Date Published: 12/14/09

NO MATTER HOW DISMALLY HE HAS PERFORMED SO FAR, NIGERIANS WANT THEIR PRESIDENT BACK ALIVE AND HEALTHY By Temple Chima Ubochi 

Death always comes too early or too late. (English Proverb)

Death is a shadow that always follows the body. (English Proverb)

If your time ain't come not even a doctor can kill you. (American Proverb))

Death was afraid of him because he had the heart of a lion. (Arabian Proverb)

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: I'm with you kid. Let's go. (Maya Angelou)

For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord (Jeremiah 30:17)

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last. (Marcus Aurelius)

For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. (James 4:14)

You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can decide how you're going to live now. (Joan Baez)

To live life well is to express life poorly; if one expresses life too well, one is living it no longer. (Gaston Bachelard)

Good God! How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. ( Pope, Alexander)

Life is not lost by dying; life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways. (Stephen Vincent Benet)

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable. (Samuel Johnson)

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind. (Henri Frederic Amiel)

We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance. (Marcel Proust)

This writer is worried about the president, not only because he’s the president, but, also as a father, husband, son, brother and a Nigerian. We should be praying and watching while preparing our minds for the worst, because he has only two options here, just like everybody: It’s either one lives or dies. This writer became suspicious when the intelligence requested that the vice president must not leave Abuja till further notice. It’s unfortunate that those around the president have cloaked his real condition in mystery and deceit. Some one wrote: “We just keep keeping on; we have been told only the doctors know when Yardy will be back, sounds like 'nobody' knows when we will have a President again. It amuses us when those in power say that, governance is going on without the President, to us…..”

Nigerians, the picture does not look good at all. The president was billed to return this week and all of a sudden, we were told “No date yet for President's return” and that “Only doctors can confirm Yar’Adua return”. These are not cheering.

The question this writer has is: How come that those around the president loved the picture of him they were seeing some months ago, without advising or even forcing him to go for treatment earlier than he did? What was his wife thinking seeing her husband in that pitiful condition without raising alarm and forcing him to go take care of himself before more damages was done? This writer cannot get it all here, he thinks those surrounding him (the president) did not give a damn about his health as long as their own selfish interest was protected. Somebody wrote this: “The man was long dead even when he pretended to be calling the shots in Aso Rock. It is those profiteers from his misery and those who will redden their morsels from his eternal exit that refused to release him for timely, adequate and correct treatment.”

 What those around Yar’Adua are doing in his absence, is engaging in infighting while scheming for vantage position. The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice wanted to turn himself into the mouth piece of the government and that led to a clash between him and the Minister of Information, Prof. Dora Akunyili, who felt the AGF was encroaching into her territory.

Yar’Adua's wife refused to follow her husband at the same time to Saudi Arabia because she had assignment to finish first as the de facto president; then when the news became too bad, she rushed to Saudi Arabia to be at her husband's bedside. Now the poor man is in coma and cannot talk or open his eyes, the wife is planning to rush back to Nigeria to plan her daughter’s wedding to a scion of a Sokoto rich man, as if that wedding cannot wait until her husband recovers or as if the bride would run away, if the wedding fails to happen immediately. Think of it, a woman whose husband is fighting for his dear life, is only interested in the wedding of her daughter, planning to abandon her husband, who is on point of death, alone in a hospital as far away as Saudi Arabia to come home to plan a wedding that is supposed to be put on hold till further notice. This is a woman who does not know what the future holds for her family, whether after returning to Nigeria, if she would ever see her husband alive again. What of if God decides to call her husband when she has returned to Nigeria, won’t she feel guilty for her action for the rest of her remaining life, for not waiting so that her husband can draw his last breathe in her bosom or for missing her husband dying in her arms?

This writer does not know the culture of the Fulani, but, for Ndiigbo, in such a situation; the wedding would be put on hold until the fate of the bride/bridegroom’s father is clear or known. For Ndiigbo, it’s a taboo to talk of wedding when the father of the bride/bridegroom is on point of death. If the father of the bride/bridegroom dies, that wedding would not hold for a long time, at least, throughout the mourning period. Only the bereaved family bears the agony of death; after burial, everybody, except the family of the deceased, go away and the reality of death would set in. Ndiigbo say that “when the corpse starts decaying (smelling), the friend hitherto regarded more than a brother, would leave (ozü shiwa ishi, enyi ka nwanne alaa)”.Those who have gained and are still gaining from this presidency would all go. Abacha was worshipped when he was alive, but, when he stopped breathing, even those fronting for him then to be a life president all disappeared into the thin air and the family was left on their own.

 Death is life in another sphere, death they say is a necessary end, all human beings will at one time or the other, pass on to the next level. For some, it might come too soon, for other too late.  Death does not discriminate between the rich and the poor, king or queen and commoner, young and old, strong and weak, man and women. It comes to a person when it wants and nobody can tell death to hold on until he/she is done with whatever he/she has at hand. Death comes as a thief in the night and steals a soul away; it takes its victim unawares. Even if someone has been sick for a long time, he/she hopes for a cure and would never want death to take him/her. In Nigerian case, only few people do commit suicide, which is taking of one’s life knowingly and there must be a reason for that.

Every human being knows that he/she would die someday, but, still we all pray to live longer in order to achieve whatever our objective is and to make positive impact on the lives of our loved ones before passing on, but, death makes its decision to take somebody on its own without seeking the opinion of the victim. Death cannot be bribed otherwise rich people would never die.

Life’s very important and determines almost every other thing. It’s only a living person who can make plans and set out to achieve them. That’s why some Ndiigbo gave their sons name like “Ndubisi” (life is the key) or “Ndukaaku” (life is more important than wealth), it’s only a healthy person that can dream of goals and how to achieve them in life. We start to live when we learn to give each other what we need to survive, otherwise we are living and at the same time, dead.

Breathing does not necessarily mean living, somebody can be breathing, but, he/she is long gone or somebody can be breathing, but, he/she is only existing and not living. Majority of Nigerians are only existing and not living and the blame goes to the ruling class, of which Yar’Adua is their boss for now, for keeping Nigerians in hell on earth despite all that the country can boast of which should have kept Nigerians in heaven on earth. There are good and bad in every one, the president might have good intentions for Nigeria, but, it seems he does not know how to go about it and that was the reason he should not have been there in the first place.

The president, although, have done nothing tangible for Nigerians since taking office, he might be saving the best for the last. That’s the reason why he should come back fully recuperated and rejuvenated. He should come and finish, at least, his one term.

  Nigerian politicians have turned Jeddah into Abuja and the hospital where Yar’Adua is admitted into Aso Rock. There’s now a frequent direct flight from Abuja to Jeddah as the “good for nothing” politicians and government officials are hopping into plane every now and then to Saudi Arabia. But, the problem is that none of them have been allowed to see the president as he slips into coma on and off and, as we learnt, have not even uttered a single word or even opened his eyes for days. Still, those politicians and government officials would encircle the Jeddah hospital, return to Nigeria only to feed a nation waiting for any news about the president with cock and bull stories. The Nigerian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, lied that the president was watch soccer games on Saudi channels; some came back and told the nation that they chatted with the president and that he’s responding to treatment and would return the next day. Those politicians and government officials have heated the polity as such that heads would roll when at the end of it all, what Nigerians see is not what they have been waiting for, based on the misinformation the flagitious people around the president have been feeding them with.

May God heal our president, Nigeria and all the sick people everywhere.

THE THANXS IS ALL YOURS!!!

Temple Chima Ubochi writes from Bonn, Germany through ubochit@yahoo.com