By Abdullahi LimanNeedless to say that we are a disappearing tribe, whose role in the current scheme of things is nearly almost concluded. What we are tortuously clutching unto is a delicate, vestigial thread that keeps breaking string by string, and with the only few remaining strings left, still rapidly breaking , they can hardly withstand the powerful force from the pull of death.
Age is the metric by which longevity is measured. It is also the disconcerting indicia to our ineluctable exit, from life that has many promises of fulfillment. But life itself is a bouquet filled with cocktails of impossibilities that are turned into workable and achievable goals. We keep pursuing these goals with the enthusiasm and hope that are the existential thematics of our very essences.
Thus when we are confronted with death, whether of the closest or the remotest relation or friend, we find consolation in hope which feeds our illusion of immortality, a feeling, subtly narcissistic, but truly phlegmatic. It obscures the sharp realization that for us death is still a farthest distant thunder. It takes away the morbid tremor occasioned by the loss and replaces it with a dubious tranquility, like the psychedelic trance induced by drugs.We hope to live for so long as our time does not come. It is that time when by effluxion we fall under the heavy toll at the very exeunt stage of our existence. When all the functions of life cease and consciousness which represents the sum total of the individual existence devolves and narrows down to singularity.
These recent deaths of our beloved colleagues and in deed all deaths, provide us with a poignant reminder of our mortality, it is graphically emblematic of the futility of resistance to death. It’s equally both painful and scary to remember that it is inexorable.
These feelings are however subjective, because of life in itself is the intrinsic element of existence and so, a fulfillment of that existence, therefore, death must be considered as the ultimate logic of life.
Since it’s an inevitable end in itself, we can only make good sense of our existence if we accept it stoically.
It is in the light of the foregoing
That I find consolation from the pains of the death of Musa Sanda the Walin Lafia. My brother, friend, a school mate from primary school through University to the Law School.
I always remember, after all I’am not immortal. I must die any day from any time, under any circumstances.
May The Wali’s soul Rest In Peace