Professor Wole Soyinka’s Poem, titled: “The Man Died,” revolves around the theme of moral courage and the necessity for people to speak out against injustice, with metaphorical meaning that silence in the face of oppression and tyranny is a form of complicity. The titular phrase: “The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny,” encapsulates the idea that failing to resist or speak out against injustice causes a metaphorical death of one’s moral integrity and humanity.
But here in this piece, the man actually died physically and practically, after going through some kind of silent battles with unseen.
He is Alhaji Abdullahi Shuaibu Simpa, a retired police officer, a gentleman to the core and lover of the people around his vicinity and the world. He actually was a quiet and self secluded personality, but those who were close to him know that he was worth more than a passing glance.
Alhaji, as his younger siblings and some friends used to call him, served the nation mainly in the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Nigeria Police Force. He was one of the few police officers who came out of the service clean. He practically distanced himself from anything bribery and corruption. As a matter of fact, he retired as a senior police officer, and landed in poverty because he did not get any accumulated bribed millions of currencies to fall back on.
He only managed to develop a small plot of land he acquired from a family member shortly after his retirement. He pulled some resources together, including his retirement benefits to erect a portable three bedrooms in which he lived for nearly twenty years before he died.
His later days were made somewhat comfortable by his in-law, an Igbo man who married one of his younger sisters. The Igbo man was he who installed borehole in his small compound at Agassa in Okene Local Government Area of Kogi State. It was the Igbo man who bought a car for him, the car he was cleaning up a couple of days ago and had a dangerous fall: the fall that marked the last time he spoke and recognized where he was. He virtually passed out, of no return.
In fact, on his return from a morning devotion in a nearby Mosque at about 5.30am that day, he went into his room to change into boxer, came out to clean up the car. While doing the cleaning, he fell and hit his head on the cemented elevation. And that was all!!!
From then, he could neither talk nor do any other thing, including eating. He practically became unconscious.
He remained unconscious until Monday, May 13, 2024 when he finally gave up the ghost at the Reference Hospital in Okene.
In fact, that was not the first time he experienced sudden attack. Over 15 years ago, strange tropical sore seized his left leg shortly after his return from Saudi Arabia where he performed pilgrimage. The stubborn sore refused to go despite all kinds of medications, both orthodox and traditional/herbal treatments. It was by the special grace of God that the strange tropical sore, which was already disfiguring his leg, healed up.
Not long after the healing, about eight years ago, Alhaji Abdullahi also collapsed in the bathroom of his house, leading to partial stroke. The people around him; his wife, one of his younger sisters and her husband (yours humbly), as well as his brothers within reach, rose to the challenge. With prayers and constant monitoring as well as proper herbal treatments, he lived through the partial stroke, to the extent that he could move around effortlessly.
Alhaji Abdullahi, indeed, did not present a man coming from Force service. He was a complete epitome of gentleman; so gentle and almost always in happy mood so much that you could not define his moment of trial in the face of natural and man-made challenges. He was equally submissive to the opinions of even his younger ones, including his wife as if he admitted that everyone was right except him.
His gentle nature and “let-me-not-disturb-them” attitude probably contributed to the point at which no one could sense that he needed a helping hand in any situation. Help always came from those who kept close watch on him when his body system kind of showed, and the body protested, so to say.
When the message of his death came to my wife, Nurse Hajara Ohunene Shuaibu Simpa, his younger sister, in the early part of the evening of May 13, the first word that came forth from me was, “Yes, he tried.”
Of course, having followed his health challenges, having had the privilege of being one of those who stood by him, I meant every word when I said that Alhaji Abdullahi tried.
He proved beyond any doubt that he was a MAN; a man who refused to bow to the machinations of the evil ones; a man who lived in the midst of lions, leopards and hyenas but refused to be bended.
The death that knocked on his door on May 13 was definitely of God. At close to 80, with six children, almost all of them graduates, even with one of them in possession of Masters; with a life free of envy, rancour towards none and a life of happiness even in odd moments, Alhaji Abdullahi can be said to have been a fulfilled man. And above all, his strict attachment to his creator, Allah SWA, proved the point that obviously, he left this world on May 13 a very happy, fulfilled and satisfied man.
May the Almighty Allah forgive all his shortcomings, the ones he did intentionally and the ones he didn’t know he did, and admit him in Aljannatu Firdausi.
