Abodunrin as metaphor

The Concourse

By award-winning columnist, Soney Antai

• Abodunrin as metaphor
  (First published in WatchmanPost edition of 02.04.2025)

  As you are reading this, Joseph Abodunrin is no more. Well, what does it matter? You don’t even know who he was, or do you? I bet that more than  98% concoursites never knew him, and never will, except perhaps in the resurrection of the just and unjust when class will be of no relevance, and it will be justice unparalleled to each and all according to what they did while alive. But it is sad to talk about him in the past.
  Aged only 25, Joseph Abodunrin (hereinafter referred to as JA) did not have to die that way, but he did because Nigeria happened to him. He took his life over the increasing hardship in our country. According to The Punch, JA was reported to have been nursing the desire to kill himself. On March 9 this year, he is said to have taken to his X account tweeting, “I have asked myself several times why I should fight and keep fighting to stay alive, and I have not gotten any meaningful answer ever since. I really don’t see any reason to continue here.”  Later on, he further wrote, “But March is a decision month. … I didn’t create myself, no power over the gene I inherited or the parents I was born through …. I have tried to seek help, but absolutely made it worse…I’m practising self-compassion through this whole process, regardless of whatever decision I make.”
  Then came March 24.JA descended into the valley of decision with eternal cost and consequences. That day, he asked the world to stop for him to alight from it, when he is said to have tweeted, “I’m sorry I failed you guys, I couldn’t just do it anymore… No matter how I explain it. You won’t understand!!!” JA’s world did stop and he alighted from it. It was the last flight from life this side of heaven.
  JA hailed from Dagbolu community in Osogbo Local Government Area of Osun State, but his experience – hardship-enhanced mental torture – is a pan-Nigeria experience, hugely worsened under the taxocratic regime of PBT. Sadly, just as those close to him didn’t seem to get the message he kept sharing on X way back in January, many around today, especially the political weevil class, don’t care about what the masses of this country are tweeting on a daily basis.
  There seems to be increasing number of suicides in Nigeria lately. In their study, “Suicide in Nigeria: observations from the content analysis of newspapers”, Tosin Philip Oyetunji, S M Yasir Arafat, Stephen Oluwaseyi Famori, Timilehin Blessing Akinboyewa, Michael Afolami, Moyo Faith Ajayi, and Sujita Kumar Kar (2020), studied 350 suicide cases reported in Nigerian English newspapers.  In their intro to the work, the authors noted, “Nigeria with a population of over 200million is one of the epicentres of suicide in the world with a suicide estimate of 17.3 per 100,000, which is higher than the global (10.5 per 100,000) and Africa (12.0 per 100,000) estimates.
  According to global statistics, “since 2012 there has been an increase in suicide in the country.”    This is not cladding the country in glorious cloaks, especially when, as studies have indicated, chief among causal variables for suicide is depression. And Nigeria “currently, has been reporting the highest number of depression cases in Africa”, the authors reveal! For a country with so much to go round, this is simply horrible! But what if I told you that even that number seems grossly faulted as it doesn’t reflect the full picture, which is certainly higher than what is reported. But just in case, anyone chooses to play the emu, burying their heads in the sand of partisan political fanaticism or sheer  mischief, we must remember that Nigeria has remained the poverty headquarters of the world since 2018!
  The authors’ findings included the fact that “majority of the reported cases were male (80.6%), married (51.8%), students (33.6%), living in a semi-urban area (40.3%).” The number of student suicides certainly correlates with that of the married males, who rank highest among the dead by suicide.
  Did JA have to die? Was he the only one suffering from the T-Pain typhoon? Why couldn’t he hold on a little longer? Your answers are as good as mine. Nigerians don’t deserve what they are getting. Most of our power elite only stole the seats of power they occupy. They didn’t do so for altruistic reasons. It was all for self-centred purposes. May the death of JA and many others remind our tormentors that they too will die and, therefore, begin to tear down the excruciating policies and economic gangsterism they have brought upon a country so blessed and yet so benighted.

  Burkina Faso – Leadership on parade    At a time when most rulers in Africa are busy collecting loans from their mental masters in the IMF and the so-called World Bank, and sharing much of it among themselves and their cronies, the world’s youngest national leader is showing Africa the way to go. Ibrahim Traore, who took power at 35, is redefining governance from the stand point of self dependence. He has in one fell swoop built 55 hospitals, is constructing free houses for his country men, has rejected IMF loans, refused Saudi Arabia’s offer to build 200 (wait for it) mosques, not factories, or schools. As president, he still earns the salary of an army captain. He has raised the pay of civil servants, reduced the number of ministers and their salaries. He has announced that money realised from the massive gold deposit discovered in his country will be shared to all Burkinabes. He has made good his “eat what you control” slogan by deploying thousands of tractors to boost agriculture. That guy knows where to go, and he’s getting there.