Arotile: Mi Lord, permit me to cross-examine death | By Festus Adedayo

When death strikes, there is no allowance for cross-examination by any lawyer, Ayinla Omowura, Yoruba’s Apala musician, sang in a tribute to a Joseph Osowumi, which he rendered as bi’ku ba de, ko si loya ti o s’ojuse… No, permit me to cross-examine this offender, Mi Lord!

The news of 22-year old Computer Science undergraduate of the University of Port Harcourt, Kenneth Gift, his girlfriend, Dandy Spice and mother, Dorah Aninah, arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for suspected computer compromise fraud in Agbor, Delta State and the death of first female combat pilot, Tolulope Arotile hit me about the same time. In a Nigeria where a preponderance of youths get entangled in fraud, literally walking about in a fog on the reason for their existence, you cannot but be downcast on hearing the news of the death of Arotile. I was.

The death of this inspiring young lady shook the entire country. It could not but be so. Arotile was like an oasis in a desert of bad news that had become the middle name of Nigerian youth. So there is such a class of brilliant, committed and patriotic young people here, at a time when all we see is ferment and hopelessness? So people still envision legitimate greatness and work towards it like this young pilot did, achieving renown and garlands at such tender age? So Nigerian youths are not all about internet scam, fraud and silly and slavish thirst to go abroad?

Arotile’s death drew me into the barren rhetoric of questioning human existence all over again. Why did she have to die and not any one of those disreputable fellows who are engaged in illicit scams? Judging by the unholy antecedents of power equations, could Arotile have been parceled for her death as alleged in some quarters? If this is so, why would God allow this machination against a promising icon to fructify?

Whenever I am in a bind about needless deaths like this, I run to philosophy. I have mopped up enough epistles about death from the holy writs that don’t just add up, as they have grossly failed to assuage me. I have heard that being finite, when human beings die, existence continues beyond death and as such, Tolulope may be on a higher assignment from her Maker. This, both theology and philosophy agree, is so since assignments after death have higher and greater value than being in this world.

On why such a young flower like this must wither at plumule, I have heard Martin Heidegger, (1889-1976) in his bid to show that we are a “being toward death” say that, “As soon as we are born, we are old enough to die.” Yet, I am not satisfied. Seeking to satisfy me was Karl Jaspers, the German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher’s position about why Arotile had to die. Death is not the absolute end of the human being, he says, and a human being isn’t merely a physical entity. He is a deathless being, said Jaspers.

To tell you the truth, I am still not satisfied. It is easier to put up with the deaths of human beings who have gone past their prime and have discharged enough assignments on this earthly journey. Indeed, the exit of those whose existence cause pain to mankind is even good riddance to bad rubbish. Not this Amazon, this heroine and a potentially great woman brutally cut down in her prime.

We must find out if indeed Arotile’s Maker willingly called her for a greater assignment. Or that she was wickedly pulled out from this miserable meal that mankind calls an engaging cuisine. Could she have been killed for revenge, to stop her rise in the dog-eat-dog military profession or to revenge her affront against Nigerian enemies in her strike from the air against insurgents?

It is heartwarming that the Nigerian Air Force has promised to probe Arotile’s death. After writing this last sentence which sounded as comforting as the melody of a banjo, I laughed at my own foolishness. What came out of Attorney General of the Federation, Ajibola Ige’s murder? What came out of the murder of Dr. Abayomi Oniororo, Ministry of Foreign Affairs son of Niyi Oniororo in circumstances almost similar to Arotile’s, nineteen years ago? Haven’t I lived long enough in Nigeria to know that good is never requited and bad never gets retribution?