By matthew ifeanyi maduako
Recently, there was a debate around the world as to whether a terminally sick person should be aided to end his/her life. Some people supported the idea while most people opposed it, arguing that a sick or terminally ill person should die naturally, no matter the excruciating pain he or she may be undergoing. Here in Nigeria, most state Governors have refused vehemently to append their signatures to death sentence for those in prison who have been convicted by the law court for execution. I remember Delta State governor. Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, saying that even though he is a medical doctor by profession, he found it reprehensible and morally wrong for him to append his signature for death execution. Most public officers whose duty it is to either spare the life of a convicted criminal or append their signatures for his/her execution, foot-drag to do so because of the moral burden it places on their conscience. This is not saying that most of these public officers do not surreptitiously assassinate people who disagree with them politically or otherwise. Their refusal to give the go-ahead openly to execute convicted-to-death criminals does not mean that they fear God, but to appear Godly before the public as people who fear God and cannot hurt a fly. This is not saying that some governors are not God-fearing, there are some of them who have never sanctioned wittingly or unwittingly the death of any human being.
Doctors, nurses and other health workers join hands together and apply every knowledge they have to make sure one patient survives and lives.
Those who gave birth to imbeciles have not thrown them away or killed them but still call them their children even when they seem useless on this earth. No matter the nature of madness a man or woman is, s/he still has right to life. Mentally deranged people roam the streets , and constitute nuisance and eyesore to other people. But, even at that, no sane man or woman is allowed by law to kill that madman or woman. Of all the technological inventions of man on earth, man has been unable to create any living thing – even an ant. Man has gone to the moon. Man has done very well as God gives him power to possess the world and conquer it. God said, He created man in His own image after His likeness and gave him power to do everything God can do. But, man has not had arty breakthrough in creating any smallest thing with blood in its arteries and veins.
All the foregoing illustrates the sacredness and sanctity of the human life. Shedding of the blood of another man is the most despicable atrocity or sin any man can commit in this world. No man, no matter the provocation, is allowed to kill another man advertently or inadvertently. The only people empowered by law to kill are the military, police eta!. Military and police are licensed to kill in combat situation or when faced with imminent or impending danger of being killed by_ criminals. A military man or police officer, who kills another man extra-judicially, has law of retributive justice, law of Karma and ultimately the judgment of God to contend with hereafter. Now, as the 2015 general elections approach, there is need for those in authority to check the proliferations of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWJ. This is necessary to avoid dubious, evil-hearted politicians arming thugs to kill their opponents for material things of this world. The president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan made my day recently when he said, inter alia, that before God, there is nothing like President, Governors, Ministers, etc. All these positions will end here on earth, but the deeds of men are what will be brought before God.
That post you are contesting which you see as a do or die affair is not novel. There i$ no post in Nigeria today that is new. Posts of President, Governors, Senators, House of Representatives, House of Assembly are not new.. People had occupied them in the past and vacated them| Most people who occupied such positions have even died and had gone to give account of their lives too their maker, God. It is only a fool who says there is no God. If there is no God, how did you come into this world? You may say you come into this world through the fusion of sperm and egg. Good answer. But, who created sperir and egg? Atheists say man evolved through Ape from million years of existence. Beautiful, but who created that Ape?
The bottom line is that we humans come from a source. We did not just landed here on planet earth. At the end of the day, you must go back to your source which is your maker. Even if the Bible and Koran are false (which is not likely), and also there is no Heaven or Hell, you do not lose anything here on earth if you live righteously or if you do not have any man’s blood all over your hands. I am not a righteous man according to Bible standard, and I don’t even know if I drop dead today I can make heaven, but one thing I know is that I can never involve myself in willingly killing a human being who has right to life like myself. I often told my friends that if most people on earth are like me, with all modesty, there will be no need for military or police bearing arms everywhere. When you kill a father, you have brought everlasting pain, untold hardship to the wife and children, just because he shows interest in a post you a so have interest in. When you kill a mother you have rendered the children motherless, and the man a widower. When you kill that young man whose parents, wife and children look up to, and who should actually burry his parents, the pain you have inflicted on them is unpardonable. You want to kill that man or woman so that you can win that position, make a name for yourself, steal money for your children and wife so that they can be comfortable even to the fourth generation.
Does it mean that you arid your family are the ones entitled to life and good living while your opponent and his family should be killed or subjected to eternal pain? That post you want to kill your opponent is not your father’s property. It is a common patrimony. Anybody who is 18 years and above is entitled to vote and be voted fori if-he or she also has requisite qualifications as required by law. Power comes from God. If it is by might, President Goodluck Jonathan should not be our president today because I know he cannot be the best killer, if at all he has ever killed anybody. It is only riff-raffs who allow themselves to be used a$ thugs in elections. The man using you as thugs cannot use his children, and he himself may never have been a thug as a youth. A thug can never rise to a position of prominence or authority, because the man using you knows that you are only good for killing, and not intellectually. Mr. assassin or thug, the day you came to this world as a boy, your parents were full of joy. There was naming ceremony which the society attended and rejoiced with your parents thinking that a future doctor, engineer, lawyer, business man, journalist etc was born not knowing that they were celebrating the birth of a killer, an assassin, an armed robber, a cultisfand somebody who now lives most of the time in the bush smoking Indian hemp and being used as an assassin. For those who use youths as cannon folders, if people who are stronger than you had killed you in your infant, adolescent, youthful years, and even now, you would not be alive hire thugs to kill people. No man is the strongest man from birth. People who are stronger than you spared your life, so those whom you are stronger than today deserve not be killed by you. Life is sacred.
Matthew Ifeanyi Maduako Writes from Owerri 08061562735
