“The days of life pass away like clouds, so do good while you are alive.” – Imam Ali (AS)
MANY people may expect me to write about the late President Muhammadu Buhari, a retired Nigerian Army Major General who was many things to many people and different things to different people.
Alive, to a multitude of people, he was a man who could do no wrong. Dead, his wrongs must be interred with him. He was often excused; it was always the fault of others for every misstep of the government, though he was its numero uno. It was either that the National Assembly did not want him to work or that the ministers he appointed and tolerated were corrupt, while he was clean. Or, we, the ordinary folks, were not good enough for the saintly man that he was. The tendency to cut you down when you bared your mind was always there – and would remain for a long time to come.
He was a man with a cult following, venerated by millions. Has Nigeria ever had a man with the sort of intense following of Buhari? A man for whom people were willing to drink gutter water, trek hundreds of miles, and kill and be killed for? Hardly. He was elevated to an angel-like level by some of his worshipful followers, who regarded him as a deity of a kind. When he fell sick early in his first tenure, some of these followers attributed certain semi-divinity to him.
The man had been going to London for his medicals, as he once said, but they claimed that his sickness was a result of an out-of-this-world poison administered to him. To them, he was beyond sickness, and so, to yarn the superhuman story around his image, they claimed that that particular type of poison was so potent that only “three people”, or so, had ever survived it in the history of the world – and that the man, Buhari, was that third person.
Nobody ever thought it would have been a wise and patriotic idea for Nigeria to build a world-class hospital, even if it just specialised in treating his ailments, so that he could subsequently receive treatment there, and Nigerians who cannot afford the £3,000 daily cost of the London Clinic where he died would have some succour.
Even though his spokesman, Mr Adesina, said the man would have since died had his health been managed in Nigeria, I think he has not heard about the patriotic sacrifice of Dr Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia.
He sacrificed his life for them when he refused to travel abroad for medical treatment related to his heart in 1989, opting to be operated upon in Malaysia.
He had this to say: “As a doctor myself, I knew the risks. I knew there was a possibility that I might not survive the operation, as it was not a common procedure.”
Yet he rejected his doctors’ recommendations for surgery in the US.
“I had to have faith in our Malaysian doctors,” he said. “If I didn’t make an example of myself, no one else would have confidence in our medical service.”
The surgery was successful, and he went on to establish world-class medical facilities in the then underdeveloped country, transforming it into a global hub for medical tourism.
In any case, what is abhorrent in a leader dying at home, apart from, perhaps, in a holy land related to his religion? Nelson Mandela was treated at the Mediclinic Heart Hospital in Pretoria on 8 June 2013 and passed away on 5 December 2014. Jerry Rawlings died at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana.
Undoubtedly, Nigeria can easily afford to build the best hospitals in the world, locating one in each of its six geopolitical zones, with Abuja having another one. We also have the wherewithal to attract the best brains in the world from the medical and its associated fields – a significant number of whom are Nigerians.
In 1983, when General Buhari came to power, one of the complaints about the Shagari government was that the country’s hospitals had become “mere consulting clinics.”
But even if we accede that “Babangida did not allow him to turn around our health sector,” no doubt, the billions spent on just the Villa Clinic during his eight years could have upgraded it to be good enough for him – and others after him.
For heaven’s sake, Nigeria is 65 years old. No self-respecting nation with Nigeria’s human and natural resources will have its leaders getting medical treatment abroad. And to think that two former Nigerian leaders, Buhari and General Abdulsalami Abubakar, were both admitted to the same London Clinic at the same time! It is a shame and a national embarrassment.
However, people will still not want to discuss what should have been, as it affects a specific person. Just as, due to sentiment, you would be asked to “pray” for the leader who was misusing the opportunity God gave him, you would now be reminded of a hadith that says, “Do not abuse the dead, for they have reached the result of what they have done.” However, this hadith is a general ethical instruction from the Prophet (SAW), reminding believers to maintain dignity in their speech when discussing those who have died.
The truth is that it does not prohibit critical historical evaluation, especially when lessons must be drawn for the living. It merely warns against mockery, slander, or vengeful speech directed against the deceased.
Anyone who thinks otherwise must stop talking about the evil deeds of anyone who dies. People must also keep silent when Bello Turji dies – and even now, just pray for him to be guided, not caught and jailed. Why speak of the Pharaoh? Or Shekau? Allow the dead to rest in peace!
We must know that there is no history, secular or Islamic, that has not been kind to those who were kind. And many historians who had the fear of God instilled in their hearts have been unkind to the unkind by telling the truth about their kind. Many truths denied today will flourish tomorrow; after all, we have come across today’s truths that were vehemently shunned yesterday. Surely, surely, the truth always finds its way out.
When Mark Antony said, “The evil that men do lives after them… and the good is oft interred with their bones,” in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, he meant that negative actions or wrongdoings are often remembered and have lasting consequences, even in the afterlife, while good deeds may be forgotten.
But would the North have forgotten if the dredging of the River Niger, the Lagos–Kano railway, or the Abuja–Kano highway were completed?
One thing Nigerians will not forget in a hurry is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a humane and considerate leader. He also accords respect and honour to those to whom they are due. Whatever one thinks of him, one must give it to him. We cannot forget that he was at the funeral parade of the late Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja. A former Chief of Army Staff, the late Lt. General Ibrahim Attahiru, who served from 28 January 2021 to 21 May 2021 and died in the 2021 NAF Beechcraft B300 King Air 350i crash near Kaduna International Airport, did not receive that privilege from President Buhari, who was a general himself.
We must commend Tinubu for these gestures because General Attahiru and President Shagari deserved better. They were also leaders in their own right, parents and grandparents. And they served Nigeria meritoriously.
- Dr Gimba, anipr, is the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Neptune Prime. His syndicated column, The Arbiter, appears on News Point Nigeria newspaper on Mondays.