It has been announced that former President Muhammadu Buhari passed away in London. Anyone familiar with my writings and commentary knows I vigorously disagreed with many of his policies and decisions while he was president. Our differences were deep, and my criticisms unrelenting.
Yet, news of his passing evokes pathos and an inexplicable sense of loss in me. Death has a humbling power. It reminds us of our shared human fragility, our inevitable mortality, and the transient nature of power, ambition, and even resentment.
I am troubled to see some people celebrating or mocking his passing. Death comes for us all. It is indifferent to politics, power, or privilege. We diminish ourselves when we rejoice in another’s demise. Someday, inevitably, our own turn will come. As Charles Franklin once famously said, “No one gets out of this life alive.”
Today is not a moment for bitterness. It should be an occasion for solemn reflection, for empathy with his grieving family, and perhaps an opportunity for all of us to reconsider how we choose to live, debate, and disagree. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un!
Farooq Kperogi is a renowned columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism.