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In a classic illustration of how rumours
and hearsay work, Mark Twain described
in his autobiography how news that a
cousin was dying quickly metamorphosed
into the "scoop" that Twain himself was
dead. His response became instantly
famous: "The report of my death was an
exaggeration." Were he alive today,
Twain would probably be amused to
observe how, in this Internet age,
celebrities and well-known figures are
confronted by "news" of their own demise
on a regular basis.
A premature
obituary is
an obituary published
whose subject is not actually deceased.
Such situations have various causes,
such as hoaxes or mix-ups over names,
and usually produce great embarrassment
or sometimes more dramatic consequences.
Examples range from arms manufacturer Alfred
Nobel, whose premature obituary
condemning him as a 'merchant of death'
may have caused him to create the Nobel
Prize, to
Black Nationalist Marcus
Garvey, whose actual death was
apparently caused by reading his own
obituary.
In
Nigeria,
we have had quite a few high –profile
cases of false death rumours:
Nnamdi
Azikiwe, the
First
President of Nigeria was declared dead
by Nigerian newspapers years before he
actually died.
For many years now, the Nollywood
actress,
Sola Sobowale, popularly called Toyin
Tomato has been rumoured as dead. It was
said that she was arrested and beheaded
in
Saudi Arabia for committing drug related
offences. Contrary to the rumours
however, Toyin Tomato is still alive
safe and sound. In fact I see her at
Emukay Restaurant in London almost every
weekend, the last being just last
Friday. We are also constantly on the
phone. She has never even been to Saudi
Arabia, not to talk of being beheaded.
For the past 3 years, everytime I visit
Nigeria, people who know that I know
Sola always ask me if the rumours were
true, and I had to go to great lengths
to deny this wicked rumour. Sola
Sobowale is alive and well and living it
up in London. Sometimes, when visitors
from Nigeria visit Uncle Tunji Oyelana
and his wife, Kikelomo’s (Sola’s senior
sister) restaurant, Emukay in
South London,
I could see their unbelieving eyes when
Sola saunters in and starts dancing.
About two week ago, news reports came
that Maryam Babangida,
Nigeria's
former First Lady, is dead. The former
chairperson of the Better Life for Rural
Women during her husband's years in
office had been hospitalised for ovarian
cancer at a hospital somewhere in the
US.
It was said that her husband,
General
Babangida, the retired billionaire
ex-dictator was granted a US visa on
compassionate grounds to be at the
bedside of his wife, till her death,
because her cancer had reached an
advanced stage.
The rumour turned out to be just that:
rumour. Not true.
Even before Umar Yar ‘Adua became
President, due to his well-known kidney
problems, there had been rumours about
his supposed death. This was of course
not helped by his constant disappearance
from the public and his many travels for
medical check-ups in Saudi Arabian
hospitals. During Yar ‘Adua’s campaign
in Abeokuta in April 2007, the then
President, Olusegun Obasanjo had, in
order to douse the rumour that the PDP
presidential candidate had passed on,
decided to put a call to Yar'Adua in the
presence of thousands of PDP faithfuls,
and then theatrically proved to
Nigerians that “Umaru” was not dead.
Excerpts of the telephone discussion:
Obasanjo:
'Umaru [Yar'Adua] are you dead?'
Yar'Adua: 'I am alive'
Obasanjo: 'What are you doing?'
Yar'Adua: 'I am laughing.'
The President, looking directly
at the crowd: 'He is laughing ha! ha!!
ha!!!'"
It was the stuff of which jokes are
made, even though unkindly; especially
knowing how crude Obasanjo could be when
it comes to politics.
Since he became President in May 2007,
rumours about Yar ‘Adua’s health has
persisted and surfaced from time to
time. In August 2008, another rumour of
his death made the rounds until he
himself dispelled it, and just this week
(November 2009), another such death
rumour surfaced, especially when it was
announced that he had gone to for yet
another medical check up in
Saudi Arabia.
In
Nigeria, it is usually believed that
such rumours were either contrived
deliberately by the subjects of the
death rumour themselves or their
supporters as a kind of spiritual “juju”
sacrifice so that the subjects will then
live longer. Sometimes, it might just be
wicked, malicious rumours spread by the
subject’s perceived enemies or political
opponents. Whatever the case or cause
might be, the subject usually lasts much
longer and stronger.
