Category: Segun Gbadegesin

Segun Gbadegesin

INTRODUCED my first installment on this topic two weeks ago with an exploration of the challenge of race and racism through the lens provided by the foremost African American scholar, W.E.B. Du Bois. I observed that Du Bois foresaw the unending nightmare of blatant racism of White America against people of color but felt helpless, as many before and after him, to do much about it.

The two original sins of White America continue to be its wholesale intentional genocide against Native Americans and the wicked enslavement of Africans. As Du Bois would later reflect, the sins are so egregious that it is difficult if not impossible for the nation to see forgiveness. “The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins;” and as he puts it in the second half of that statement, the reason is simple: “the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.” Therefore, it is impossible for the nation to find peace. Hence the refrain we hear so clearly in the protests across the nation and worldwide “No Justice, No Peace!” It is the law of nature. Our people put it succinctly, a baby that would not allow her mother enjoy a restful night, will also deny herself the joy of a peaceful night.

You violently uprooted a people from their homeland. You treated them as economic cargo through the middle passage. You threw those you considered too weak for your liking into the sea. Those that survived the treacherous voyage you used as mules and donkeys on your plantations. Even as you proclaimed your faith in the God of love, you sowed hatred in the land and you refused to acknowledge the humanity of your fellow human beings, treating them as mere objects. Four hundred years! That you could still with a bold face send missionaries to Africa in the name of evangelization is one of the greatest hoaxes of the last century.

The offspring of the cobra is venom-personified, and the lion cub doesn’t need any tutorial for ferocious hunts. White supremacy is alive and well because it is in the genes. Haters reproduce haters. Thus, even now, with all the negative attention against racial hatred, racists continue to multiply across the nation. And with police brutality taking heat from far and near, there continue to be multiple cases of police violence against people of color.

What do we expect when, what you hear from the most sacred chambers of government and the most powerful bully pulpit the world has ever known, is a dog whistle which white supremacists perfectly understand as a call to action. If looting is what you see and react to in the midst of a people’s cry for justice; if your voice is not the most persistent for change; if all you proclaim is your law and order credentials as opposed to being the foremost advocate for justice and peace, then you have lost a golden opportunity for leadership by example.

In the morning of the same Memorial Day that George Floyd was murdered, a White privileged woman in Lower Manhattan called the police on a Black man. Christian Cooper is a bird watcher devoted to his hobby. He had been up early on that holiday morning and headed to the park. Mary Cooper (no relation) also headed to the park, walking her dog unleashed, against park rules. Christian requested her to leash her dog. She refused and threatened to call the police with a complaint that the African-American man was threatening her life. She did. But this ended well because the Black man filmed every detail of the interaction and the police and others saw through the mischief. She was fired from her job. Not all such cases end well, however.

In the midst of the recent protests, two young black men were found hanging on trees in Southern California. Another was found hanging in New York and yet another found hanging in Houston. While police and sheriff offices have ruled out foul play in these cases, the tragic history of lynching is still too fresh and traumatic, and with emboldened White nationalists roaming freely the streets of the nation’s towns and cities, it is imprudent not to think of the worst in these cases.

The brutal murder of George Floyd was the trigger of my discussion two weeks ago, as it was the catalyst for the national and global protests which appear to be taking the shape of a movement. Since Floyd’s murder, however, there have been more similar incidents of police excesses. It thus appears that the police establishment in many of the nation’s police departments have simply turned a deaf ear to the persistent cry for reform.

A particularly gruesome video of a police killing of a young man was sent to me by my friend. And I regret watching it and forwarding it to my wife. Both of us have since been too traumatized looking at that video. I kept thinking, God, it could be me. It could be any of my loved ones. What does one do to be safe in a country that nurtures racist law enforcement officers?

The video was too gruesome not just because of how it ended, but also because of the horror watching the young man make serious efforts to obey all the conflicting instructions that the police officer was thundering out to him. “Get down and lie on your stomach” He did. “Stretch out your hands.” He did. “Cross your legs with the right leg on the left leg.” He did. “Get up on your knees and put up your two hands.” He did. “Make sure you don’t make any mistakes because if you do, I will shoot you.” The young man begged: “Please don’t shoot me.” “Shut up your mouth”, the officer thundered again. “I am not being diplomatic with you.” “I am trying to obey you”, the young man responded. The officer ordered him to crawl toward him. The young man was doing so when the shot rang out. The young man was dead.

What was that young man’s offence? He was with a sales company. He had checked in to a hotel. Someone saw him with a pellet gun and called the police. The police had not even asked him any questions about the pellet gun before they killed him. Can this not happen to any black man in this God’s country?

