Introduction
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary who succeeded her father King George VI at his death as Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms on the 6th of February 1952 and took the name Queen Elizabeth II after a reign of 70 years finally transited from this world to the next on 8th September 2022 at a ripe age of 96 years. May her soul rest in peace.
This column this week is not necessarily about the life and times of the Queen but to select certain aspects of the events surrounding her last illness, death and burial and put forward lessons to be learnt by Nigerian leaders and citizens.
Illness
As the Head of State of her nation states, the health status of the Queen was not shrouded in mystery as it’s wont to happen in Nigeria. The citizens were fully kept abreast of the Queen’s health status through statements issued by Buckingham palace. In Nigeria notably during the presidency of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and more recently President Buhari, Nigerian citizens were/have being kept in the dark about the health status of their leaders to the point that citizens filled the scarcity of information with rumours such as President Yar’Adua had died in Saudi Arabia and his body repatriated under the cover of darkness and a cabal was ruling in his name and President Buhari is a clone. Those who aspire to leadership must understand that their lives matter to those they lead, in the same way the health status of a pilot matters to all passengers onboard the flight. If the pilot wanted to keep his health status private, then he shouldn’t step forward to captain a jet with other souls onboard.
The same thing applies to leadership where citizens submit their individual security and welfare to a sovereign leader who must be transparent to them about whatever it is that’s happening to his/her health. When a leader’s illness is made public as with the Queen’s, it tends to bring the whole nation to prayer for the leader’s wellbeing. If on the other hand a cabal is playing games with a leader’s health status, it riles the citizens to even mock the leader instead of praying for him or her. I recall how much emotions and empathy were poured out to King Hussein of Jordan by his citizens and globally when he went public that he had terminal cancer, and he flew his plane back to Jordan to die! The lesson for Nigerian leaders current and future is that if they don’t want their health status to be public knowledge, they should simply not aspire to leadership and stay out of the public eye.
Death
The death of the Queen was promptly announced. There was no room left for speculation and rumour mongering. It was the right thing to do, and the nation was brought together in unison to mourn her whether nationalist or republican in political persuasion. The transfer of power from the Queen to her eldest son – now King Charles III – was also seamless. In Nigeria transfer of power even in the traditional institution is often riddled with power tussles, infighting, communal crisis leaving dead bodies in its trail, and court cases. This struggle for power is often for selfish reasons and nothing to do with delivery of service to the people. Nigerian leaders must learn the lesson in orderly transition of power knowing that power itself is transient and we will all die and leave the trappings of power behind one day!
Funeral Arrangements
The Queen died on 8th September and was buried 11 days later on the 19th of September despite the invitation to over 100 world leaders who were expected to attend or send delegations. In Nigeria, a VIP of such calibre will be kept in the mortuary for months. Worst are poor people in villages who instead of burying their dead promptly keep them in mortuaries in the name of looking for money to do burial, but the mortuaries keep sucking money from them daily for months or even for over a year!
Mortuary business is now one of the fastest growing businesses in Nigeria and units are now found located in some of the remotest and poorest communities across the nation! Nigerians must learn the lesson that prolonged storage of corpses neither brings back the dead to life nor provides money for the wasteful and elaborate funerals. Our Muslim brethren have the upper hand here with prompt committal of the dead and the Christians and others must copy because no where in the Bible is the practice of storing corpses preached. Even Jesus Christ was buried same day he died!
Orderly conduct
The Queen’s body lay-in-state at Edinburgh and London allowing the citizens to file past in final respects to their monarch. Expectedly the queues were long and in London at a point running to 5 miles and 22 hours of waiting yet there was no disruption, and everything went orderly in Edinburg and London. There were no area boys disrupting the queue and no gun totting security men shoving, beating, and shooting at citizens to pave way for their paymasters to jump the queue.
VIPs such as David Beckham queued for over 12 hours to take his turn. The reason people waited for up to 22 hours patiently was because they saw every person queuing, and nobody was jumping the queue, so they knew it was only a matter of time before it got to their turn. Nigerian leaders must learn lessons here that citizens will in the normal course of proceedings behave orderly if leaders don’t create room for favouritism and also provide adequate security to nip in the bud any deviants so that the vast majority of citizens will live their lives in peace and orderliness.
Funeral Service
The funeral service lasted for 1 hour! In Nigeria that is the time for the preacher alone! Then dignitaries will take time to real out the titles of personalities and then conclude by standing on all existing protocols. There was no sign of uniformed officers sitting at the back of the King and other world leaders. No gun totting security pushing and shoving in the greatest act of eye service to impress their paymasters. A gathering of over 100 world leaders had no visible sign of security yet the security was watertight and top notch with no security incident recorded. Security can be effectively and efficiently provided without the commotion by uniformed officers we witness in Nigeria.
Notably also, the Queen’s coffin was simple and made of oak wood and not the expensive caskets that Nigerians including the poor spend fortunes to buy and then bury in the ground! There were no elaborate adverts on radio, newspapers, TV and other media by individuals and organisations falling over each other to be recognised as having paid tributes to the Queen all in the bid to win favours from her son the King later!
Normalcy Restored
Immediately after the Queen’s burial, the royal family took off a few days to mourn and thereafter life has returned to normal with the King since resumed to work and the Prime Minister and other government officials back to their normal beats. The news media also do not mention the Queen anymore. She has played her part and given a befitting farewell but the business for the living must now go ahead. In Nigeria there will be no governance for weeks and months to come as the leaders will still be receiving delegation after delegation paying condolence visits and looking for brown envelopes thereafter. We have no value for time and just waste it in the same way we are wasting gas in the Niger Delta as if it has no value!
Conclusion
If Nigeria is to be a great nation, we must not only copy the Range Rovers, well-tailored Suits, fine architecture, expensive smart phones etc. from the British, we must also copy character and the character of the leaders determines the character of the led. In the Bible, when a King (a single individual) worshipped idols, the people followed him to worship idols and when that King (the leader) followed after God’s heart, the people followed him to worship God. In 2023, let us all do our part by using our voter’s card to elect leaders with CHARACTER!!!
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