By Kanenechi Emeka
Eighty years of age, if what I heard of him is right, is a great age to leave the flesh.
If it’s sixty seven, as I hear now, it isn’t too bad for someone who had his record in choice public service positions.
Indeed I think, from the look of things presently, it would soon qualify as a miracle for one to do eighty before leaving, and a feat for plaudits to pass on at sixty seven.
Late Abba Kyari, on that score therefore, made it enviably.
But the points in focus here are beyond longevity. They extend to legacies and the afterlife.
I have resisted the normal urge to react to the grim news, taking time instead to study others.
What I keep seeing are collections of opposite reactions; polarized commentaries which have since become the face of President Buhari’s federal government.
I would have preferred us to be more working than including the death of one of us in the same quarrelsome political basket that haunts us.
But here we are. And for reasons obvious to every clear-minded citizen: a people can get reduced to disgruntled and booing halves if all quest for better governance is subdued by might. Humanity will simply take flight of the citizens!
The fate of Abba Kyari in the beyond will not be determined by our personal or partisan love for him as we now glowingly profess. Nor will our personal or partisan hatred, as we now bitterly comment!
He will be received into that realm where what guided him from inside of him will unfurl to uplift him, or to torture him.
What was the Super Staff’s volition?
Did he diligently serve the cause of love, where he worked for the good of all, not minding tribe or Creed?
Or did he uphold as a loyal servant – or even himself create – an operational script where some people shall be lords over others?
Creation rewards him accordingly even now, not affected by our insignificant biases!
I wish the family and closer ones the fortitude to bear the loss of their illustrous and once powerful son.
And to all of us I would wish we pick quick lessons on the mortality of man and the transience of power.
For it’s only when we so do that we can get down to work in such a way that when we pass on, heated controversy would not taint our passage.
May the Heavens help us!
