Death cometh in the end

Ask me, is Naija exporting something different? Something bizarre and squeamish? We all know that African leaders don’t die any more than they ever lose elections (except in silly Ghana). Well, in 1998, Sani Abacha, a bespectacled general did the unthinkable. Just when his friends thought no-one else could wear the cap made for him; […]

Ask me, is Naija exporting something different? Something bizarre and squeamish? We all know that African leaders don’t die any more than they ever lose elections (except in silly Ghana). Well, in 1998, Sani Abacha, a bespectacled general did the unthinkable. Just when his friends thought no-one else could wear the cap made for him; someone forgot to lock the back gate and death walked. For a while, nothing seemed to happen until 2005, when it leisurely roamed Lome looking for a gangling dictator by the name Etienne Gnassingbe Eyadema. One Eyadema died and another was installed.

For a while, it looked like Dr Death had taken leave of the continent killing the inconsequential hoi polloi, the usual collateral damage. Then as if returning afresh from sabbatical, the ripper returned to Naija and knocked down a recuperating Umaru Musa Yar’adua and balancing the survival of Naija on the rope of the doctrine of necessity. Done with Naija, death has been doing its ward round like a bandit on the lam crossing the four winds and resuscitating funeral dirges in every known languages.

Malam Bacai Sanha had waited so long to put his lightweight on the seat of governance in Guinea Bissau, but no sooner had he nestled in gently than death came knocking him down and out. It happened at a time when a continental arrest warrant was being contemplated by the corps of ruiners, when the hungry ripper showed up in Malawi tossing off Bingu wa Mutharika’s plans to instal his own brother as successor.

That set even a bandit-cooked President Jones to start paying attention. Out came the doctrine of rationalised amen to public prayers and later the adoption of the second stanza of our national anthem as the new catechism of officialdom. Who says the President does not give a damn? When death tried to disrupt a good example by entering Accra and knocking down an amenable John Atta Mills, without fair warning to TB Joshua, the world mourned in utter shock.

We all thought the Millennium bug had taken leave of the continent, but alas, n’yet. Last week, it showed up in Ethiopia, the land of creation and surreptitiously putting paid to the lies and deception about when Meles Zenawi would return to hunt and hound his perceived detractors. And its answer to that question was too heavy to bear – never again.

Oh death, killing soldiers and not sparing civilians. Death kills a soldier like he never stood at attention. Death drowns the swimmer like an alien to the waterways. Death kills the driver like he does not know the highway. Death decimates and damns the dreams of dictators as if they are nothing but minions. Death exposes the ruse paradise that African ruiners built across the continent. Death kills in the name of diseases as if morbidity has not been eradicated by these rulers. Death sneaks in names of ailments as if resources were not committed to building the best hospitals here; equipping them with the state of the art diagnostic facilities and staffing them with the best doctors money could train.

Pause. How many African doctors work in Paris, London, New York, Europe? Its a conspiracy to make African leaders look bad. African children hitting the roofs of Ivy League institutions across the globe with the intellect that forced their parents to run away from home. Who are the whizkids kidding hitting making mockery of iconic GPAs when their cousins can’t get into schools and those who do, have no idea when or if they would ever graduate?

Citizens of nations ruined by formerly shoeless and nascently clueless leaders fill asylum forms and hit the top marks as inmates in foreign jails rather than roughen it up in the political El Dorado made by their rulers. Rich nations breed education tourists at foreign institutions rather than savour the educational paradise scattered across the continent. Who has counted the amount of our common wealth invested in real estate in Dubai by black kleptocrats? Who has taken a census of how much of ruined dreams lie buried with foreclosed mansions in America? Who opened the docket of coded cash stashed in offshore banks of benevolent dictators who sold the children’s future to the IMF?

Death exposes the African ruler, as if they are the only ones in the world who misruled their nations; unmindful of the fact graves are filled with testimonials of autocrats who ruined rather than ruled their nations. John Donne prophesied death’s death but I can wait to see that happen. As an African under the vice-grip of clueless leaders with itchy fingers, I take solace paraphrasing the Psalmist, looting may endure like a lifetime of bliss, beware…death cometh in the end.