The price of indifference

By Yinka  Odumakin

THE scripture in the book of Numbers told the story of how when Israel was staying in Shittim, its men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women. The adulterous  women invited them to the sacrifices of their gods and the people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. In the process, Israel  became yoked to the Baal of Peor and the Lord’s anger burned against them.

God then instructed  Moses to take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel. As the Prophet was relaying God’s instructions, an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. The whole assembly watched in shock except Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest who went for his spear and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach.

Woman’s stomach

Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped. Before he acted, those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. Only God knows the number that would have perished that day if one man was not zealous enough to act. I have always juxtaposed the above story with the experience shared by the Acting President of Nigeria, Prof .Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) at a National Transformation programme hosted by Rev. Sam Adeyemi’s Daystar Christian Centre at the National Stadium in Lagos some 11years ago.

The Law Professor had related his experience in some refugee camp in Liberia while on a UN assignment during the war in that country. He said he saw a man  in a ragged suit with sunken cheeks covered with unkempt beards. He was holding a bowl eagerly waiting to collect his ration. He said there was nothing unusual about such in a refugee camp until he was told the man was the former Chief Justice of the country. He said may be a bold pronouncement from his court could have altered the turn of events in the country!

The moral of the two stories above is the price our country is paying for the culture of indifference pervading our society. Our moral columns have collapsed largely on account of the prevailing atmosphere of “every one for himself and God for us all.” I cringed the other day when I read the report of some schoolboys on the Island raping some female students in the open in broad daylight and people only gathered to watch as if a magician was on display. But, this is the same society where I grew up fearing any parent in the neighbourhood the way we feared our parents. They would discipline you if you are caught in a wrong act and report to your parents later. Your parent would add his own portion rather than asking why he/she punished you.

Today, everybody only minds his own business. I was in a rich neighbourhood of multi-millionaires and billionaires the other day and a man was telling me how his neighbours refused to cooperate in making a refund to him for the construction on the major road they all use. Not that they don’t have but they just can’t be bothered by what is not for their exclusive use.How can such people push the government to serve the public good? They would rather run to a governor to give them contracts  that would benefit them personally rather than push for what would benefit the whole community!

Apart from the bad architecture of governance flowing from our dysfunctional structure,the next gravest impediment to our growth and development is our indifference to collective good and the pursuit of only self.

There was a time in our country that human life mattered to so much to us that a lone death in an accident would make the front page of a newspaper. It would take scores of deaths for any accident to make our front page these days. People watch horror images of torture and killings by Boko Haram and other murderous gangs sprawling around our country today as if they watch Nollywood movies.We are no longer moved by adversity. Dead bodies litter our roads and nobody cares.

This is why we must not be indifferent when we see powerful example of exemption to this malady demonstrated by any citizen as done by Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun recently at the burial of Senator Isiaka Adeleke in Ede, Osun State. As a direct fallout of insinuations that the late Senator did not die naturally a mob had descended on an indigene of the town, Ms .Idia Babalola, Special Adviser to Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, and were about to lynch her for showing up at the burial.

All guests took to their heels. But like Phinehas, the natural warrior in Amosun surfaced and he rose to the occasion. He shelved the toga of a Nigerian governor and swung into action. He fought within the mob. He struggled fist-to-fist. Having shown the way, his aides followed him in the rescue mission. His ADC suffered a cut in the head with a flying pebble. Amosun risked his life and that of his aides in a desperate bid to avert bloodshed. God took care of the rest and ensured the lady was saved and and the governor and his aides left the scene in peace. It was a performance and an unusual courage in the midst of a bloodthirsty mob.But history has recorded Amosun for not reading too much of “Far From The Madding Crowd “.Greater courage has no public official shown in our clime in recent history .

By stepping forward at the decisive moment, Amosun did not just save a lady’s life but also altered what could have been a cycle of bloodletting in Ede.The community would have had to mourn Babalola after Adeleke.Babalola’s family would probably lay ambush someday for some of the attackers identified.The vicious cycle could have continued.

The courageous and heroic intervention of Amosun fits him in the classic heroes in Prof. Wole Soyinka’s works.The renowned playwright had come under the critical lens of the school of communal heroism for his take in Kongi’s Harvest that the best yam will not come out of the collective farm but from Dawodu’s.Can we truly divorce the role of individuals in history?

Eleanor Roosevelt must have whispered in Amosun’s ears afterwards: “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’  The lesson we can take from the incident is that society gains something when we step out of our comfort zone to do the needful.When we don’t, there is a pride society pays for our indifference. May Amosun’s tribe increase in our clime.

 

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