How can you experience that and not see something terribly wrong with the system? The news anchors who introduced the story were dumbfounded. They queried: “The Police are supposed to be our protectors, how is it that they become our oppressors and killers?” It is a good question, but one that only the authorities are capable of answering. Are they comfortable seeing their law and order instruments killing and maiming the innocent without cause?

If it is any consolation, we may credit the ubiquity of smart phone photo and video apps for exposing these socially delinquent actions of law enforcement officers. From 1994, with the beating of Rodney King, to this time, many of these cases have been reported. Unfortunately, very few have been resolved justly and fairly because the presumption of innocence has hitherto been in favor of the police. Yet a society in which young Black men and women are presumed to be guilty and deserving of police brutality is an inherently unjust one which cannot know peace.

Hopefully, America is finally coming to terms with the need to take Black lives as seriously as White lives. This is the meaning of Black Lives Matter which has become a rallying cry of the protests. A country that treats a significant portion of its population as expendable because of the color of their skin cannot claim any special place in the reckoning of a just and fair God. To be truly God’s country is to live in accordance with the creed that ALL human beings are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are

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Segun Gbadegesin

IN 1903, as the world was just welcoming a new century, Harvard trained American sociologist and foremost pan-Africanist, W.E.B. Du Bois soberly but boldly predicted in The Souls of Black Folk” that the problem of the 20th century was going to be the problem of the color line. As he goes on to explain, by the color line, he means “the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men (and women) in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.”

At the First Pan-African Conference in 1900, Du Bois saw the problem as “the question of how far differences of race…will hereafter be made the basis of denying to over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization.” It was prophetic.

Though Du Bois chose the 20th century as his focus, he was not unmindful of the history of race and racism in earlier centuries. Indeed, in the same chapter, he notes that “it was a phase of this color line that caused the Civil War” of the 19th century. There is also no doubt that Du Bois knew that the problem of the color line was not going to be resolved in the 20th century. Indeed, towards the end of his life he relocated to Ghana where he died and was buried because it was clear to him that America was not ready to solve the problem of race relations.

In his time, Du Bois was the foremost scholar of the race problem in the United States. He was not just a scholar, he was also actively engaged in practical action to solve the problem across the world, including as a co-sponsor of the Pan-African conferences. In 1897, just six years before the publication of The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois presented a paper before the American Negro Academy. Titled “The Conservation of Races”, the paper has an academic and a practical purpose. The academic purpose is to define the concept of race in both scientific and socio-historical terms. However, concerned about the political condition of Negro people, Du Bois’s practical purpose is to push his audience to greater heights, not necessarily as individuals, but as a group.

However, Du Bois observes that Negroes were reluctant to embrace the concept of race and that the reason for this was that talk of race was a reminder of their oppression and the racists’ denigration of their natural abilities. White racists, not Negroes, came up with the idea of race, and they did that just to play the race card in support of the oppression of nonwhites. Is there a scientific basis for their invention? The fact that it was invented should put to rest the idea of its naturalness. But the invention stuck, and it served its purpose.

Du Bois grappled with the fact of the artificiality of race. He observed that science cannot help us in the matter of making distinctions between human races because many of the so-called scientific criteria are mingled and unhelpful. Color, hair, cranial measurement cannot be used to classify human beings into different races. They are intermingled. Yet even after making this valid point, Du Bois cannot resist the conclusion that race exists and that there are three racial groups, White, Negro, and Yellow.

The tension is palpable between the reality of scientific invalidation of race and the political necessity of pushing the Negro to make their own mark in a world that has invented race and has been using it against them. So, while he acknowledges the scientific problem, Du Bois feels that he has a job to do, because he knows that the scientific invalidation of race distinctions has not prevented White powers from using their power to uplift white people and oppress Black people. This was the point of his intervention in 1897.

It has not worked because in the game of life between Whites and Blacks, the deck has been stacked so unfairly. And it is so weird that there is a double decker reality now as America has become the epicenter of two global pandemics: coronavirus and virulent racism. It is unusual to see racism as a pandemic. But we better believe that it is a disease that is as old as the human race itself as anthropology and the holy books demonstrate.

The coronavirus pandemic has also laid bare the underbelly of racism and racial disparities in health. While African-Americans are about 13% of the population, they account for more than 40% of the pandemic deaths in the United States. This is due to many factors, all of which are related to structural racism, environmentally hazardous neighborhoods, lack of access to healthcare and to education.

