A song like Senator Uwajumogu

BEFORE his passing penultimate Wednesday, after collapsing in his bathroom, Imo senator, Ben Uwajumogu, had fought one of the bitterest political battles of this dispensation to be in the senate. Closest to his, is his kinsman’s, the self-appointed obituary announcer and Ndigbo’s prodigal, Rochas Okorocha, whose gun-point victory was upheld by the Nigerian judiciary. Maybe in their league, is Smart “Alec” Adeyemi. Despite his air-raid-victory over the garrulous Dino Melaye, the Nigerian judiciary is also likely to uphold his electoral harvest, seen as a heist and obviously full of travesties. Uwajumogu’s political battles which culminated in eventually pinning down a senate seat which death, the grim ultimate reaper has now taken away from him forever, might not have attracted enough of national attention in a Nigeria of daily drama of surviving Buharinomics. While those likely asking Ben Who, could be excused, those who could not be bothered by his family’s loss, can also be spared the sticks. Being in the senate is gradually becoming a curse to even those known with the Bibire gene, before seeking seats in the Red Chamber. Sadly, those without history of looting behind them, unlike former governors who seek haven in what Yoruba will describe as hiding behind a finger (that saying has come true with Joshua Dariye and Orji Kalu, while Danjuma Goje and co are on the guillotine line), go in there and mix with men like the senate president, who see nothing wrong in renovating a building that cost about N10 billion to erect, with N37 billion. Legislooting esprit de corp, requires such good men, not only to see no evil, they mustn’t also say anything about the evil, for which they have become guilty by association. And because such good men also partake of ungodly allowances being quarterly drawn on the blood, sweat and visceral pains (and even death) of the man on the street, whatever Omoluabism they take in there, becomes tainted and torn. That is why they leave to become a caricature. Is it not what they call the curse of Esau?

For countless Nigerians, the entire senate could as well go up in flames while the senators, the full house plus those in prison, are holding an executive session, which is always out of bounds to non-sinators, and now that Femi Gbaja is beginning to make the once-vibrant House of Representatives look like an attachment to Aso Rock guest house and himself the errant and erratic chief errand boy (who now equates his Surulere constituency, with the national message his office should espouse), the entire NASS could as well disappear overnight before any opportunity to commence any N37 billion renovation and Nigerians would wake up the next day singing “The Lord has done so much for us, He has taken away our sorrow”. I ask, do these people ever get their so-called experts to gauge the public mood? Do they know of the anger in the land and don’t just care? Is there a curse on the institution to always misbehave? How can a whole cart of apples be bad, sour, tasteless and irredeemably unmanageable? Have they ever held an executive session completely dedicated to institutional redemption where truth is allowed to be said in its naked form and everyone coming out of such a session, forlorn, as a form of contrition and a prelude to redemption? Is there anything outside death that would ever change them and their ilk in other arms and tiers of government for the better at least, conceding the country would never get their best?

Wait, does death even move this lot again? Deaths that could pass for God’s direct warnings to the political class had come and gone and our rulers are just getting madder in seeking power and badder with our collective patrimony. I still shudder remembering Abubakar Audu’s sudden passing after defeating an incumbent in Kogi four years back, but does the re-coronating election of Yahaya Bello suggest that anything was learnt from God obviously stopping Audu from re-climbing the Lugard House throne on which men like him, once worshipped him? If Bello remembered that it was divine arrangement that got him in, in the first place when he had no hope, he would not seek another mandate the way he did with full support of Abuja Baba Oyoyo.

With the way the Nigerian political class has been conducting itself, shocking, sudden passing, of its exclusive members like Audu and Uwajumogu, has obviously taught the lot no mortality and immortality vital lessons. Did Abacha’s, teach the new manor lordship anything, despite the proximity, filiality and familiarity? Maybe those living simply see their dropping colleagues as merely unfortunate and better still, less fortified. Or maybe these atrocious lot are taking to heart, the crude joke about God, getting so angry with unrepentant sinners, and flinging them so vigorously towards hell, that they get to fly over and bounce on the other side, this time, in heaven. This may sound jocular but those power-seekers and mongers have become so incredulous, unbelievable and impossible that nothing can be put beyond them, especially in deliberate miscomprehension of life and its inanities, vanities and vainglorious. I want to believe that in seeking power and its allure, our leaders routinely submit to all the precepts of evil, including the lie they will live forever. Well, the end has come to matter for Uwajumogu, just like it will matter for each and everyone of us, including those bathing with human blood and using fellow men for “asun”. Yes, anyone can argue that there is no big deal to death; that it is a debt owed by all. Those who have signed the pact of eternal damnation can also argue there is no big deal to hereafter. But among Ben’s former colleagues, at least, his death at just 51, is ministering to, at least, one, who incidentally also has an act to clean up; Senator Elisha Abbo. Remember him? Okay, he has an eternal message for us all today. Mourning Ben, he said “I can confirm that my colleague and brother Ben Uwajumogu has left us to be with the Lord. It calls for sober reflection. It is a clear indication that this world is like market and when you come you will go back home. Ben has come to the market, he has behaved well and gone back to account for his good deeds on earth. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family”. Oro pesi je.