Among the living the dead are welcome
To serve our nation, and drive her genius
home.
– “Rhyme of Our Working
Dead”, by the Author
Many Nigerians have reacted with criticism or ridicule to
the recent inclusion of the names of seven dead people out of 209
appointed into various boards by the government of President
Muhammadu Buhari.
The dead appointees are Francis Okpozo,
appointed chairman of the Nigerian Press Council; Donald
Ugbaja, appointed a board member of the Consumer Protection
Council; Christopher Utov, appointed a board member of the
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research; Garba Attahiru,
Umar Dange, Nabbs Imegwu and Azuzu Okpalaibekwe, appointed into
other positions and boards.
Of course, the target of these negative reactions is Mr.
President or his government. The reactions, typically hasty and
devoid of deep reflection, have tended to portray him and his
government as inept and bumbling entities, so ridiculous that they
would appoint into a public office even a man
like Francis Okpozo, a former
senator whose death in 2016 they had acknowledged through a
publicised condolence message to his family.
But what should one expect from a populace hardly given to
rigour in the analysis of issues, an aggregation of people most of
whom would rather criticise before they apprehend, if they ever
care to do the latter?
Even I – I must confess – had almost been successfully
seduced by their alarm over these ground-breaking – nay,
grave-breaking – appointments of the dead to join the living in
serving our nation. Then I reflected deeply on them and realised
that there were strong grounds to justify them. So I restrained
myself from joining the bandwagon of their critics or mockers. For
the same reason, I am even inclined not to judge those in the
bandwagon harshly while defending the appointments for the
following reasons.
First, as living people, we have showed a chronic
incapacity to manage our country successfully. Imagine, for
instance, that, 57 years after Independence, we still experience
perennial fuel scarcity in a country practically floating on an
ocean of easily refinable crude. Or that our government would enact
such apparent incongruity as proposing to spend $1 billion to fight
Boko Haram even after declaring it “technically defeated”, while
rampaging herdsmen kill our citizens in their numbers unchecked. If
our government has become so exasperated by our inability to find
lasting solutions to such and even minor challenges facing us, that
it now seeks support from the dead and their supernatural powers to
do so, what can be wrong with that? Nothing, I think. We should
commend the initiative without reservation.
Secondly, our tradition as Africans recognises the need for
synergy between the living and the dead. In the part of our country
where I come from, we regularly pour libation to the dead to come
and partake with the living in various activities. Our government
can be compared to a body of elders keen on upholding tradition by
pouring through its leader, our President, a libation of
appointments to these our dead and illustrious citizens to come
re-join some of their living compatriots in the trenches of nation
building. Such an exceptionally creative use of libation and the
out-of-the-box thinking that must have led to their appointments
deserves our unqualified praise. I praise both!
Then there is, for the Christians among us, a Biblical
justification for the appointments in this prophecy about the
resurrection of the bones and flesh of the dead: … “Thus
says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I will
open your graves and cause you to come up out of your
graves…’” (Ezekiel 37:11). For it would not
be out of place if, acting on God’s behalf, the government of a
country hooked on things foreign – including religions – like ours
– chose to adopt this prophesy from one of those foreign religions
as a basis for appointing the dead into public offices, with the
positive expectation of effectively resolving some of our lingering
challenges as a nation.
Also, there is the possibility that the appointments
pre-empt – and circumvent – the morbidity of the dead rising to
agitate for their quota of representation in our current
government, as women and the youth have done with increasing
vehemence in recent times. We should unreservedly praise such
plausible foresight in our government.
Even our literature, through The Palm-wine
Drinkard by Amos Tutuola, can offer evidence that, through
these appointments, our government may have wished to enact a
special case of life imitating art. In the book, the activities of
the living and the dead intermingle symbiotically – on the
terrestrial realm – as they are meant to due to the appointments.
They also intermingle in the epics: The Aeneid by
Virgil, the Roman poet; and the Divine Comedy by
Dante, the Italian poet – for those who may think the portrayal of
such synergy between the living and the dead is restricted to our
national literature. In fact, evidence from these books shows that
fiction, folklore, myth and legend can all be summoned to justify
these appointments. Even music. Recall the synergy between the dead
and the living that produced that superlative dance in Michael
Jackson’s Thriller. The arts may never be more
unanimous in validating a government’s initiative than these
appointments.
Then, for a country seeking ideas on how to end the scourge
of ghost workers, I owe it to the perceptive genius of Daudu
Abdul-Aziz, my friend and former colleague at the Presidential Task
Force on Power, that the dead appointees, besides making invaluable
contributions at their respective boards, can also serve as
ghost-worker detectors, “because the dead person can easily
identify who’s a ghost among the members,” which makes their
appointment a masterstroke.
So it might even be in our national interest to appoint
more dead people into all the government boards in our country and
engage them across our civil service to help end the menace of
ghost workers and save the billions they drain annually as salaries
from our economy.
Also, the appointments can earn us respect among other
great nations. Henceforth, when such nations or their citizens
boast of their scientific discoveries, their astronauts having
landed on the moon, their unmanned satellites to Mars and those
orbiting space, their jumbo ships and aircraft, their technological
wonders generally, we can also beat our chest and ask them, “Has
any of your countries ever appointed dead people into public
office?” Surprised to realise that the answer is no, they will have
to respect our country, the Giant of Africa, for its genius in
initiating such a contribution to the annals of the
marvellous.
Oke, a poet, is
the winner of the 2107 NLNG Nigeria prize for
literature
Among the living the dead are welcome
To serve our nation, and drive her genius
home.