Systemic racism accounts for innumerable cases of unjustified arrests, unprovoked searches, and assaults by police officers. In the late 1990s, a young Nigerian-American man graduated from Harvard and was hired for his first job in Seattle. He had just received his driver’s license. Upon arriving in Seattle, he got a rental car reserved by the company. A few days later, while returning from work, he took a wrong exit from the highway to a White neighborhood. A police officer pulled him over, asked for his papers, which he handed over. To his shock, the officer accused him of driving with an expired license. He had just received the brand new license the week before he travelled. The officer confiscated his rental car, drove him to the police station and booked him. That started a frantic phone call. The Maryland Vehicle Administration which issued the license confirmed that it was current. The young man was only guilty of “Driving While Black (DWB)”. The following morning, he was released without any apology. He thanked God that his life was spared and he moved on.

The murder of George Floyd in plain view on the street of Minneapolis was as egregious as they get, and it has rightly caught the attention of the world from Nigeria to New Zealand and from France to Canada. Watching the video, you see a murderer in official state uniform meant for the protection of citizens, looking nonchalantly with glee in his eyes, snuffing life out of a fellow human being.

But I am wrong. The wicked spirit inside that officer didn’t allow him to see a human being moaning under his brutal hold. Did he see an animal? This is where ingrained racism unfolds in the reaction of official Washington. Even a dog would receive more heartfelt sympathy from White people than George received. We heard some platitudes about the shock. But what followed the immediate reaction was the macho attitude that has always characterized such shallow half-baked response. Certainly, they would have a more heartfelt outrage in response to the killing of a goose than they mouthed against the murder of George Floyd.

George Floyd was the most recent victim in a string of racially motivated murders of Black people by White state officials or ordinary citizens across the US. In the month of May alone, there were three, with similar degrees of evil. A young man was jogging in a White neighborhood. A former trooper and his son pursued him in a truck, accusing him of being a thief. They gunned him down. A young lady and her boyfriend slept in her room only to be woken up by banging on the door. They suspected invaders. The man fired a shot to scare them away. The police officers at the door with a warrant for a totally different house opened fire, killing the lady. Floyd was the third. Between 2015 and 2020, during part of which a Black man was resident in the Oval Office, it is estimated that more than 1200 African-Americans were killed by the Police in America.

When will it end? Or will it ever end? These are the questions that reasonable people are demanding answers to.

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By Segun Gbadegesin

“Everybody is just about himself or herself. God help us all. God help us all.”

The quotation above came in the nick of time, as if by divine design, for our discourse today. It came at the end of a troubling video which a young man had shot in Lagos. The video was sent to me by a respected family friend who had also sent to me the video of the young lady who security officials had robbed of her N10,000 ATM withdrawals, which I used as illustration last week.

This new video was narrated by a visibly shaken young man who made it known that he was in emotional pain, having witnessed a morally callous occurrence. The scene was on Yaba road, Lagos. The young man, with bushy hair, had gone out to buy hand gloves for his barber to use for his haircut. On his way back, he ran into traffic. As he drove to the source of the traffic, he saw a young woman slump back inside her car. He approached the car with his gloves. He also gave gloves to some other onlookers willing to help. He noticed that the woman had used up two inhalers. She was apparently asthmatic and in crisis.

As the Good Nigerians worried about the woman, an ambulance approached. They were relieved that help had arrived, and they flagged it down. But the driver would not stop. Desperate, some of them jumped in front of the ambulance. But still the driver tried to move pass them. An older woman in red approached the driver, begging him. He did not appear to care. Another young man requested those with camera to take his picture. And you could hear the driver defiantly asking: “so what if you take my picture?”

The young narrator also alleged that some physicians drove by with stethoscopes hanging on their back mirror. None of them stopped. And, perhaps, no surprise to many in the populace, he added that it was only when the older woman, a complete stranger to the woman in need, offered some money to the ambulance driver did he agree to help. What he finally did was unclear. I assume he probably agreed to take the woman to the emergency room. The young man ended his narration with a bit of tongue lashing for us all.

Now, let us try to think through the case in hand. Were there any excuses on the part of the ambulance driver that could offer mitigating considerations? Could there be anything that was beyond his control in that situation which justified his conduct? Was he, for instance, on a call to another emergency? Doubtful. He could have offered that explanation on the spot. Was he on an errand? What errand could have excused him from offering help to a dying human being? Was he afraid hospitals would not take the case from him? Perhaps. It has happened on several cases that “Good Samaritans” ran into trouble with our medical system. But in this case, it couldn’t have been an excuse because this was an official state ambulance established for a purpose like this. And the fact that when money was offered to him, he did what he should have done, suggests a self-regarding motive. This is one sad fact about the ugly situation.

