What Befitting Epitaph Should We Give Late Hon. Dr. Aminu Safana?

The show of shame going on in the House of Representatives took a tragic turn this afternoon as one of the members of the House lost his life. The member, Aminu Safana (PDP Katsina), chairman of the House Committee on Health, collapsed on the floor of the House during another rowdy session. He was rushed to the National Hospital, Abuja, where he was pronounced dead. Aminu Safana was very active on the floor of the House today as he jumped up and down in ecstasy during their rowdy meeting. The pro-Etteh and anti-Etteh groups had engaged each other in a free-for-all fight–  ELENDU REPORT

They say that we should not speak ill of the dead. And rightly so too; let the dead bury themselves. However, if we can condemn the excesses of late General Sani Abacha, if we can give a face to the corrupt period of Ohi Chuba Okadigbo as Senate president, then I think I have a legitimate right to imagine; what befitting epitaph we should give to the late Dr. Aminu Safana, a man who died in the process of denying Nigeria the right to sanity and a new beginning.

I had tried very hard to stay off the discussions on the obscene development going on at the National Assembly and particularly the one concerning the allegation of corruption rocking the lower house. I thought it was best to stay off following it and or commenting about it. However, when things started getting difficult to swallow, the wise thing is to spill such thing out before suffocation.

I recalled how hard I had wept when Obasanjo gave Nigeria a befitting send off election before going into his present obscurity and irrelevance. I recalled that since then I became less interested in any product of the last April 2007 elections. I even stopped listening to news or reading newspaper until the outcry came regarding the corruption scandals at the Nigerian National Assembly. Friends were writing or calling asking me if they could come to Abuja and get contracts to refurbish legislative quarters because they heard it was the “in thing” in Nigeria now! It was at this point that I started to take curious interests in the fiasco. I listened to news and smiled to myself knowing that I expected nothing more interesting from the system.

Last Wednesday 17^th October 2007, I heard the horrifying news that as consequence of the chaos at the lower house of assembly, a member slummed and died. There was no autopsy performed on him to search for the possible cause of death; he was buried the next day according to Islamic rites. This member of the legislative branch had been a medical doctor, one of the best trained doctors in Nigeria, the finest.

The death on its own does not call for special dedication from me. I am too occupied in several other things to worry my head about someone who was a sworn defender of Madam Speaker, the “proven” thief of the highest order. Ordinarily, the doctor knew what he was into and for which he paid an ultimate price. And records of history will be there to remind his children, our children and generations of Nigerian on the ridicule of the circumstances that prompted the death of the doctor. But my concern is to regurgitate and ruminate over those things that do not make sense to me before they suffocate me.

It was only some hours ago it occurred to me the illogicality of this dramatic- (not tragic) death. Dr. Safana had been trained in some of the best universities of the world, and by implication, he must have been someone of impeccable intelligence. He studied in the prestigious University of Leeds in London. Such finely intelligent, a first-class brain, a medical doctor, one with the finest fingers who became the fan, the umbrella-carrying-town crier and chief supporter of a common hair dresser and died in the processes of fighting to defend the political suicide of this hairdresser. (Hair dressing is the profession reserved for the less intelligent Nigerians, the ones who are not brilliant enough to be admitted into polytechnic, college of education or university or to get paid employment in environment requiring intelligence or mental exercises such as banks, stock exchange, insurance, marketing non-profit or teaching.)

Dr. Safana was born in April 1961 and attended the following excellent academic institutions; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he studied medicine. He also attended University of Leeds and University of London for his post-graduate studies. A public health consultant, Dr. Safana soon joined politics where he rose to become the Chairman House Committee on Health. He was at a point, secretary to Kastina State Government when President Yaradua presided over that state.

I am still having enormous troubles understanding whatever logic that must be involved in this medical doctor-hair dresser affairs that led to his death. I am not only trying to put the puzzle together, I am also wondering about the shame that this honorable must have brought upon his own family, his own associates and most of all his own legacy. Henceforth what shall the intelligentsia write as an epitaph to remember Hon. Dr. Aminu Safana? “Here lies Honorable Safana… A medical man of honor who died defending the financial scandals of a hairdresser from Ibadan”? The so-called hairdresser is not a first-class hair dresser who is over-priced with her touch of sensitive and luxuriously fluffy hair of rich tycoons in Lagos State (Ikoyi, V. I, Ikeja, Parkview…and so on) or Abuja, or Kano, or Port Harcourt, (because then one might easily imagine that she must have been one of the best in the trade). But she is the type that must have worked on stubborn hair of wives of Oshun and Oyo State political miscreants, and their garrison commander godfathers!

I recall the period of certificate forgery scandals against ex-Governor Tinubu of Lagos State’s when he had erroneously claimed to have been a graduate of Government College Ibadan. The response was spontaneous; ex-students of the college responded denying his studentship; their Alma matter must not be dragged into the mud of a drowning man. And that was the case. I wonder why the graduates from the prestigious University of Leads have not spoken to denounce the shame that this graduate doctor must have caused them and the name of their school. Should I, a graduate of Ogun State University, beginning to stop regretting not getting admitted into Leeds because after all, fine graduates from Leeds are placard carrying-soul-rendering followers of “common Nigerian hairdresser.” Perhaps Leeds is not as prestigious or distinguished and unique as I imagined.

Here lies the remains of Hon. Dr. Aminu Safana; member National Assembly (PDP Katsina), Chairman of the House Committee on Health…the strong pillar and “supporter of Madam Speaker- a hairdresser- in the on-going struggle between her critics and her opponents regarding the N628 million house refurbishing contract scandal”