Ijebu Igbo was thrown into a despairing wail at the passing of their illustrious son, Senator Buruji Kashamu on August 7, 2020. The underclass, the masterclass and the metropolitan elite all wore sombre faces at the burial of a man many perceived to be larger than life in his rustic, sleepy, silent, and unobtrusive land of the Alowolodus and Kashamus.
The burial of Senator Buruji Kashamu brought tears to many eyes at a moment of potent reminder that a man of uncommon touch and humanity had departed for the beyond. Again, his death is a reminder that a fatherly protector, brother, comforter, lifter, destiny shaper, grassroots empowerer and an able representative of his community was snatched away by COVID-19 complication.
His death, like many other untimely deaths through COVID-19 pandemic, has aid us in our quest for the meaning of life in its fragility and viciousness. COVID-19 has offered us a rare chance to interrogate our relationship with one another; it has given us the opportunity to rethink the ephemerality of our time here, it has the given us the chance to remodel our life for the service of mankind in terms of legacy of kindness, generosity and the happiness of the greatest number.
The social and kinship solidarity his death engendered in the minds of his teeming admirers was infectious. Buruji in life touched many lives in a transformative way and his death was like a bullet to the heart. He gave his Ijebu Igbo constituency a sense of belonging. The crowd pulling power at his burial was just the index of how he was revered with almost sensational fascination from the old to the young, from friends and even his foes. The reaction to his loss by his people transformed into a raw cry of social protest against the total neglect of the Nigerian government toward the people they govern.
Until his death, Buruji, also known as Esho Jinadu and Kasmal proved that the Nigerian nation was a poor vessel for the progressive ideals he had in mind for his people of Ijebu Igbo. He gladdened the desert and parched land of his Ijebu Igbo constituency. The wilderness rejoiced and blossomed under his senatorial watch. He gave hope to the hopeless. He scattered sunshine in the place of darkness and shed abroad joy to the joyless. Above all, he lived a life of egalitarian perfection. He constructed a lexicon of genial affability, brotherly support to the needy, and that image of a man who was always ready to support the good, the bad and the ugly. People embraced his effortless confidence, his trail blazing direct kindness, his innovating liberal impulse, which at death, gave rise to the adulation we all saw from his admirers.
Yes, in as much as we may valorise or glamorise his good deeds, at the same time there are some of his irritating orthodoxies we must re-examine in our effort to arrive at a balanced narrative of this uncommon politician. Buruji has consistently polarised opinion both in life and even in death. He was not a prophet, warrior, writer, sage, or a king. He was a controversial senator, a thief, drug dealer, deceiver, con artist, perjurer, and evader of justice. So many myths have been woven around the life and time of this hope-giving, lovable and absconded villain.
His politics questioned our impulse for integrity and honour in the character of our elected politicians. His name, till date, evokes both adulation and revulsion. On the moral high ground, many of us who believe in integrity, moral rectitude and accountability must scold Buruji for his many despicable heists, his unpalatable past and the shady story of his wealth. To his captive faint hearts, Buruji may be a messiah – the ersatz Robin Hood who robbed others to feed the poor, the weak, the despised and the oppressed.
To the hard-hearted political purists, moral extremists and other integrity driven mortals, Buruji was part of the crowd who brought decadence to our politics and society through their dark past, their profligacy and their affluenza instinct to overspend at social functions in a manner that calls to question the source of such wealth. A viral video of Buruji’s ‘naira encounter’ with KWAM 1 (Wasiu Ayinde) was a classic subculture of gangster rapper manner of spending. Buruji, the spendaholic, doled out mint naira in bale to the waiting forehead of smiling Igi Jegede, the ultimate!
If we could condemn Naira Marley, Davido and Wizkid for polluting popular music with their blockhead excesses of wine, women, bling, sex, drug, disrespect for money and artistic hooliganism, what do we say of any politician who behave like them? If we could all condemn Hushpupi, Mompha and Woodberry for bringing global pariah on Nigeria and Nigerians through sophisticated online scamming, what do we then say of any politician who is their alter ego?
In life, Buruji was able to mask his character flaws with his status, his visibility, his privilege, his senatorial immunity, and his wealth. If we juxtaposed Buruji with a man of chequered character, the wisdom of Solomon and the intelligence of Odysseus, but has no socially recognised badges of honour like wealth, privilege, political office and immunity, such a fictive character would have been treated with raw snob and indifference in life and in death.
In the millennial, what I found unsettling is the manner we have lowered our integrity and moral requirement for public office holders. Our society and politics have opened their arms to accommodate people with bad reputation and bad breath.
We now allow the bad and the ugly, people of moral fickleness, and men with money but without substance to shape our social, cultural, and political values. The effect of this is now seen everywhere. Nigerian now breeds executive parasites. Our Senate and House of Representatives have both become a bonafide collection of degenerates. We now run a democracy of demerit, cabal, godfatherism, (Adams Oshiomhole is bent on imposing a man of moral stench called Ize-Iyamu as next Governor of Edo State), certificate forgers, drug pushers, money launderers, incompetent fools, money bags and dodgy characters.
Daily, we fall on the classic Joseph Conrad way and we all go native – meaning, adopting the customs, habits, and way of life of those we see and live with. And who do we see in our politics? What sort of characters shape our political destiny in Nigeria? They are mostly criminals of questionable past who had dabbled in drug dealing, money laundering, looting, certificate forgery, perjury, scandalous heists, violence, like Elisha Abbo, ritualists and sexually immoral. The lack of role models among our politicians have made our young and old to look wistfully at the direction Naira Marley, Davido, Wizkid, Hushpupi, Mompha and Woodberry for direction. We are all witnesses to the roaring emergence of a Naira Marley and his millions of no bra, no pant Marlians who regard him as their president. How perfidious!
In the end, Nigeria has been transformed into a land of Sodom and Gomorrah where we have gone past redemption. However, before death, Buruji received redemption and that rare penitence which he rolled into good work, philanthropy, and communitarian happiness. He was able to buy the heart of his people with his money. There is currently a sublime sentiment to canonise Buruji Kashamu as Robin Hood hero who used his exploits to better the lot of the poor.
The question is this: should our politicians be turning themselves into Robin Hood who will rob us as Governors for eight years and extra robbery at the Senate then turn corner at that moment of epiphany into a force for good?
There is another camp who see Buruji as a Houdini, the escapist, who escaped justice. Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo sees Buruji as a figure of tarnished reputation who absconded from US justice on charges of drug offences. But the people of Ijebu Igbo, his friend like Rueben Abati and many other admirers are in undying solidarity with him for his practical humanitarian spirit that made him scored 100 per cent on their hero scale!
Such is the character of politics in Nigeria: politicians polarise our opinions of who they are, they sabotaged our effort to speak the truth of who they are, but in the end we have to exert our objectivity and energise public discourse with the truth and nothing but the truth. May his soul rest in peace.