Last week, when I raised the question “Who will save us from ourselves?” it did not occur to me that within the week I would be confronted with such a clear illustration of the hopelessness of our condition as a portion of the human race in this part of the world. Our young man, so psychologically distressed by what he witnessed, asked a further question: “Is this what we have come down to?” In other words, is this what our humanity really means?

Fortunately, we have an answer for him, which he and his fellow human beings on the scene clearly demonstrated. No, the behavior of the official ambulance driver did not, and will not, represent humanity. And the fact that the young man, the older woman, and other folks at the scene showed such a compassion and empathy for a fellow human being in distress, was enough to reassure us that humanity will survive if the morally conscious, even if they are in the minority, do not give up.

Now, the question: “who will save us from ourselves?” beckons for an answer. But before we attempt the semblance of an answer, we need to break the question itself further down. What, for instance, is the object in reference? Who is “us” and “ourselves”? From the discussion last week, it appeared that my interest was in the sub-set of humanity that is domiciled in this part of the world. But I also had in mind the human race in its entirety.

With reference to the human race, it is clearly true that we faced a present danger even prior to the assault of the global pandemic. In the race for economic ascendancy, and its attendant greed and possessive individualism, we have jettisoned the moral imperative of moderation in our stewardship of the environment. With super powers asserting nationalist and populist prerogatives and following through with devastating policies, who will save humanity from this human greed that portends human disaster?

We could appeal to the human tendency to exploit religion and spirituality and suggest that the creator will save humanity because he is a loving God. That route has a soothing effect. But we deceive ourselves if we thought that without lifting our fingers, the manna of our survival of the coming danger will fall from heaven. Heaven, they say, helps those who help themselves. And should aliens truly exist in other planets, can we realistically depend on them for help, when it is more than likely that they are our rivals?

Some four centuries ago, some philosophers, thinking about the challenge of governance, came up with various versions of the theory of social contract. Central to their assumption for that theory, were two beliefs. First, none but humans would have to solve human problems. Second, there are copious resources internally available to humanity to solve its problems. Principal among such resources is human rationality. Based on this property, they suggested that humans will form a compact of association to prevent the state of nature degenerating into a state of war. This was their way of morally justifying the state.

We have the same resource and it has also been put to use in several instances, from the formation of the United Nations to the adoption of Universal Human Rights, to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Only humanity can save itself from imminent disaster provided irrational selfishness doesn’t predominate.

What about the portion of human race in this clime of ours? Who will save us from ourselves? The episode that I opened this discourse with is not an outlier. It is typical of our common experience across the nation. When it is not motivated by ethnic or sectarian animosity, it is the product of egoistic exploitation of the poor and marginalized. Not unsurprisingly, these category of the citizenry are even more at risk of neglect and abuse by their peers.

We can appeal to the same common property of rationality to deal with this issue. Assume, for instance, that there was a change of positions and the ambulance driver was on the receiving side of his own conduct. How would he feel? Or what if we have a generalised act of unconcern for the distress of everyone in a health emergency situation, so that no one comes to the aid of anyone dying. How about a generalised act of kidnapping in which everyone organizes themselves into gangs of kidnappers? Of course, in such settings, society will be worse for everyone. Therefore, if it would be intolerable for all if everyone does it, it follows that it is wrong for anyone to do it. This same principle goes for any conduct that has social consequences. It is the principle we need to adopt to save us from ourselves.

By Segun Gbadegesin

To put it mildly, these are not the most auspicious times for humanity in general, and for Africans, especially Nigerians, in particular. As a people, Nigerians may be consoled by the fact that they are not alone.  First, they share the experience of hunger, ignorance, poverty, and hardship with that wretched of the earth across the globe that Fanon wrote passionately about. Second, a deadly plague caused by an invisible virus afflicts the whole world. So, we are all in this together, and as the elders thoughtfully observe, the imminent collapse of the sky shouldn’t be the concern of just one individual.

Yet, while we share with the world a common experience of an affliction, the worst in the last century, our pre-existing conditions, as well as our reaction to the pandemic, cannot be more dissimilar. And a strong relationship appears to exist between the two, with the preexisting conditions contributing much to the negative effect of the reaction, if not causing it. We have seen this play out in various ways in the last three months.

