I just cannot forget the image that confronted me that particular morning as I settled down to watch SUNRISE Daily, a breakfast programme on Channels TV. There he was on the podium in his trademark expensively embroidered and voluminous Babanriga, waving a short, tightly-knitted broomstick at the crowd of party faithful, excited villagers and close associates. That the crowd had sat through the scorching sun just to listen to him – despite his arrival to the campaign venue some ten odds hours late – bore testimony to the larger-than-life image he had carved for himself in the minds of his people. Not a saint by any stretch of the imagination even before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission listed truckloads of charges against him, Prince Abubakar Audu had never run short of controversies. A showman by all standards, Audu’s natural turf was the political terrain; he had his own scripted drama tucked under the armpit and he played that self-chosen role until a tragic conclusion last week (or early this week depending of which of the many stories of death catches your fancy).
As the news of his death filtered into newsrooms across Nigeria last Sunday – on a day many had anticipated to be the heraldry of his dramatic return to the Kogi State Government House after harrowing years of failed attempts – his words kept flashing through my mind as I went back to that short clip that fateful morning. How could he have known that those assurances of stellar performance in his third coming were just the hollow words of a man who would soon be departing this world in a haze of confusion? How could he have known that his sudden death would be the defining factor in a keenly contested election where bare knuckle and atavistic campaign strategies were freely deployed? Surely, it could not have been part of the script that his singular ambition to rule Kogi again would be met with such fatal fate.
On the podium that day, Audu danced, mocked and promised. He recalled how he left his footprints at every nook and cranny of the state in almost all sectors of the economy. Listing the roads constructed, schools built, markets rehabilitated, health care centres and various other facilities at different communities, Audu asked the crowd a very simple question: “If I had done all this in the past, do you believe I can do more? If you believe it, raise up your hands”. It was more of a command than a plea. Obviously, the crowd cared less about how the delivery sounded. As long as it was Audu, it was acceptable. At that moment, the crowd burst into a frenetic hysteria. They waved their brooms and shouted his name. The mood was electrifying and Audu was all smiles. It was just about two days to the election and there was nothing to show that this man was having any serious health challenges. Though his pitch was measured and slow, it could have been excused on the strength of his age and the fact that he had been on the road throughout the day, campaigning from one community to the other.
Perhaps, there is more to Audu’s death than the ordinary eye can see. Aside the crude subjectivity of a conspiracy theory which soon dissipated into nothingness, there are reasonable and objective grounds to expect that an independent inquest should be carried out to determine not just the cause of death but also the how, when and why of a death that has now been overtly politicized. As I write this, no one has a definitive answer to the question on the exact time Audu gave up the ghost. The confusion is not helped by reports which tend to suggest that the man died shortly after casting his vote last Saturday in his village, Ogbonicha. There was also another report that quoted the usually ‘reliable’ sources as being emphatically sure that Audu died as early as 5:00 am on Sunday morning shortly after developing some health complications. Then, there was that other angle in which the late former governor’s brother, Alhaji Tijani Audu, told reporters that death came knocking some minutes after the Returning Officer, Prof. Emmanuel Kucha, declared the poll inconclusive.
Hear Tijani: “I was with him when the whole thing started. I was told in the morning of Saturday that he was sick and I called him to confirm but he said he was okay and would be coming to vote by 1pm. He came without showing any sign of sickness and we went together to vote. But the following day (Sunday) by 10 am, I went there to see him and his children said he was having health challenges and was weak, I even advised that after the announcement of the result he should go abroad for treatment”.
By the way, what political mileage would the leadership of Audu’s ruling All Progressives Congress be willing to gain by contriving with his family, as alleged, to hide its candidate’s death from the public for almost twenty-four hours until the results were announced? Would the announcement of his death have changed the fact that an election was officially conducted and remained inconclusive as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission? Even if Audu had been declared winner with the commission unmindful of his death, would it have changed the dynamics of the serious ethno-religious politics of Kogi State where seeming political associates hide behind plastic laughter? Now that the election has been declared inconclusive, has it conferred any advantage on Audu’s running mate towards the December 5 supplementary election?
Audu is dead and buried. That’s a fact. The story of his resurrection, laughable as it was, should be seen as an encore to the tale of a man who was held in awe by a section of his community. For those who are still alive to play cheap politics with his death, they need to take a deep pause and pick hard lessons from his tragic exit. There could never be such wealth in this world that is greater than health. Power is alluringly tempting but the lust for power at the risk of a sound health is a sure path to Hades. The little things we ignore while chasing the bigger prize may end up inflicting the greatest injury and deepest regrets on us and many around us. The new chapter that Audu said would open in a blitz of glory sometimes in January 2016 under his leadership has been shut forever, even before it opened. It would become part of what could have been.
Yet Audu represents something that would forever resonate in the memories of the crowd that listened to him as he reeled out his plans for a new Kogi state. That was a mere mortal pontificating. How could he have known that he was just a walking corpse who would soon be resting six feet under the clayey earth? How could he have known that his associates would soon be falling over themselves to reap political capital from a death that was never in the script he held closely to his chest?
In the final analysis, are we not all walking corpses, timed to expire when we shall, even when we have chosen not to learn humbling lessons from others’ vanities in our crazy ambitions? As the metaphysical poet, John Donne in ‘Devotions upon Emergent Occasions’ wrote: “…Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”. For those pretentious mourners who, through acts of commission or omission, now spit on his grave with the despicable politicking that his death has generated in the last few days, do they know what lurks in the corner? If Audu could see from that lonely grave, he would shake his head in disbelief at the speed with which opportunists now dance on his grave. Pity.
NATION
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