– “Rhyme of Our Working
Dead”, by the Author
Many Nigerians have reacted with criticism or ridicule to
the recent inclusion of the names of seven dead people out of 209
appointed into various boards by the government of President
Muhammadu Buhari.
The dead appointees are Francis Okpozo,
appointed chairman of the Nigerian Press Council; Donald
Ugbaja, appointed a board member of the Consumer Protection
Council; Christopher Utov, appointed a board member of the
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research; Garba Attahiru,
Umar Dange, Nabbs Imegwu and Azuzu Okpalaibekwe, appointed into
other positions and boards.
Of course, the target of these negative reactions is Mr.
President or his government. The reactions, typically hasty and
devoid of deep reflection, have tended to portray him and his
government as inept and bumbling entities, so ridiculous that they
would appoint into a public office even a man
like Francis Okpozo, a former
senator whose death in 2016 they had acknowledged through a
publicised condolence message to his family.
But what should one expect from a populace hardly given to
rigour in the analysis of issues, an aggregation of people most of
whom would rather criticise before they apprehend, if they ever
care to do the latter?
Even I – I must confess – had almost been successfully
seduced by their alarm over these ground-breaking – nay,
grave-breaking – appointments of the dead to join the living in
serving our nation. Then I reflected deeply on them and realised
that there were strong grounds to justify them. So I restrained
myself from joining the bandwagon of their critics or mockers. For
the same reason, I am even inclined not to judge those in the
bandwagon harshly while defending the appointments for the
following reasons.
First, as living people, we have showed a chronic
incapacity to manage our country successfully. Imagine, for
instance, that, 57 years after Independence, we still experience
perennial fuel scarcity in a country practically floating on an
ocean of easily refinable crude. Or that our government would enact
such apparent incongruity as proposing to spend $1 billion to fight
Boko Haram even after declaring it “technically defeated”, while
rampaging herdsmen kill our citizens in their numbers unchecked. If
our government has become so exasperated by our inability to find
lasting solutions to such and even minor challenges facing us, that
it now seeks support from the dead and their supernatural powers to
do so, what can be wrong with that? Nothing, I think. We should
commend the initiative without reservation.
Secondly, our tradition as Africans recognises the need for
synergy between the living and the dead. In the part of our country
where I come from, we regularly pour libation to the dead to come
and partake with the living in various activities. Our government
can be compared to a body of elders keen on upholding tradition by
pouring through its leader, our President, a libation of
appointments to these our dead and illustrious citizens to come
re-join some of their living compatriots in the trenches of nation
building. Such an exceptionally creative use of libation and the
out-of-the-box thinking that must have led to their appointments
deserves our unqualified praise. I praise both!
Then there is, for the Christians among us, a Biblical
justification for the appointments in this prophecy about the
resurrection of the bones and flesh of the dead: … “Thus
says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I will
open your graves and cause you to come up out of your
graves…’” (Ezekiel 37:11). For it would not
be out of place if, acting on God’s behalf, the government of a
country hooked on things foreign – including religions – like ours
– chose to adopt this prophesy from one of those foreign religions
as a basis for appointing the dead into public offices, with the
positive expectation of effectively resolving some of our lingering
challenges as a nation.
Also, there is the possibility that the appointments
pre-empt – and circumvent – the morbidity of the dead rising to
agitate for their quota of representation in our current
government, as women and the youth have done with increasing
vehemence in recent times. We should unreservedly praise such
plausible foresight in our government.
Even our literature, through The Palm-wine
Drinkard by Amos Tutuola, can offer evidence that, through
these appointments, our government may have wished to enact a
special case of life imitating art. In the book, the activities of
the living and the dead intermingle symbiotically – on the
terrestrial realm – as they are meant to due to the appointments.
They also intermingle in the epics: The Aeneid by
Virgil, the Roman poet; and the Divine Comedy by
Dante, the Italian poet – for those who may think the portrayal of
such synergy between the living and the dead is restricted to our
national literature. In fact, evidence from these books shows that
fiction, folklore, myth and legend can all be summoned to justify
these appointments. Even music. Recall the synergy between the dead
and the living that produced that superlative dance in Michael
Jackson’s Thriller. The arts may never be more
unanimous in validating a government’s initiative than these
appointments.
Then, for a country seeking ideas on how to end the scourge
of ghost workers, I owe it to the perceptive genius of Daudu
Abdul-Aziz, my friend and former colleague at the Presidential Task
Force on Power, that the dead appointees, besides making invaluable
contributions at their respective boards, can also serve as
ghost-worker detectors, “because the dead person can easily
identify who’s a ghost among the members,” which makes their
appointment a masterstroke.
So it might even be in our national interest to appoint
more dead people into all the government boards in our country and
engage them across our civil service to help end the menace of
ghost workers and save the billions they drain annually as salaries
from our economy.
Also, the appointments can earn us respect among other
great nations. Henceforth, when such nations or their citizens
boast of their scientific discoveries, their astronauts having
landed on the moon, their unmanned satellites to Mars and those
orbiting space, their jumbo ships and aircraft, their technological
wonders generally, we can also beat our chest and ask them, “Has
any of your countries ever appointed dead people into public
office?” Surprised to realise that the answer is no, they will have
to respect our country, the Giant of Africa, for its genius in
initiating such a contribution to the annals of the
marvellous.
Oke, a poet, is
the winner of the 2107 NLNG Nigeria prize for
literature
Read more https://www.nairalaw.com/in-defence-of-the-dead-as-government-appointees/