It may yet be that our reaction to the pandemic is not atypical of others with backgrounds and preexisting conditions not too dissimilar to ours. There have been narratives of experiences that buttress this conjecture from across the African continent and the southern hemisphere in general. If we are thus stuck in the deep hole of despair, while being assaulted and pushed down further by an invisible enemy, the question is: what is our hope?

There is no need boring readers with those preexisting conditions which are too well known because they are part of our common DNA, the fabric of daily lives in this Obodo. Years ago, a Minister of the Republic publicly lashed out at those complaining of hunger because he had a metric which their condition hadn’t met at the time. For the Honourable Minister Dikko, to be truly hungry, people must be seen scavenging dustbins and dump yards for food. You thought that was callous? You are not alone.

Incidentally, not too long after, the nation satisfied Dikko’s metric as government austerity measures produced human scavengers. We have been off and on the uncharitable title of the poverty capital of the world, and it’s unclear how good we feel about it. And of course, the ignorance we display about simple matters of life and death is legendary. Our attitude to such matters sometimes suggests to others that we love death more than life. But it is a mistaken assumption. We do love life!

Enough of the preamble. Let me go straight to the motivation for my question today. Like every rational being, with a modicum of understanding about the state of Nigeria’s health care system, the potentially devastating impact of coronavirus on our people weighed heavily on me as countries started reporting incidences of the disease it causes, and its impact on their population. I was worried how the system would cope. And more importantly, I was worried how our people would react to public health guidelines. Watching the nightmarish experience of Italy, Spain, and China, with better health systems, I shuddered at what was in store for Nigeria and other African nations.

As the index case was reported, and few others followed in quick succession, I felt a sense of relief with the laser beam focus of Lagos State government as I prayed for the slowdown of the spread. Then, more cases were reported, and still the Lagos State Incident Commander and his team appeared up to the task. When the Federal Government stepped in and announced federal lockdown guidelines for Lagos, Ogun, and the FCT, I thought that we were going to beat it.

Of course, the unintended economic consequences of a lockdown of a megacity with more than 14 million people, whose livelihood is predominantly tied to the informal economy, wasn’t lost on me. How would people cope? To alleviate the suffering, governments, including federal and state, stepped in with palliatives. But we deceive ourselves if we thought that it would be sufficient to meet people’s needs, some of which predated the outbreak of the pandemic. And beside the truly needy, there are the shamelessly greedy, with insatiable appetite for the good things of life.

So, a few weeks into the lockdown, tempers flared as hunger kicked in, and hell was breaking lose. Malcontents with differing motivations cashed in. Cultists, gangsters, professional criminals, and political jobbers took over the streets, the worst nightmare of public health officials, state governments, and federal authorities. Surely, some of the concerns were genuine. Unemployed folks without savings to draw from cannot feed their families. Self-employed artisans, including construction workers, barbers, food vendors, and street hawkers became helpless and hopeless, especially not knowing how long the lockdown would last.

And there were those on the fringes of life with little to no means of livelihood before the lockdown who now took advantage of the situation, wanting a piece of the pie. Seeing themselves as having nothing to lose, they initiated protests and robberies, unleashing violence on innocent residents. They roamed the streets in large numbers without any attention to physical distancing, and thus with great potentials for mass infections.

Furthermore, some individuals who returned to the country by air or land chose to endanger their lives and the lives of fellow human beings by avoiding self-isolation or self-quarantine guidelines. Worse, individuals with positive tests have escaped from isolation centers or from their residences. They are either uncaring, afraid, or simply ignorant.

Thus, through various degrees of indiscipline, occasioned by pent-up anger and frustration that invigorated the miserable and wretched, and the uncaring and ignorant negligence of returnees who inadvertently spread it, the virus gained strength and mobility in a period of less three months. From an index case reported on February 27, 2020, the country had a total of 4,787 on May 13, 2020. What is more frightening now is the rate of weekly increase. On Wednesday May 6, it was 3145. This means that Nigeria recorded more than 50% increase in a week. With such rates of increase, Lagos State projection of 20,000 cases by August is probably a conservative estimate. What are we going to do? Who will save us?

Assume that we come to terms with the indiscipline of frustrated youths on the ground that we have truly failed them. What can we say about some gainfully employed who use their official positions to violently extort and psychologically torment innocent folks, including those same youths? In the middle of the crisis, an emotionally disturbing video went viral on social media. It was the image of a woman complaining bitterly about some security officials who extorted her while she looked for an ATM machine to withdraw funds for much-needed grocery items to feed her family. The same official who directed her to an ATM location was the one who took the entire N10000.00 she had withdrawn from her. Her offence? She violated the stay-home order. Who will save us from ourselves?

