being tarnished by this government in any way either in life or in death.

Suddenly, the country is awash with the Ojukwu gravy train. Many of the moral featherweights who are called societal juggernauts were jumping over each other, burying their heads in book of quotes to outdo themselves in finding attributes to extol the supposed virtues of Ojukwu. Not since the time of Jesus Christ when people shouted ‘Hossana’ in the morning and Crucify Him in the evening have such adjectives been used to describe one man. Here is a man who latched on to the injustice that led to the protest of his people, convinced them that he would take them to the promised land and saw six million of them exterminated only to jump at the last minute into exile being called a national hero.

Yes, only a man blinded by the sense of justice would justify the incidences which led to the civil war, but who, in eastern Nigeria today does not bear the psychological scar of that adventure? It is good to forgive, but to forget so soon especially in the face of the current of events starring us in the face today is to enter into the realm of those to be most pitied. For never since the Biafran war are ethno-religious tensions so thick in the air as they have been since Goodluck Jonathan became president. And never is the concept of a nationhood as fluid as they are now.

What has prevented the emergence of another Biafra is the access of the praise-singers to the train of sleaze that sometimes drop crumbs under the table for the crippled. In a sordid system such as we have today, any fickle chance of surviving for the next day is enough wax for the dying candle of hope.

It shocks that people from all sections were exhuming arcane adjectives to describe Ojukwu’s supposed attributes. What shocks most is the fact that these same people dressing the dead in borrowed robes were there when the man returned under Shehu Shagari to a heroic welcome only to fail to transform that popularity to votes at each trial. Where were all these people who could attest to his attributes? Why could they not sell his candidature to all and sundry since he had so many friends across lands, climes and political persuasions?

These questions agitate the mind. But what should shock is the fact that with such selective amnesia displayed towards people who have failed at leadership at various times without showing remorse, death seems like an expectant whitewash. The IBBs and the Obasanjos of this world can look forward to their end with characteristic gusto.

In this era when honour has lost its muscle, even the status quo is weighing in on the show. Ikemba’s precocious wife, Bianca is now ambassador in waiting. A woman whose husband lies cold in a cooler is waiting to move town and gown not just to the burial but to a deserved rest. In a country where ambassadors are glorified foreign protocol officers, asked to file reports of available investments and facilitators to government foreign shoppers – what more could one expect?

Are Nigerian ambassadors posted to help a country make the best out of diplomacy? It would appear not to be so, after all, if it were, why would Ojo Maduekwe feature as an ambassador after having served only last week as foreign minister to whom all ambassadors report? Do we expect the Senate not to clear anybody on this list? Hell no. Let them take a bow and jet out to open the route for our stolen wealth to be invested in yonder climes. This is the right time, a time when everything that ought to work has stopped working. A time when the poor are armed not against their oppressors but arrayed against each other.