Goodnight Madiba: The Lion that Walked Our Earth

We all know that the world can never be the same again with the demise of one of our greatest mortals and lions that ever walked the earth. But wishes are not horses. All who live must die, inexorably. So, hard as it is to accept, the passing of the first President of post Apartheid […]

We all know that the world can never be the same again with the demise of one of our greatest mortals and lions that ever walked the earth. But wishes are not horses. All who live must die, inexorably. So, hard as it is to accept, the passing of the first President of post Apartheid South Africa to the way of all the earth has happened and the world appears now like an empty shell, a terrible vacuum and a soulless, hollow sham.
All the leaders of the world pour earned encomiums and tributes on Mandela; Presidents—Obama of America, Cameron on Britain, Jonathan of Nigeria, Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, the inheritors of the mantle of leadership that he yielded voluntarily when that nation wanted him most, and so on– shower him with plumes and garlands. The whole of South Africa gather outside his home in Johannesburg in joyful pain, celebrating their loss, dancing and clapping in mournful disbelief, upset with callous Death for daring to tear from them their priceless icon, their inimitable hero, the symbol of their freedom. They (we) are all in utter disbelief that this great example of humility in power, this great man who walked from nearly three decades in prison to the a brief four years of Presidency, this greatest inspirer of the indomitability of the human spirit; this great exemplar of the infiniteness of the power of forgiveness; this athlete of Olympian dimension who brought the world to the shores of South Africa through Soccer and sports could die. We all tried to immortalize him while on earth, in the selfishness of our love and longing, forgetting that he has go journeying back into the memory of all the ages, of all times, where he will live on in our hearts for conquering for us all the seeming impossibilities of life and living. Yes, the best of this earth belongs to him, as Soyinka captures it for us in the eponymous title of his poetic offering, ’Mandela’s Earth’, as the entire world stands still for its greatest inspirer, in the last fifty years.
Let’s take a peep into the odyssey of this great lion with the heart of a dove. Nelson Mandela was born on July 18, 2008 in Transkei, to Chief Gadla Henry Mphokanyiswa and Noskeni Fanny Mandela. A qualified lawyer (1948), Mandela was educated at the Fort Hare College graduating with a BA in 1942, and the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. He joined the African National Congress in 1944.This is the revolutionary movement which became the majority Party of the country. For fifty years, until 1994, when the country gained independence, Mandela committed his life to the cause of freedom for his country. A man who later won the Nobel Prize for Peace, Nelson Mandela was the proponent and founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe, deployed violence as a tool in the anti-apartheid struggle.
For his total and undeterred involvement in the struggle against the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies, he suffered protracted and continual jail terms. He was tried for treason between 1956 and 1961. In 1962, he was arrested and sentenced for five years’ imprisonment with hard labour. He was later brought to trial along with other leaders of the ANC and Umkhonto we Sizwe on the charge of attempted violent overthrow of the apartheid government. On June, 1964, the Madiba, with eight other ANC leaders, was sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated in the Robben Island Prison, Cape Town and later moved to Pollsmoor Prison on the mainland until his final release on February 12, 1991. He became the President of the African National Congress and elected the first black President of the Republic of South Africa in 1994. All through his 27 years’ travail in the prison, he never compromised his political commitment for personal freedom, in spite of numerous offers to him by the government.
It is not just his inimitable life as manifest in his awesome bio-data that accounts for his legendary stature among African and world leaders but also the exemplary and uniquely symbolic nature of his endowment  to Africa and  the world as a model statesman, a selfless visionary and politician and a compassionate, humane leader.
Mandela laid the example of how not to self-perpetuate in power. With his life-long and infinite commitment to the liberation of South Africa, a greedy and paranoid leader would have clutched on to the leadership of his country, justifiably. Nelson Mandela voluntarily relinquished power and party leadership just when the ovation began to boom. He quit political office before the end of his first-term tenure. It is this perception of the transient nature of political power that one had expected other African leaders to emulate and renounce the sit-tight syndrome in political office. The tenure-elongation bid of Obasanjo, the ceaseless reigns of Paul Biya, the late Gadaffi and Mubarak, Compraore, Wade and the rule-or-die regime of octogenarian Robert Mugabe reveal the inability of African leaders to learn from the example of Madiba Mandela. This, is manifest in the case of Mugabe, who like Mandela, gave so much to the liberation struggle and freedom of his country, Zimbabwe, but who unlike Mandela, and due to what Mandela described as ‘ a tragic failure of leadership’ clutched to power like a moth to a lamp.
One other remarkable legacy of Mandela is his establishment of the essential qualities of statesmanship. He devoted his post –Presidency life to mobilizing material and personal resources to critical needs of humanity—poverty, the AIDS scourge, freedom struggles, the child aid,  and the termination of political oppression wherever all over the world. He achieved these feats through converting his stupendous influence to fund-raising by his numerous Foundations such as The Nelson Mandela Foundation, Nelson Mandela Children Fund and Mandela Rhodes Foundation. His 61664, from which he later stepped down, is a huge campaign project to raise awareness on the impact of AIDS and to promote effective, preventive measures to curb HIV in Africa and all over the world.
As we celebrate the life and achievements of this immortal hero and legend of our times, it is important that we enunciate those values he has taught Africa and the world, and from which neither his country nor the rest of Africa, in their present political and economic uncertainties, should depart. First is the transient nature of power.  That with the correct attitude to power as service to the public and held in trust for the people, leaders must not wallow in self- masturbation and power aggrandisement. Mandela left power when it was sweetest. Secondly, don’t have to be in a political office to contribute to the growth of your society and mankind. Mandela was a singular force in the winning of the hosting right of the 2010 World Cup for South Africa. Through his Foundations, he has carried out massive philanthropic works that have had great impact on people across the universe. With a disposition of disarming humility and incredible perceptiveness, Mandela’s personality became the emblem and symbol of historical and international proportions, which led him into an undifferentiated vision of a colour-blind and non-racial world. Africa and the globalizing world have learnt a lot from this immortal hero of all ages.
Today, the world stands still today to celebrate the life of legendary Madiba—politician, statesman, dancer, boxer, lawyer and world leadership model, as he departs this world to take most deserved eternal rest. Adieu, the Madiba.