Years ago, a Save Nigeria movement emerged under the leadership of Pastor Bakare. Its focus was the political and economic decay and the corruption that birthed it. It appeared to have some promise as it rallied concerned Nigerians to the cause. Somehow, and unfortunately, it fizzled. Perhaps it could have had some impact on the nation now.

Yet, the challenge now is not only about the quality of leadership; it is also about followership deficiency. The corrupt is mentoring the corrupt. We are truly at the edge of a cliff. Everyone is engaged in a self-seeking race which will only end up in perdition for all. If nothing to date has explicitly brought this frightening outcome to the fore, this moment clearly beckons us to reason.

With a single national source of income that appears worthless outside our shores, a rampaging virus for which there is neither vaccine nor medicinal cure, and an antiquated health care system, our best hope is to discipline ourselves to avoid viral spread that could decimate the population. Who will save us from ourselves?

Segun Gbadegesin

LIFE is a mystery. For individuals, it is the inscrutability of birth and death, the mystique of destiny, and the enigma of meaning. We are passive participants in our own birth, and death strikes when it chooses. Despite the certainty of death, we go through life, struggling to make it, mindful that the world around us doesn’t stop to ponder the imminence of an end.

For the wise, the struggle of life is not to acquire fame or possessions, knowing fully well that these are ephemeral and fleeting. Instead, they invest their time and energy in leaving their marks and preserving their memories in acts that give meaning to existence.

The community is a nexus that links the present generation to the ancestral past and joins it to the future generation. The mystery of life for the community is the incomprehensibility of that nexus, the background to the many becoming one. While this mystery is never fully resolvable, the life of the community depends on the strength of the nexus and of its conscious appropriation by its members.

My readers may recall that three years ago, I did a three-part series on Okeho in History, a volume that I published in 2017 in commemoration of the centenary of Okeho’s return to its origin after a bloody protest against the British Colonial Government, which then sacked the town and forced its relocation. The centenary celebration was a community rebirth, as old fissures got mended and past animosities reconciled. And the bond of communal life grew stronger, with young and old committing to its development.

Okeho is a small rural community in the backwoods of Oyo State. As such, it has not always been a favorite of governmental largess. Its successful daughters and sons have been mostly self-made, with a stubborn determination to defy all odds and excel. The community then looks up to them to lift up the upcoming ones in their struggles, and the community in its desperate need for development. And many have internalized that concept and accepted to play their part as a means to a meaningful life.

When death strikes and takes any of the high achievers that the community looks forward to, it is not just the nuclear family that feels it. The community feels the loss in its core.

Last year, it was Chief Gbade Adejumo, the Chairman of Okeho Strategic Development Foundation (OSTRADEF), a self-made man whose only formal schooling was Secondary Modern School, before he gained admission to the University of Ibadan and graduated with a degree in Economics. He rose to the level of Permanent Secretary in the Oyo State Civil Service before retirement. Okeho still mourns his loss.

In the last week, death struck again taking away two self-made men of integrity and honor with a record of community service.

Dr. Abdulrazaq Afolabi Olopoenia, a trail blazer in scholarship and higher education, was an inspiration for me growing up, a brother we aspired to emulate. He began his life in the village, attended the same primary school that many folks attended, before moving to Ghana for his secondary education. He returned to Nigeria for the Higher School Certificate at Olivet Baptist High School Oyo, graduating with distinction in 1965. At Olivet, he participated in the First Kennedy Memorial Essay Competition, which was organized by the United States Information Service (USIS). His essay was one of the best ten essays in the country. He was accepted to the University of Ibadan where he studied Economics, graduating in 1969. From 1970 to 1975, he studied economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and received the Ph.D. in Economics in 1975.

Dr. Olopoenia returned to the University of Ibadan as a faculty in the Department of Economics, exceling in teaching, scholarship, and service. He was the Sub-Dean, Post Graduate in the Faculty of the Social Sciences. He was a member of Oyo State Economic Advisory Council under Governor Jemibewon until early 1980. He also served on the Board of Directors of Nigeria-Romania Wood Industry, Ondo representing the Oyo State government until January 1980, and as the Chairman of the Board of Lake Chat Research Institute, Maiduguri until 2008 when the Board was dissolved. Dr. Olopoenia retired from the University of Ibadan in 2008, leaving behind a legacy of effective teaching, mentoring, scholarship, integrity, and an uncompromising conscience.

