By Olukorede Yishau
On Saturday, prose refused to hold my attention, poetry tried and failed woefully, but movies triumphed where the two met a brick wall.
A 1996/1997 two-part movie by Tunde Kelani, ‘Oleku’, was one of the movies that rescued me from boredom. I had seen the movie at least twice in the past, but seeing it again on that Saturday made me wonder again why people hold on to life as though it is their fathers’ private fiefdom, and chase vanity as though there is room for filthy lucre in the hereafter.
The movie, which is a cinematic adaptation of a Yoruba novel by the late Prof. Akinwunmi Isola, parades giants in television and film production. Of these giants, seven have since done their parts and quit this world we like describing as wicked when it shows us its rough edges.
Isola, who did the screenplay and played a cameo role as a lecturer, is long gone. Others who have also gone are Wole Amele, Toun Oni, Dr. Larinde Akinleye, Chief Tunde Oloyede, Chief Wale Ogunyemi and Pa Adebayo Faleti.
Amele, at the time of his death, was the Alara of Aramoko-Ekiti. Oni was still active on television and film till her last days. Oloyede, the husband of respected broadcaster Bimbo Oloyede, was running his company and running it well until death slowed him down and eventually took him out. As for Akinleye, he was active on the field and in the classroom imparting knowledge; so was Ogunyemi. Faleti, who wrote many novels in Yoruba, was the oldest of them all at the time he answered the last call. They all gave their best and their lives showed they were cognisant of the fact that we came to this world with nothing and we will leave with nothing. Absolutely nothing!
Death comes in different attires. At times, it comes via slumping and expiring; at other times, the kidneys just pack up. What about when hearts just get arrested or when wounds bleed out every pint of blood, or when tumours hold the keys to the hereafter? Many a time malaria becomes the proud agent of death and delivers the end without any remorse.
No matter our accomplishment death will surely come. When it does, we will go the way we come. Like our first bath, which was done for us by someone, our last bath will be done by someone. We will have no control over it. Whether it is well-done, whether enough soap is used, or whether our ears will be properly cleaned will be irrelevant. We will have no control over many of the decisions that will be taken on our last day and, for some of us, even people we would have wished never have anything to do with our funeral will play key roles and we will be helpless.
As you read, someone somewhere is busy stealing our commonwealth, someone is ensuring supplies meant for hospitals are diverted, someone is putting the salaries of his or her subordinates in a fixed deposit account to earn undue profit, and someone is claiming to be someone else to get what belongs to another. Not a few are punching their computers, phones, and tabs and pretending to be who they are not to access someone else’s life savings. They promise love they are incapable of giving to love-denied women, all to get the money they do not deserve.
Look around you and you will see many who are tired and ought to quit their seats for young and fresh blood to inject new ways and ideas into their companies, countries, or organisations. But, for avarice’s sake, they stay and plunder.
It is good to be wealthy, but it is not good to use your wealth for your own good alone. Knowing that you will die and go with nothing is enough reason to use your wealth for the greater good because that is the only way you will be remembered. It is not by the size of your bank account, the number of cars you have, the acres of land on which your houses are built, and so on.
All over the countries, there are homes on acres of land now wasting away. The homes used to belong to rich men. Now that they are gone, their children are not interested or they are so many that agreeing on what to do with the homes is impossible. They could also be abroad and uninterested in returning to the concentration camp that our dear nation seems to have become. Now reptiles, rats, and geckos leap from one room to the other, and have breakfast, lunch, and dinner in sitting rooms that used to host men of money and influence. The butlers, manservants, and cooks, who saw to the many dinners in the mansions, have since found new ways to survive.
There are many who are not bothered about how history records them so they do everything to secure today. A video of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in circulation shows he is more concerned about today. In it, a journalist with Al-Jazeera asked him if he was worried he would be remembered as a dictator instead of a democratically-elected president, and his reply was: A dictator re-elected five times must be a wonderful dictator.
Many men of God also carry on as though they forget they are men first. They carry on like assistant God and make proclamations capable of generating bad blood and making things difficult for the people. They talk and act as though they will never die.
My final take: Life is nothing much and should be used only for the good of the majority. We are only walking past this earth and making the best of the time we spend so that history will be kind to us. Someone once said history would be kind to him because he intended to write it. I add that the best way to write history is to live for humanity and shun avarice.
