Just when I was thinking and brainstorming about what to write about the death of the self proclaimed chief executive omo-ita, my brother and friend the only street born rappertainer in Nigeria (in my own opinion), Oladapo Olaitan Olaonipekun a.k.a Dagrin, the commander in chief of the armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria, president Umaru Musa Yar’adua also decided to give up the ghost. I wondered what significance these two deaths have on the Nigerian youth and I shall attempt to compare the achievements of these two great men (each man in his own right) and the effects that such achievements have had on the life of the average Nigerian youth and the effects that the death has also had on the average Nigerian youth. I will also try to analyze the circumstances surrounding their deaths and try to analyze the part that the society played in both their deaths.
Dagrin, whose real age has caused a little controversy among many of his fans and the ordinary observer alike, was a hip hop artiste who until his death had hit songs such as kondo, pon pon pon, etc he was a really talented guy even in the opinion of this writer and having listened to some of his songs, I can categorically say that It will be very difficult to find a replacement for him in the Nigerian music industry. His word play was incredible and how he managed to string those individual words together to form rhymes still beats the shit out of my imagination being a rapper myself that is.
He was a real phenomenon and according to artistes that have worked with him and from various one on one testimonies, he was a really humble guy and even ruggedman says he is the most humble artiste he has ever had the privilege to work with and as if that was not enough, most of the guys with whom he has done collabos also say he is the most humble guy they have met. He was a guy with talent and he had all the usual vices you would expect an ordinary Nigerian youth to have; drinking partying and the likes. It was said that he was on his way home from the house of a friend when he had the accident that eventually claimed his life. A bottle of Hennessey was supposedly found in his car and his car according to eye witness reports, reeked of alcohol. These being true, I can imagine what the brother must have been doing on his way home from a friend’s house, cruising at top speed on a seemingly free road and in a car that moves so quietly, you would not even know if you were going at 140 miles an hour until it is almost too late, listening to his own music (presumably) blaring loud from the six changer stereo system, and sipping some booze while doing all this and please don’t forget this was all in the middle of the night in fact it was more early morning than night, if I was Dagrin, I would not even stop for the routine check by the police on the highway because to tell you the truth, I would be in a world of my own in that car.
It is easy therefore, to imagine what will happen if suddenly, I look up from my car and I see a stationary truck or trailer parked on my side of the road obstructing my right of way while I am travelling or cruising at a speed of 140 miles an hour. In fact, I can imagine what happened when I read in the dailies that the car in which he was travelling was a write-off after the accident. Of course there is also the school of thought that says that he was being chased by the police for refusing to stop at the check point and it was during the chase that he had the accident. This however, does not eliminate the fact that he was going at top speed and he was probably moving too fast, or fast asleep or too drunk to realize that there was a truck parked in his way and that he should stop and think about the safest way to negotiate the bottle-neck.
There is also the almost definite possibility that the road on which he was travelling was bad and as such going at top speed on such a road could at best be described as suicide except of course you are too drunk, moving too fast or very fast asleep to realize. So he had the accident and was rescued by the same policemen who were chasing him (presumably) and was rushed to a nearby ‘hospital’. On getting to the so called hospital he was referred to another hospital as there was not enough facility to manage his injury. I began to wonder, what kind of hospital does not have first aid facilities to at least manage the injury of an accident victim before sending him off to another hospital but then, I realize that in Nigeria, a self contained building with only 2 rooms could pass for a hospital and could even get licensed if only you are ready to grease the right palms. Such is the situation that Nigeria has found herself in but that discussion is for another day.
So Dagrin was referred to another hospital and he was placed on admission and attended to, he was stable for a while and just when everyone wanted to roll out the drums to celebrate his survival, he started having heart attack after heart attack and before anyone could play the first note of the first thanksgiving song, he was dead. Thus ended the life of a very promising youth who discovered his talent and decided to use the only thing that he knew to do to make a way for himself in this society. Thus ended his dreams and his aspirations and thus, his mother lost a son and his sister lost a brother and his family members lost a relative.
