Yevgeny Prigozhin: One man’s traitor, another man’s hero

I, like many Africans, who wanted absolute state sovereignty, received the news of your gruesome death after a serial ritual of vilification with great sadness, pain and trepidation. For the history, during your youth growing up in Leningrad the epicenter of the greatest tank battle in human history, after the compulsory military training which was a Soviet era state policy, you did not bother to pursue a career in the Soviet army.

However, as destined, your rise to national prominence and the internationalization of your personality was to come through military defence contracting with Wagner, particularly in its international involvement with many African countries gasping for breath of freedom from the smog of neocolonialism particularly in French Africa.

Paradoxically, when the Americans together with their European cheerleaders called you Putin’s chef sarcastically, I grinned with aghast because, if despite your Wagner’s legendary revolutionary exploits in Africa you were just Putin’s chef, then, the American blue water the Defence Contractor in Iraq with their catalog of atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison will perfectly qualify for a Pentagon’s nanny. Albeit, you have been branded a traitor in the strangest circumstances of a contested patriotism rooted in a personality clash between you and President Putin, your mercurial and sterling leadership qualities as demonstrated through the Wagner franchise involvement in a counter neocolonial insurgency in Central African Republic, Republic of Mali, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Democratic Republic of Congo and your recently declared commitment in Republic of Niger, which made spectacular difference in compelling the revolutionary reset of the political leadership equilibrium, the progressive Africa will continue to see you in the ghost of Thomas Sankara, Amilca Cabral and the legendary Che Guevara, the intellectual engine room of the Cuban Revolution.

The truth of the matter is that, regardless of your fall from favour with the political establishment in Moscow, as students of the World War II celebrated on the day of your catastrophic plane crash, in our spirit and compelling understanding of history, your life in its entirety represented the Russian spirit, the Russian patriotism and the Russian heroic death.

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Your President said during his televised condolences that you have made some serious mistakes in life. Oh well, that was just a restatement of your humanity and mortality, I also make bold to say that Mr President, you have also made series of serious mistakes in your life but, that is not an indictment because, your greatest achievements, as the man who reinvented Russia as a competitive super hero shall continue to shine evergreen on your grave.

Rest in peace Yengeny Prigozhin, you deserved it – your death has made the global anti-neocolonial movement poorer. As Africans, we thank God for your life that struck fear in the mind of neocolonial masters of the universe. Rest in peace.

Prof. Shehu Abdullahi Zuru wrote from Abuja