Please don’t get me wrong; all over the
world, history is replete with such
death rumours or premature obituaries of
celebrities, statesmen and women,
political figures, scientists, etc. Even
the Queen of
England and Ronald Reagan were once
subjects of such rumours, not to talk of
Hollywood actors and actresses too
numerous to mention. Even Hitler and
Stalin had all been rumoured to be dead
long before they actually succumbed to
death. So was Alfred Nobel.
You may not agree with me on this, but
Nigerians are still basically a very
primitive and very superstitious people.
Even those of us who claimed to have
fully absorbed Western culture and
religion ultimately succumb to inherent
African very easily. When Lord Lugard
described Nigerians in the 1800s in
seemingly racist and less flattering
terms, he was saying the truth, at least
based on his own observation and
experience of the African mind. There is
nothing we can do about this. In the
darkest corners of
Nigeria, and even in the open, dark and
evil deeds that in this century would
seem to have been jettisoned are still
going on, on a daily basis. Take the
child witchcraft infanticide still being
perpetrated by a questionable female “religionista”,
Pastor Helen Ukpabio and others of her
ilk in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States,
as examples, preying on peoples’ poverty
and superstition and illiteracy, with
her saying “witchcraft is a problem all
over Nigeria”, making money from it and
destroying lives in the process and
still boasting about it. She could not
address the major problems of
corruption, poverty, bad governance, but
to her, witchcraft the most important
problem in Nigeria. Damn her.
We are particularly susceptible to
rumours and superstition because we are
a very gullible people. The rumours are
even fuelled by charlatan, irresponsible
and compromised news media, who chose
what to write in a style to suit their
paymasters. There is no respite. Nobody
wants to tell or hear the truth. We also
like a higher being or God to fight our
fights for us, hence when Mayriam
Babangida was rumoured to be dead, we
were all jubilant that God had fought
for us and exacted punishment on the
Babangidas for their corruption and the
mess they left the country.
Now, again it is being rumoured that Yar
‘Adua is dead, we just thought, all well
and good, good riddance, serves him
right, etc not thinking about the
repercussion of his death on the
Nigerian polity, all because we regard
his tenure as illegal and
un-progressive. We did not think we
could wait for him to complete one term
and then try to boot him out via the
vote. We want him out now, but we want
God to do it for us. As Olusegun Adeniyi,
Presidential spokesman recently said, “I
think the daily pre-occupation of some
people is to kill the President in their
imagination and if that makes them happy
so be it... I am tired of responding to
what has become a common pastime of some
idle politicians... maybe when the
President comes back I will ask him how
he keeps dying and resurrecting
everyday”. What
we should be praying for, perhaps, is
for the sickly Mr President to have the
wisdom, the sense and the courage to
resign or retire before he dies on the
presidential seat.
But should we want Yar ‘Adua (and many
of our leaders) dead? Should we wish
death on fellow human being, for
whatever reason? No! While these people
had been short-changing and oppressing
us for decades, I would rather have them
behind bars serving long prison
sentences with very hard labour and all
their assets seized.
I often laugh when I read or hear the
curses rained down on our leaders. Yes,
they do deserve to be cursed and
superstitious people that we are, we
believe the curses will work, and that
is why, for example, Maryam Babangida
had ovarian cancer; or it was our
curses, or prayers to God, that
eventually dispatched Sanni Abacha.
Well, what do I know? Maybe, maybe not.
But the fact remains that God will not
come to the rescue of Nigerians alone to
save them from their corrupt, selfish,
inconsiderate and oppressive leaders.
All people of the world are God’s
creation, so why should He give special
favours to ungrateful and sinful
Nigerians?
Compatriots, things do not work like
that. Heaven can only help those who
help themselves. You do not wait for
manna to fall from heaven. No rumours,
curses or superstition will work against
our leaders. In fact, they also fuel and
exploit their peoples’ superstition and
rumour mongering to the fullest for
their own selfish ends.
Need I say more?
Akintokunbo Adejumo lives and works in
London, UK. A graduate of the University
of Ibadan, Nigeria (1979) and University
of Manitoba, Canada (1985), he also
writes on topical issues for newspapers
and internet media including
Nigeriaworld.com, Nigeria Today Online,
Nigerians In America, Nigeria Village
Square, Champions Newspaper,
ChatAfrik.com, African News Switzerland,
New Nigerian Politics, Gamji.com,
Codewit.com, etc.
London, United Kingdom
akinadejum@aol.com
He is also the Coordinator of CHAMPIONS
FOR NIGERIA, (www.championsfornigeria.org)
an organisation devoted to celebrating
genuine progress, excellence,
commitment, selfless and unalloyed
service to Nigeria and Nigerians
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