He could have been all these without lifting a hand in the business of his community of birth. But he chose the path of communal service, bringing his wealth of experience and knowledge to the cause of communal development. As a founding member of OSTRADEF, Dr. Olopoenia was a pillar of the success of the organization. From lending his expertise to the economic development agenda of the organization to contributing in kind and cash to its success, he made a great impact. During the centenary celebrations, he surprised me with his active presence in all the week-long activities, including in round the clock nocturnal meetings to douse the embers of minor and major discontents.

To the delight of the community, Egbe Omo Ibile Okeho acknowledged Dr. Olopoenia with an Award for his contributions to its development and for being Okeho’s first PhD recipient. Though he passed on at 77, which, in the context of our national and continental standards, is a ripe age, the community is hurting badly for the loss of a genuine member with a kind heart and a record of outstanding service to its progress. He will be missed.

Joshua Adebayo Adeyemo was my childhood friend, a friend who was like a blood brother. He was my go-to for intimate advice on every matter. It was Bayo’s initiative that led me to meet the girlfriend that became my wife. Bayo was my best friend at my wedding. We shared the struggles of life and living, the ambition to succeed and make something for ourselves, and be of use to the community.

With other friends of our age, we formed an organization, The Okeho Progressive Stars (TOPS), a social club with a community focus, which Bayo led for many years. Through the club, we engaged in self-help activities, nudging one another to higher heights. Not allowing the disease of poverty to demoralize us, we took our destinies in our hands, making lemonade out of the lemon that life tossed at us. Not having the resources for secondary school education, we went for teacher training. He received his Teachers’ Grade II Certificate from Baptist College, Iwo, teaching for many years while studying for the General Certificate of Education. He eventually succeeded and got admitted to the University of Ibadan where he studied Geography and received the B.Sc. degree with Honors.

Bayo started his post-graduate work experience teaching at Abiodun Atiba Grammar School, Oyo, beginning his life-long journey as an Oyo resident, establishing himself and training his children. With a view to being of more service to the community, Bayo left the teaching service for the National Population Commission from where he retired voluntarily in 2001 as a State Comptroller. Thereafter, he engaged in new ventures, devoting more useful time for the community as he commuted between Oyo and Okeho.

On Tuesday, April 21, 2020, I received a call from Bayo. As usual, he wanted to make sure that we were staying safe indoors, ending the call with his signature prayer: Eje Jesu bo yin (The Blood of Jesus covers you). On Wednesday, April 29, he had his breakfast, relaxed on his couch, and took his final breath. He was 76.

What is life? What is its meaning, since death will come anyway? The meaning of life is found in the memories that the departed leave behind. It is what immortality is about. When your community misses you so much that it hurts, then you have lived a good meaningful life.

Dr. Abdulrazaq Afolabi Olopoenia lived an outstanding memorable life. My friend, Joshua Adebayo Adeyemo, lived a great meaningful life. Though the community they left behind is hurting, it is also relieved that, once its offspring, but now, ancestors, they were, and will continue to be, integral parts of its fabric.

Segun Gbadegesin

ACCORDING to convention, today is Good Friday or Holy Friday or God’s Friday. And convention is what human beings create and stick to. It is our tradition of doing things and naming events. There is a paradox here.

From the perspective of the Almighty God who ordained the birth and death of Jesus Christ, whatever He does is good, and that includes the sacrifice of an only son for the sake of His human creatures. But for us as humans, we tend to see things differently. We would not be humans if we didn’t. So, we consider death in whatever form or shape as bad.

In the particular case of the death of Christ on the cross, it was not only the manner of the death but the intrigue that caused it that was extremely bad and evil. He was wrongly accused of treason and blasphemy. He was maltreated by his accusers. He was mocked. There was a palpable miscarriage of justice. Yet, in the midst of it all, he remained calm and cool. No curse word came from his mouth. He even admonished his disciple who resorted to violence to defend him.

In that regard, the day on which his unjust killing occurred should be judged a bad day for all intents and purposes—that is, from our human point of view. If it happened to any of us, and we were in a position to pass judgment, we would curse the day it occurred. Therefore, if by convention we have come to recognize the day on which the Messiah was crucified as good, there better be a good explanation and justification.

There is an explanation and, humanly speaking, it is a selfish one. For Christians, the death on the cross is even a happier and merrier occurrence than the birth in the manger because without it, salvation is impossible. Therefore, for the salvation of humans, Christ must die on the cross and resurrect from the grave. The intended consequence of death on the cross—the salvation of humans—is good. Therefore, the means to that consequence is good. Even the elders who prosecuted and judged Christ made the point that it is alright that one should die so that the many may be saved. It is a utilitarian reasoning.

