By Innocent Okon
It is no more surprising that science and technology have come to recalibrate values, culture, social conventions and even religion. Like a ravenous virus, there are no areas spared from their reach and maximum attack!
Humanity is challenged with the existence of robots, while hallowed realms like religion has been eviscerated by heresies and organised violence. Unlike the conventional war for supremacy, science and technology have unleashed a war that knows no demilitarised zones. Now, cars can do without fossil fuel and robots can render services in lieu of humans!
Critical thinking, the only intellectual resource exclusive to humans has now been substantially reduced with the existence of Artificial Intelligence. Needless to observe that some generations have been compulsorily retired from active existence by modern science and technology!
Time there was in many climes that death was a dreadful phenomenon. Whenever and wherever it strikes, silence, sympathy and empathy hold sway. Not so anymore!
When death comes calling now, only the select members within the orbit of the deceased would feel the pain and the pangs out of proximity. The distant segments would move on with their endeavours and sometimes with passive statements!
How did humanity come to this sorry pass? The dead doesn’t enjoy the reverence that used to be an exclusive privilege anymore across cultures and religions. Now, the life and times of the deceased are subjected to visceral scrutiny and clinical judgment.
The politically exposed amongst us are hooked in this dragnet. Their actions and inactions, while serving the public, are examined and judgment delivered on streets, pubs and ubiquitous social media channels!
In 1998, Nigeria’s first full blown maximum ruler, General Sani Abacha died in office. Many Nigerians rolled out drums to celebrate his demise than wear sackcloths to mourn his fate! I still recall a social critic and legal luminary, Gani Fawehinmi, being reported in the press as demanding that the soul of the departed ruler should be dispatched to the hottest part of hell! Not that Gani did not know that death was a compulsory question for all mortals; but the high handedness, impunity and arrogance of the dead while alive can obliterate remorse.
Last Sunday in Nigeria, news filtered through our porous media borders that a one time military ruler and later civilian President, Muhammadu Buhari had passed on! Both sympathy and indifference are now contesting for space as his epithaph. While some see his demise as a colossal loss, the other divide maintains a vocal remorseless stance.
He is judged by the latter group as an irredentist, a religious bigot, clueless leader and adroit master of blame game! To them, Buhari left the country worst than he met it. This may be harsh farewell words for a dead leader, but poignant lessons must not be consigned to the rubbish bin.
Present political leaders at various constitutional hierarchies must listen, feel and act more in tandem with public interest than their ego and entrenched interest. Political power is ephemeral, but the people will remain as constant as Shakespeare’s Northern star. Their majority opinion on your service record shall resile the best scripts of propagandists at home and abroad.
Let the Femi Fani Kayode (FFKs) and Reno Omokris of Nigeria rage no more! The people whom Buhari served have written his epithaph in bold letters and no invectives and tirades can alter that. Let the living in corridors and living rooms of power learn some hard and inescapable lesson. There is no more compulsory complimentary eulogy for the dead in our clime!
Okon, a journalist and lawyer, lives in Uyo.