What do we stand to learn from all of this as youths? Do not let fame and stardom get into your head and even when you are at your peak, always do everything with caution. Life is not all about enjoying yourself and killing yourself in the process. Enjoy yourself of course but do not go over the limit. Always know where to draw the line so you don’t end up regretting what could have been. If Dagrin had not died, I’m sure he would have carried a big mark from the accident for the rest of his life. And please guys and ladies, if you must drink, don’t drive in daylight let alone in the night and if you must drive, please don’t drink. What do we stand to learn from this as a country? We need to revive our functionality as a country. We need to pay attention to the basic needs of life as a people and as a government. The government should also learn that if it continues to ignore the basic necessities of life, then the people die and they should stop asking people to stay in this country and build because by the time people realize that opportunities abound in other countries for them to make it with less wahala, then very soon, there will be no youth left in the country even the so called rich kids will prefer to stay abroad than come home.
There is another death that shook the country very violently. A death that was meant to be but was too painful to bear; the death of the President and the commander-in-chief of the federal republic of Nigeria; president Umaru Musa Yar’adua (G.C.F.R). His was one death too many and at this stage in the life of this country, his death was uncalled for and totally unnecessary. Considering however, that the man was virtually handpicked by the powers that be and literally put in place by the same powers and that the man himself was too carried away with the possibility of him being president (and his wife with the possibility of her being first lady) that he ‘forgot’ that his had a very fragile state of health and that he could not handle the stress and wahala of the presidency. Little did he know that it was nothing compared to being governor of a state. When eventually he became president, he could not handle the stress of the office and his state of health was the worse for it. Throughout his tenure as president, I don’t think there was a month in which he did not go abroad for medical checkup. Then came December 2009, everyone thought the president was going for the year’s holy pilgrimage to Mecca. Little did we know that the president was embarking on a journey of no return or at least, a journey that he wouldn’t return alive from because he did return, just not alive. There is also the school of thought that said it was more of his wife wanting to be first lady than the man himself wanting to be president. Anyways he became president and went on the pilgrimage.
The next thing we heard he was ill to the point of death, he could not even perform his constitutional responsibilities as president and we began to get deceived with all kinds of news. Then came the BBC report that the man was dead, the claim was vehemently debunked by the presidential aides with some swearing on their lives that they saw the president even yesterday. Some even claimed they were with him when he signed the supplementary budget and sent it to the national assembly. In other countries of the world, the president would have been impeached with his inability to perform his constitutional function as reason but here in Nigeria, we were enjoined by the national assembly to pray for the safe return of the president and anyone that called for the impeachment of the president was looked upon as an enemy of progress and those asking the president to hand over to his vice were thought to be enemies of the government.
The so called kitchen cabinet that wanted to rule Nigeria by proxy while telling us that the president said so and so, had a field day playing on the intelligence of the majority of Nigerians. When finally the now ex-president was ‘smuggled’ into the country, it was In the middle of the night and under a very tight cloak of secrecy all in a bid to ensure that their cover was not blown. Then on the 5th of May, we were finally told that the president was dead, the whole nation heaved a sigh of relief and that marked an end to the drama that had played out for about six months. We got a new president in the person of the erstwhile vice and he went to work immediately though I still believe that the structure is still the same and until a certain party in Nigeria is dismantled, there cannot be serious progress. Some people are asking him to run for 2011 presidency without even waiting to see what the man has in stock for the country in the short period of time he will use as president. Such is the effects that sycophants have on the polity of this nation.
Having said all these, what do we learn as a people? A situation where even the president does not trust the health sector of the country and has to go abroad for treatment and checkup should get our so called leaders thinking, what does it take to make our health sector among the best in the world? We just need to look inwards and we’ll see that God has already given us everything we need to be a great nation then again we need to re-arrange our polity, the process is too complex and cumbersome. Also we should make our political offices less attractive so people will not kill to get there. I also think the office of the first lady of the federation should be decommissioned and if not, it should be renamed and called the office of the first woman so any woman that gets there will know that it is a responsible position and not one that should be abused to save our future presidents from spousal abuse and from being turned into Unidentified Flying Objects (U.F.O’s) as aptly described by the Nobel laureate professor Wole Soyinka.
In conclusion however, the death of both men has been a monumental loss to Nigeria as a whole but it does show us leadership should not be by position but by action. Each of those men was a leader of some sort and each of them will be remembered for such things as they did while they were alive. What will you be remembered for when you are gone? This, I think, should really get us thinking.
I don’t know if this would sound odd but in my own belief I think that we killed them both with our own hands as a country. Why? You ask, because they both died from improper medical attention an off shoot of our archaic and obsolete medical structures which for long has killed many people than saving them but who dares talk? No one. With these words, I rest my case. The evil and good that men do live after them. You say the hunter has killed himself with his own arrow.
GOD HELP NIGERIA!!!
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