Echoes of Black Friday[1]
27.12.2015
Doomsday scenario! Messy-dom! Severed limbs! Disgorged brain and viscera! Gored bodies! Scalded lapses! Bloody mouths! Shattered fists! Like a joke vibrant nine Ebonyians twitched as they turned to corpses! In a fraction of breath, those handsome turned to what no pregnant woman should ever be allowed to behold.
Black Friday indeed! Infamous and cursed day! The sun stood still refusing to give its light. The moon turned dark in rebellion. The stars denounced us and refused to guide. Humanity was raped of meaning as it helplessly walloped in that pre-creation darkness. The question of meaning of existence came begging for answers. Suddenly heads swelled; hearts bled blood; and eyes swindled uncontrollably like blinking idiots. Bloody tears! Dry and stained mouths! Voiceless speeches! Goose pimples! Erect hairs! Noisy bones! Leaking veins! Loosed belts! Opened jaws! At the scene were powerful mourning gestures which no words can ever replicate! The chilling hands of death!
When one comes face to face with the ghastly scene of the accident that took away from Ebonyi State nine young brains on their way to appeal court ruling in Enugu on Friday December 11, 2015, the natural psychological response is to show no mercy, no reprieve and not even the slimmest chance of a life free from the shadow of fear of politics. Yet, those other innocent Ebonyians who likewise perished at the two recent fatal accidents in Abakaliki and Akaeze were not going for politics; one group was even going to commune with triune God in a spiritual retreat.
Hitherto, I have not allowed any sentiment detract my sympathy for the victims and their families. And till we reunite with them in heaven, I will continue to mourn the victims as brothers and sister, human beings not enemies, not opposition members, not animals. I will continue to view their movement as normal hustling for survival, freedom of association not fight against God’s mandate. I will mourn the loss of promising boys and girl and never rejoice at misfortune as God’s wrath for thinking differently. Those who have celebrated their death have not had their salaries increased. Anything that happens to one of us happens to our humanity because every death diminishes our common brotherhood.
The twin Nigerian artists, P-Square in a paired track with Bracket entitled ‘Wetin Dey Make Me Kolo’ harped on the age-long frustration of the righteous when they lamented that ‘for this world, the good dey die; and for the bad, na dem dey survive. Me I don try may I ask God why but I come bi like say I dey waste my time’. That is why John Stuart Mill insists that, “the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution is one of the pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplace, but which experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth and goodness put down by persecution.” How many times have you heard people say that what goes around comes around? How many times have we seen nemesis catch up with those who constitute themselves clogs in the wheel of our unity? I am wont to ask: “should politicians die, are the victims of the Black Friday the most deserving of it?”
Once upon a time there lived a people, Galileans, who were always susceptible to get involved in political trouble because they were highly inflammable people. Led by a certain Judas, they denounced Caesar, resisted foreign domination and saw God as their only king. At the time, the Roman governor in Syria, Pontius Pilate, had decided rightly that Jerusalem needed a new and improved water supply. He proposed to build it and to finance it with certain Temple monies. It was laudable project and more than justifiable expenditure.
But at the very idea of spending Temple monies like that, the Jews were up in arms. When the mob gathered, Pilate instructed his soldiers to mingle with them wearing cloaks over their battle dress for disguise carrying cudgels rather than swords. At a given signal they were to fall on the mob and disperse them. This was done but the soldiers dealt with the mob with violence far beyond their instructions and a considerable number of people lost their lives. That was the beginning of the enmity between Pilate and Herod which was only reconciled after Pilate had sent Jesus to Herod for trial.
About the same time some Galileans had ignored the protest and had actually taken work on Pilate’s hated aqueducts. At the site, there was an unfortunate incident where the Tower of Siloam fell on eighteen Galileans and killed them. People mocked them for consenting to do the work and more so for not handing over to God their wages because if they had so accepted, any money they earned was due to God and should have been voluntarily handed over, because it had already been stolen from him.
And during His ministry some men came and told Jesus about those Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. “Do you think,” Jesus answered, “that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because this happened to them? I tell you, No! Or as for the eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell- do you think there were debtors to God beyond all those who dwell in Jerusalem? I tell you, No! But unless you repent you will perish in the same manner.
In this way Jesus likened ignoring lessons in death as an invitation to danger. Jesus knew well that if the Jews went on with their intrigues, their rebellions, their plotting, their political ambitions, they were going to commit national suicide. He taught that it is always wrong to attribute human misfortune to human sin. We cannot say that individual suffering and sin are inevitably connected but we can say that national sin and suffering are so connected.
On the Black Friday, I did not see political party supporters, I saw human beings. I saw brothers and sister. Those who saw opposition party were soon to realize how those deaths have affected them. When I presided over a burial mass of one of the victims, I saw wailing family, wailing community not political party. I saw that what unites us is more than that which separates us. I realize that people go to fight at the polls as supporters of candidate ‘A’ or ‘B’ and return the next day to discover they are above all brothers and sisters.
I thank Ebonyians who put differences behind to mount on the rostrum of human solidarity. I thank the speaker of the Ebonyi State House of Assembly, Hon. Francis Ogbonna Nwifuru who heavily rallied against the wishes of foot soldiers of his political party, to give financial support for the treatment of the surviving victim. I thank the state governor for his promise to reach out to the victims of the incident. Contrary to what he may expect, I thank the leader and convoy crew who were trailing the ill-fated car but who ignored the victims in their own blood because they put their political future above the lives of fellow Ebonyians. Through them we have learnt the worst in human nature. The evils that men do live with them and after them. After the reggae comes the blues.
I thank, no less, the members of the opposition led by Arc. Dr. Edward Nkwegu for their condolence visit to the bereaved families. A fight for justice, real or imagined, can be arduous and frustrating. I personally believe any person who feels aggrieved over a process has unlimited freedom to seek justice in the competent court of law. Those accusing the petitioner as orchestrating the death through functionally useless appeal have to understand that not all the victims were going for court ruling. They can as well suspect God too.
The take home lessons! Death is an inevitable end that comes when, where, and how it wills. When head comes with its logic, tune down its volume and check the rhythm of your heart. And when you are split half and half between head and heart, follow your heart. Never ever make fun out of people’s misfortunate because in every death our humanity dies. No association should have more value to us than our common humanity.
From the victims we learn an eternal lesson: ‘More haste less speedy.’ The 911 truck I saw at Abakaliki mechanic village says it all with an inscription, ‘No Hurry in Life’.
[1] An article published on December 27, 2015
