The casualties

Olukorede Yishau

It is one of those ironies of life. John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo, the brain behind the most popular poem on Ibadan, who also gifted us the beautiful war-inspired poem titled ‘The Casualties’, walked out of this world at a time many are casualties for speaking against a sick policing system. The great one known better as JP Clark, took a bow at 86, on a day it was reported that his friend, Prof. Wole Soyinka, is releasing another novel, 48 years after “Season of Anomie”.

The late JP Clark was a casualty of ethnic suspicion in Nigeria. When he met his wife Ebun, her father, Jimoh Odutola, refused to support the relationship because he wanted her daughter to marry a Yoruba man. JP Clark was Ijaw. The two love birds called the late Odutola’s bluff, found their way to Benin Republic, got married and returned home later. They remained married until his death on Tuesday. This fact was brought to the fore again on Wednesday by respected journalist and media trainer, Taiwo Obe.

His family, in a statement, said: “The Clark-Fuludu Bekederemo family of Kiagbodo Town, Delta State, wishes to announce that emeritus professor of literature and renowned writer, Prof. John Pepper Clark, has finally dropped his pen in the early hours of today, Tuesday, 13 October 2020.

“Prof. J. P. Clark has paddled on to the great beyond in comfort of his wife, children and siblings, around him.”

Since his death, tributes have been raining left, right and centre for this giant iroko who gifted us great poems and inspiring plays, including ‘Song of a Goat’.

But, even while mourning JP Clark, we are not unmindful of the fact that some sons of goats have made peaceful protesters casualties. Perhaps the most popular of these casualties is Isiak from Ogbomosho. He was killed by security operatives. Just for protesting. The sad part of Isiak’s death is the value attached to it. Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde went to see the bereaved parents, bearing a gift of N1 million. That same day, Makinde was in the palace of the Soun of Ogbomosho, which was destroyed by misguided elements after Isiak was killed. The governor also bore a gift for the Soun. It was a whopping N100 million. Two casualties, two different treatments.

Of course, money would not bring Isiak and others killed in Oyo back. I think something like giving scholarship to their siblings and other things would have gone a long way to bring succour to the parents. But what do I know about governance? I am just a bloody columnist messing around with words.

Another casualty was fallen in Surulere. One account said he was killed by policemen who were firing into the air; another said he was hit by a stray bullet from hoodlums who were engaging the police in exchange of gunfire. Whatever the truth is: the man died. And his boss, who was detained before, was freed after interventions. His family has identified him as Ikechukwu Iloamauzor, 55. They said he was a driver and was said to be conveying his boss to an event when the incident happened. He was the bread winner of his family.

The casualties are not only those the police have killed, many have also been injured. The police in Abuja have particularly shown disrespect to peaceful engagements. They have been brutal with protesters and I wonder who is instructing them to behave as though the actions taken by IGP Mohammed Adamu mean nothing.

There are other casualties who were failed by the system and took flight. Booker prize finalist Obioma Chigozie, in his latest novel, ‘An Orchestra of Minorities’, has the reasons many of them ‘escaped’. The reasons read like a portrait of our dear Nigeria, which he described as: “The land of lack, of man-pass-man, the land in which a man’s greatest enemies are members of his household; a land of kidnappers, of ritual killers; of policemen who bully those they encounter on the road and shoot those who don’t bribe them; of leaders who treat those they lead with contempt and rob them of their commonwealth; of frequent riots and crisis; of long strikes; of petrol shortages; of joblessness; of clogged gutters; of potholed roads…and of constant power outages.”

The United Kingdom, Canada, United States and South Africa take the prime slots of locations where these casualties now call home. Canada, with its freezing weather, is still receiving casualties from Nigeria regularly because things work. As cold as Saskatchewan is, not a few Nigerians are on the waiting list for its invitation to come and be residents.

Our situation is so precarious that citizens are ready to die trying to get to Europe through the Sahara deserts. One in three Nigerians lives in poverty, which represents thirty-two per cent of the population. Thirty-seven per cent of children suffer from malnutrition. Half of the Nigerian population use unsafe or unimproved sanitation. Nigeria is 43rd on the sustainable development goal index.

Poverty is concentrating on fast-growing countries like Nigeria and, by 2050, more than 40 per cent of Nigeria will still be under poverty’s jackboot. Our slot as the country with the second-highest number of deaths of children under the age of five is guaranteed. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), no fewer than 250,000 children in Nigeria die on their first day of life, the second highest in the world. Sadly, a child born in Nigeria today, no thanks to this situation, is likely to live to the year 2074 while a child born in Denmark is likely to live until the 22nd century!

For casualties like me who have chosen to remain home, life is a daily struggle. Of course, police have contributed greatly to making it a struggle. Leaders, who had nothing before coming into offices, suddenly become overnight billionaires, owning businesses everywhere and stashing money in numbered accounts overseas. Our leaders do not see the people as the ultimate. They forget that power is transient.

My final take: The youths now forced to take to the streets are all casualties, casualties of a leadership that has failed to provide them with jobs, casualties of a leadership that sees them as lazy, casualties of brutalisation by a police paid with tax payers’ money, casualties of a system that criminalises peaceful protests, casualties of opportunities that are few and far in-between, and casualties of leaders that must be made to do more.