Mourning The Dead, Saving The Living -By Ahmed Oluwasanjo

The demise of Nigerian politicians does not resonate differently with me, for obvious reasons: First, death is an inevitable lot of men. Second, Nigerians die daily due to the malfeasance of kleptomaniac politicians; and third, I believe that the life of a politician is not worth more than the lives of other Nigerians who have lost theirs to Boko haram menace, kidnappers, fatal road accidents and disease outbreaks.

In fact, previously I had likened two deceased politicians to a renown notorious armed robber – Lawrence Anini. However, for the first time in my life, I was sourly pained when the news of the demise of our State Minister for Labour and Productivity, James Enejo Ocholi (SAN) broke.

The closest I have been to him was watching him on the screen as he brilliantly answered questions on the floor of the National Assembly during his screening as a ministerial nominee of President Muhammadu Buhari. Then, he won my heart and earned my intense admiration.

From afar, I saw in Ocholi a calm and refined politician; the figure of a leader with an impeccable character; and one who represented those who had proven themselves in their chosen careers and ought to be given the opportunity to serve in public office, if our polity must be sanitised and liberated from the grip of bandits seeking public offices for selfish gains. But unfortunately, a few months into his appointment as a minister, he passed on violently in a ghastly accident, along the Kaduna-Abuja road, along with his wife and second son.

The avalanche of tributes that have poured in since his demise tells that indeed he lived well. The horrid pictures from the scene of the accident have stuck to my mind and for the first time, I wept for a dead politician. May the souls of the departed rest in peace, and may God grant the other Ocholis, the Igala nation and Kogites the fortitude to bear the loss.

I believe there are lessons to learn from the incident, as we all await the time we would all pass on the gift of life.

As I wept for the tragic demise of the Ocholis and the monumental loss it inflicted on our country – and Kogi State especially – a question I kept asking was: at what speed was the SUV they were in on before the accident occurred? Before the FRSC reported that over-speeding was the major factor for the crash, even a blind man would only have needed to touch the scrap of the vehicle to come to have deduced the cause. Ocholi’s uncle, Mr Abdullahi Aliu, expressed similar view when he said, “… we want to know who recruited that driver and at what speed (he was driving during the trip)…”

To ignore this fact is to assume that God would take all necessary precautionary measures to ensure our safety, on and off our roads. Yes, I agree that our safety lies in God, and as much as we need God to be safe, the buck ends on our tables as road users, except we chose to be irresponsible.

That our roads are death traps is no longer news and we cannot expect God to come fix them for us. Its the job of our governments; but even at that, if our roads are fixed, the fact that many Nigerian road users – especially the motorcades of public office holders – are reckless is an issue that needs to be given serious attention. Keen observers who reside in Abuja will agree with me that one of the best roads in Abuja is the Abuja Airport road. Ironically, on that same road, there is hardly a week that passes without an accident being recorded. That tells that beyond good roads, our attitude as road users determines how safe our roads are.

We need to understand that we are not on the road to race for medals. We need to admit the fact that cars do not kill, but over speeding does. By extension, the more we indulge in over-speeding the slimmer the chances of maneuvering our ways through eventualities on the road become.

As a certainty, many road users would be adamant about over-speeding. However, this is why the Federal Road Safety Corps must spare no second thought on the enforcement of the speed limiter and adequate prosecution of defaulters to curb the social ill of over-speeding. More importantly, FRSC must hold motorcades of public officers to a higher standard in this regard, if we must save them from throwing the country into mourning intermittently.

Still on the speed limiter enforcement, my mentor, Mr. Azubuike Ishiekwene, who in an article, “Speed Limiter On Thursday Of Long Knives” last week objectively argued that, “But after four years, two postponements and scores of lives wasting on the roads daily, one more postponement cannot be justified. There are times when people have to be saved from themselves.” Indeed, I completely align my thought with his, that the time to save Nigerians from themselves with the speed limiter enforcement is now.

Also, it is commendable that an interim report on the cause of the accident in concern has been done and announced publicly. However, I find it a little bit hypocritical. On a good day, the same officers of the FRSC that indicted the late minister’s driver, Mr. Taiwo James Elegbede, wouldn’t have been bold enough to stop him – or other drivers of high ranking political office holders – on the road to check if he has a valid drivers licence. On the contrary, FRSC officers wouldn’t mind causing a road gridlock just to check if hapless taxi drivers and ordinary Nigerians have their licences. This mirrors how our system pats the high and mighty on their backs and bites the ordinary citizen hard.

If we may probe further, sometimes in August last year, a serving senator – “uncommon transformer” – crashed after jumping a traffic light somewhere around Bolingo Hotel, Abuja. What was the outcome of the interim or substantial report of the FRSC? Was anybody indicted? If yes, was anyone prosecuted?

That said, we also need to ask if an interim report has been prepared on the possible cause of the Jos-Bauchi road accident in which 18 Nigerians were burnt beyond recognition, on March 7. This is to be sure that equal premium is placed on both the lives of prominent political office holders and regular citizens in Nigeria.

Conclusively, death is the greatest mystery on earth. So, those mystifying the death of the Ocholis are right in their own way. However, if we collectively consider the facts, it is obvious that our roads are bad, and also many road users indulge in over-speeding and other unsafe road habits.

Perhaps, with more caution on over-speeding we could cut down, by 50 percent at least, the number of deaths on our roads, which according to FRSC stands at 10,050 annually. The reason being that FRSC’s Corps Marshal and Chief Executive, Mr. Boboye Oyeyemi, in the October/Novemeber, 2015 edition of The Interview magazine attributed “50.8 percent of road crashes to speed.”

May the souls of all who lost their lives on Nigeria roads rest in peace.

Ahmed Oluwasanjo writes from Abuja.