The Ekweremadu saga: A camusean tragedy

BY GODSWILL OKIYI

Albert Camus, a French dramatist known mainly for Absurd plays, wrote essentially of the hopelessness of human existence and experiences. Man was generally portrayed as living in cycles, devoid of a sense of direction, statism and dread. In a sense, his plays supported the Hobbesian notion of man’s existence being bestial and his end brutish. Camus saw man as a marionette pulled by strings oft by a greater.

The recent experiences of Ekweremadu at Nuremberg Germany reflected the senseless and chaotic cycle man has fallen into. Happenings in the Country has accumulated, boiled over, and tipped over into violence, fear and dreadful existence. The former deputy Senate President’s collision with members of the IPOB represents how chaotic, frightening and insecure living in Nigeria, or being a Nigerian has become. The World has shrunk so much that occurrences in a place draws ripple effects in another distant location.

Audio-visual clips of happenings in Nigeria, no sooner spread like wildfire across the Globe, and impact forcefully on citizens of ethnic groups of different shades, languages and cultures. Little surprise that those Igbos who have had their emotions bottled up, allowed their anger, angst and animosities erupt without control, against a seeming betrayer of the Cause: the Igbo Cause. The claustrophobic sequence appears dreamlike and disjointed. Ekweremadu, a symbolic leader of Igbos given the length of time and positions he had held on the national platform being molested by the same people he represents, in a land far away from home.

As illogical and mazy as the drama was, it was not without its climaxes and anti-climaxes. Personally, the highest point was the embarrassment meted Ekweremadu, but the lows were more. The embarrassment to Nigeria, the Igbo nation, the Cause for which they were protesting against and other dynamics fell away from expectations hoped for.

Images of an Ekweremadu denuded of his high office, with features looking fearful and panicky while fleeing from the mob may provide mirth for many an unforgiving Nigerians, the experience will resonate again and again, against the cause for which the group represent.

Dr Okiyi lives in Keffi, Nasarawa state.