BY TONY EKE
NIGERIA is hardly short of a tragic incidents at any given time. The latest tragedy involved one of our hapless compatriots Miss Glory Adekolure on the outskirts of Benin City, a fortnight ago. The fresh graduate died in one of those painful circumstances that is almost becoming a routine in Nigeria. She didn’t die because of a natural disaster such as torrential floods which occur at the peak of the rainy season nor through an automobile accident which happens just any other day as a blight of Nigeria’s social development. Her life was snuffed out by few persons with whom she shared the same geographical space as compatriots.
Reports had it that she had gone to finalise her clearance at the University of Benin (UNIBEN) but while returning to her mother’s house, she was accosted by an unspecified number of boys that allegedly gang-raped and murdered her. The assailants thereafter took her corpse and dumped it in close vicinity to her mother’s residence in Iyiowa, a suburb of Benin City.
The causative mode of her untimely passage might have shocked many people since rape and brutal murders diminish the essence of our humanity, but we have moved on as usual, probably waiting for another tragic manifestation in another part of our fatherland. For a people who are confronted by the worst economic situation in decades, any thought about the death of a young woman whom they did not know would be brief unlike the bigger permanent concern about survival on a daily basis. Existential issues exacerbated by extreme lack and a fading hope of a better tomorrow have a way of robbing man of his empathy for adverse situations.
However, I was struck by Glory’s death not because I knew her personally but for the sheer impact her death would have on her mother, siblings, and close relatives. It’s conceivable her mother would remain inconsolable far beyond this time.
We do not know how many children she has but losing her child after graduation is a terrible experience. The category of parents burdened by the huge financial challenge of seeing their children through schools, especially at this time fully understand what I’m driving at.
Given its nature, most bereavement scenarios induced by the death of loved ones in their prime transport the mourners to a state of utter confusion. In this case, this bereaved woman might be prompted by sorrow to question so many things.
She may ask, of what use is her daughter’s educational pursuit if her life would end tragically? She could also probe the basis of human existence if death can perfunctorily eclipse the life of a youngster like her daughter and put her catalogue of dreams and aspirations in abeyance. Above all, she may ask where lies the joy of life if one could die so unpredictably, even in the hands of supposed criminals?
Unless she’s is stoic and firmly rooted in fatalism, a lot of women would lose some sense of composure if they were in their shoes. I can relate this to the tragic encounter of my beloved mother following the death of my younger sister and my mother’s first daughter in the middle of 2015. It’s one incident I wouldn’t like to remember because a vital part of my mother, then 76 years old, died with my great sister. Until my mother’s reunion with her forebears in November 2023, the recurring thought about her late daughter weakened her more than the incessant illnesses she encountered in the last decade of her life. Despite the equanimity with which we all bore that loss, I also lost my manliness for a brief period.
One of the issues thrown up by Glory Adokolure’s death is the pervasive state of insecurity which has emboldened a group of non-state actors to operate unhindered in many parts of Nigeria. It’s however not new development because before the death of the young woman, so many others had died in the same horrifying circumstances. As tragic as these deaths were either lately or in the recent past, the most painful aspect is the debasement of the humanity of the dead as gleaned from the cruel manner those victims are often abandoned like rodents crushed by reckless motorists on the roadsides.
Of course, there are many Glory Adekolures who may have died in the countryside, and for that category, they are numbered among the mass of anonymous deaths without reports in the media or subsequent enquiry by the law enforcement agents. If Glory did not live around the periphery of Benin City, it’s probable nothing would have been heard about her untimely passage.
The question then is must all of us live in cities and towns to be acknowledged as higher human species likely to attract police probes in the event of tragic contrivances against our lives?
The ultimate challenge posed by death of Glory Adokolure to her living compatriots is to rid the Nigerian society of undesirable elements that prowl the length and breadth of our territory like the Biblical devil in search of whom to devour. If Nigeria was as safe as other climes, the ease with which the quintessential beauty of Glory was violated would not have arisen.
The police therefore has a duty to perform its duty by ensuring the prompt arrest of those that murdered the late UNIBEN graduate. Even if they were unable to meet the one-week deadline given by Edo State Governor Obaseki a fortnight ago, all hope is not lost if they can redouble efforts to apprehend those killers for prosecution. Only such a feat would help them to redeem their battered image which has generated a ridiculous reference to the police as cats without claws in an environment inhabited by sophisticated species of rats.
Avenging the death of Glory is a must for the country not only to provide some relief to her family but also to serve as a deterrent to those that are either aspiring or habitual criminals cashing in on dysfunctional state of Nigeria to torment our lives.
May Glory Adekolure’s soul rest in perfect peace!
