Posted by Joe Igbokwe, Lagos on
I was in serious shock when a good friend, Ikenna Uche called me on phone in the evening of Wednesday, September 21, 2005, to say that our own activist, pro-democracy campaigner, and humanist, Mr. Chima Ubani had just died in a car crash in Yobe State.
I was in serious shock when a good friend, Ikenna Uche called me on phone in the evening of Wednesday, September 21, 2005, to say that our own activist, pro-democracy campaigner, and humanist, Mr. Chima Ubani had just died in a car crash in Yobe State. The news was like a dagger drawn into my heart knowing the that Chima had devoted all his life since he left the University of Nigeria in the 1980s to struggling for a better society.
In the years of the locusts (1993-1998), Chima Ubani was in the forefront of the struggle to free Nigeria from the firm grip of ruthless and heartless dictators. When the struggle for our second independence ended in 1998, Chima knew that the struggle had just begun, and that it is not over until it is over.
Since 1999, this fighter had been doing what he knew best -- to continue to prick the conscience of Nigerian leaders.
Chima Ubani, who was one of the conscience of this nation, one of the finest souls to tread the political landscape, a trusted ally in the struggle for freedom and social justice, had to die in the battle front, in a bid to bring hope to the common man.
I am deeply pained that Ubani who did not die in the days of military dictators had to die in a democratic dispensation. He would have been alive today if Abuja did not hike the prices of petroleum products, which was uncalled for and unnecessary in a nation that is earning so much from crude oil sales. We are all shamed as a nation by the death of this young man that meant well for Nigeria.
To all intents and purposes, the death of Comrade Chima Ubani diminishes me. It has made me to look so little. It has again brought to the fore the obvious and painful fact that life is meaningless and disturbingly cheap in Nigeria.
I take solace in the fact that it is better to die in action or in the struggle for what you believe in than to die for nothing. Adieu, our own Chima. Adieu, you bright and illustrious son of Nigeria.