Let us agree that this is a valid reasoning and there is something good in the death on the cross and therefore this is indeed a Good Friday. Shouldn’t we also expect at least believers in the sacrifice that made possible the salvation of souls follow suit? Shouldn’t the example of Christ’s sacrifice be a model for leaders and followers at least in Christendom? His was a life of simplicity. His armor was truthfulness. He delivered a message of hope and redemption. He not only empathized with the poor, he also blessed them with sustenance. And while he abhorred sin, he did not reject sinners; he even dined with them.

More than two thousand years after the supreme sacrifice of the one we claim to follow, many Christians, including some in the leadership rank of all stripes and collars have only paid lip service to the creed of the Messiah. They complicate what is a simple message of love and sacrifice. They are pretenders and impostors who draw crowds of sycophants through means other than Christ. They court satanic powers to attract membership to their congregation and expect the spirit of Christ to fall on them! They sell their halls of worship to the highest bidder and hope that the God who noticed and recognized the widow and her mite is not attentive. And while they condemn corruption from the pulpit, they are not ashamed to receive the bounties that corrupted hands deliver.

No one preaches or expects perfection. Even the Messiah who reflected the perfection of God was humble enough to attribute perfection to God alone. But there is an expectation that spiritual leaders have the responsibility to lead by example and not just by words, in the observance of the teachings of Christ. Instead, in many congregations, the human inclination to categorize by rank and the promotion of inequality instead of the egalitarian teaching of Christ has been the order.

They rank spiritual kinds, with some higher than others, and the concept of the priesthood of all believers is jettisoned. Christ taught his disciples that he was their only Teacher and they shouldn’t call anyone on earth teacher. He told them that their only Father was in heaven and they shouldn’t call anyone on earth Father. He taught them that whoever was greatest among them shall be their servant. And he demonstrated this by symbolically washing their feet.

Christ lived a simple human life and was not a proud and haughty human. He dined with sinners. He drank with the lowliest. He had compassion on an adulterer without condoning adultery, and deftly dispensed an impeccable justice against her accusers. He revered the Sabbath day without worshipping it, which was one of the reasons he was rejected by the Pharisees.

Today, unfortunately, however, many that claim to be his followers have substituted the Big-man philosophy of religion for the teachings of Jesus Christ. In this corrupt philosophy of religion, what really matters is how big the followership is, and how much power and resources they are able thereby to control. They speak publicly against the kingdom of darkness but secretly serve as ministers of that kingdom.

No wonder that even as churches litter the nooks and crannies of our streets, the evils of cultism, kidnapping, and armed robbery are on the rise. Sure, we condemn the evils that eat at the soul of the individual perpetrators without harming others, but we condone those evils that harm others but benefit the perpetrator. While they condemn the specks in the eyes of others from bureaucrats to politicians, they cleverly hide the logs in their own eyes.

On this holy remembrance of an otherwise evil day, which by convention we have come to regard as good because we believe that it was the moment our salvation was bought with the blood of the innocent Master, it behooves all Christians to honestly imbibe the teachings of Christ and the lessons of the cross. If we truly believe that He sacrificed his life so we can gain salvation, it is our obligation to make humanly possible sacrifices so the downtrodden, the rejected and forgotten in our midst may live a life that is dignified and decent. It is not the magnificence of a cathedral that matters; it is the spirit of giving that we imbibe in the hearts of men and women that God appreciates.

In this stressful time of a global pestilence that has a devilish capacity to test our faith in various ways, the faithful have a responsibility to stand firm in the faith of the one who called them to discipleship; to be calming voices in the midst of the storm; to reassure a fear-stricken world of the omnipresence of the one who commanded the storm to be still. In doing so, however, we cannot afford to tempt God. Most importantly, in the spirit of the giving demonstrated on Calvary, there is nothing too much for us to give for that love that is beyond our understanding. And as he has directed us, we must do it for the lowliest among us. Not doing his will in this regard automatically earns his justifiable condemnation.

So, yes, it is still a Good Friday, and thankfully so because the evil committed on this day more than two thousand years ago turned out to be good for humanity. This is especially because the crucified, dead, and buried Lord rose triumphantly from the dead on Easter morning! And our faith in the living God is renewed. Hopefully, we are worth the sacrifice.

If the foregoing sounds like a sermon; it isn’t. It’s only a sober thought and reflection on our spiritual heritage in the age of ostentatious spirituality, an oxymoron in itself.*

• An earlier version of this piece first appeared on this page on Good Friday 2013.