“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?”- Socrates
The first time I read the above quote by Socrates, I couldn’t but disagree, for being alive while he wrote it, how could Socrates have know that death could be the greatest good? What was he even thinking! If Socrates knew so much about death, why didn’t he kill himself at the time to enjoy the greatest good?
Whatever misgivings I had against Socrates, these past few days changed that. For the first time in my life, I see people envying the death of another. A young man said to me that if not that it would sound out of place and weird, he could have wished to die. The funny aspect to this, however, as a friend later joked is that even if this young man gets his weird request to die, can his death be as honourable as the one that he covets – that of Adunni Funmilayo Olayinka, the late Deputy Governor of Ekiti State?
Laughingly, “You better tell him not to die. Who told him his death would be this honourable?” My friend joked about the young man. But who told her (my friend) that the young man’s death couldn’t be as honourable? I guess only God has that answer.
The issue here is not about whether the young man’s death would be as honourable; the issue is that he was moved (or should I say crazy) enough to covet death just because that of Adunni Olayinka is honourable. This young man’s weird but meaningful coveteousness and the empathy that the death of the Deputy Governor has generated changed my mind towards Socrates’ quote, making me agree further with him that “Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.”
Sitting in my boss’ vehicle on the way from the Akure Airport, and driving by Ikere and finally to Ado-Ekiti, I couldn’t hold my tears anymore on seeing the unprecedented crowd, wailing, weeping, as though they could never be consoled. Never in my life had I witnessed death unite people this way. I even asked the elderly whether people had ever been this moved or assembled for the death of anyone in my town, Ado-Ekiti. Their answer was not in the affirmative. Then I said to myself, “Death can be an honour.”
It is also at times like this that we know who love us, the dead and the people they leave behind. It is in identifying with the grief of those left behind by the dead that one knows whether the dead or the people he/she left behind were/are good people. That the whole world is identifying with Ekiti shows beyond words that Adunni Funmilayo Olayinka was a good person. It shows also that those she left behind, her husband, her children, her relations, Dr. Kayode Fayemi and Erelu Bisi Fayemi are good people, people who have overtime demonstrated the ability to be above board.
This is evident in the number of eminent personalities from all walks of life who have personally paid condolence visit to Dr. Kayode Fayemi over the loss of his deputy:
Former Commonwealth Secretary-General Emeka Anyanwu, former Head of State Mohammadu Buhari, business mogul Aliko Dangote, CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido, Bola Tinubu, Governors Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), Kashim Shettima (Borno), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Police Affairs Minister Caleb Olubolade, Professor Bolaji Aluko, Professor Akin Oyebode, President of Women Politicians in Nigeria Patricia Nwosu, Rivers Deputy Governor Tele Ikuru. The list is endless, and this is besides the mammoth Ekiti crowd who defied the sun and the rain to celebrate Adunni Olayinka in death and to identify with their governor, Kayode Fayemi. To these eminent personalities and Ekiti people, party and tribe matter not, just as in the real world, it is being good that matters only, and with the way everyone has identified with Dr. Kayode Fayemi at this time, it shows he is a good person, in person and in governance, for all these sympathies cannot be a pretence. It shows also that people will always identify with good people and great strides, even if it means crossing borders upon borders as we have seen in the past few days.
‘Dimeji Daniels writes from Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State
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