By Eseoghene Al-Faruq Ohwojeheri, Benin City
About
ten years ago I lost a friend in an armed robbery incident. Obviously,
the armed robbers were not satisfied with robbing. They needed to make a
point by harming someone in the house and my friend's mother was their
target. As they swung the axe, my friend, who was the scholar of our
class in secondary school, protected his mother with his head… He died.
No national award, no postmortem speech from the Governor and, of
course, no celebrity burial; he was just another guy, the fact that he
took a battle axe to his head for his mother was irrelevant.
This
and many more of it happens in a country wherein people get millions
both in local and foreign currency for playing football; a country
wherein comedians shake hands with the President and women who kiss
strange men on camera in the name of acting take home National Award,
and an immoral youth who made fame singing about his private part, is
given special opportunity to interview
the President in a desperate
campaign strategy because the thinking is that the community is
populated by zombies and bimbos who will vote in a PHD holder on the
"honour" of a nuisance whose only relevance to society, apart from lewd
music, is competition in air and space. Thus, the question every sane
Nigerian should be asking is: when will this madness of underserved
honour stop?
The
death of the musician from Ekiti, Goldie Harvey, and the attempt to
make it seem like we lost an icon is another and perhaps the worst of
all these madness. I do not believe that death, which we will all face,
should make you a hero except you died an honourable death. When people
just drop dead we grieve and console the family not tell blatant lies as
to who they were. This is why the statement of the Ekiti State Governor
is worrisome. Mr. Kayode Fayemi is reported to have described Goldie as
a "great daughter of Ekiti State", and one has to wonder upon what was
this greatness achieved? Are people now great for singing meaningless
songs with promiscuous suggestions or for taking and publishing
suggestive photos of themselves?
Since
when did we consider it greatness to appeal to the sexual cravings of
perverts and run after men on camera in the name of a reality show that
is far from reality? Since when did it become great achievement that a
lady is even thought of as being a junkie in her life time? How can this
be great?
In the past, fathers would tell their
children "don't bring shame to this family", but nowadays shame and
shamelessness is celebrated with such noise that you think the Devil
himself is in charge of people's lives and even he has gone crazy.
Ironically, around the same period this
unfortunate death occurred, governor Theodora Orji of Abia State was
commending Mrs. Nwanyieze Prosper for winning the Purity Queen title for
a lady who kept her virginity until her marriage. Some Nigerians
criticized the Governor and even 'accused' him of giving her a car
whereas Governor Kayode Fayemi was praised for describing Goldie as a
"bright star " among other accolades including that she lived a
"fulfilled life". Indeed, the world is upside down.
The problem with giving honour to
people who did dishonourable acts is that people will definitely emulate
them. The Dolly Parton's of this world made it a fashion for women to
expose their cleavage; years on women have lost their husbands to such
exposure and homes have collapsed; the Dr. Dre's of this world made
being "gangster" a fashionable thing and years later the gangsters are
increasing and we even have a gangster in the White House killing
innocent people with Drones...
Martin Luther's Dreams became a
Nightmare. And this list goes on and on; for every irresponsible person
you honour you make irresponsibility the "swag", the same way for every
man who dies for his mother you honour you make standing up against
oppression and protecting the weak the in-thing… Make your choice.
Lastly, we must clarify two issues. The
first one is with regards to speaking "evil" about the dead while the
second one is the "who are you to judge" comedy.
Firstly, the dead has already met what
he or she put forward hence there is no need to speak of its evil. What
there is need to do however is to either call the living to an example
to live by if the dead is worthy of emulation or to warn the living to
stay away from a wasteful lifestyle like that of the dead who lived life
as if death was never going to come and this is the real lesson here;
life is short, if you live it like Goldie your death may come and meet
you in that state; what will you tell your Creator? We cannot pretend
this is not the lesson here; it will be one lie too many Secondly, they
ask us not to Judge and we say to them since we are in the spirit of not
judging kindly don't judge the location of your mouth so that you put
your food in your nose. We say to them that in this spirit of not
judging please cross the road without judging that a vehicle is close
enough to knock you down; maybe when you are in the air you will realise
your stupidity.
We do not Judge a person who has Faith
that he or she will be in the hellfire, we do not Judge that the
person's bad is more than his/her good, we do not Judge if God will
forgive a believer… But we Judge that fornication and the promotion of
it is EVIL, and that the one who represented evil dead does not make
evil good.
Some others will say an adult can do
what he or she likes and you don't have to force your life on others.
The question we have for this set of confused mentally colonized
perverts is that this same justification is given to homosexuality and
it will soon be given to incest so that if a grown up man and his grown
up daughter say they fell in love and want to marry your kind will say
well it’s their life, it does not affect me… Can you see now that you
are sick?
Conclusively, the lessons from this unfortunate incident can be summarized as thus:
1) Death can come at any time; be prepared to meet your Lord.
2) Fame and fortunes are but illusions, what matters is your relationship with your Creator.
3) The enjoyment of this world is fleeting; don't let it deceive you.
4) Live a good life; one that does not
involve promoting lewdness or any type of evil; death and Judgment is
real and it is no respecter of status.
5) It was the honour given her musical
mentors that led the lady to not just music but a meaningless form upon
which her life ended, so let's ensure that we do not turn scum into
icons because people will sure emulate them.
May God Almighty give the family fortitude to bear the lost and guide them aright.