For Want of Heroes

By

Kevin Etta Jr.

kettaj@msn.com

 

 

It was Sunday, March 6, and tens of thousands of Italians queued quietly in the rain, waiting for their chance to file past the coffin of Nicola Calipari as his body lay in state in the marbled Victor Emmanuel monument before Monday's funeral. There was the occasional outburst of raw emotion as people reached out to touch the coffin draped in an Italian flag and stood still for a moment, before walking back down the steps in silence.

 

At his state funeral on Monday, mourners stood as an honor guard slowly carried the casket, draped with an Italian flag, into Santa Maria degli Angeli Church. In the front row, Calipari's relatives gripped each other's hands and dabbed away tears.

 

Nicola Calipari was an Italian military intelligence (SISMI) officer. He was shot and killed by U.S. occupation forces in Iraq while escorting a recently released Italian hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena, to Baghdad International Airport. As the vehicle carrying Sgrena and Calipari approached U.S. Checkpoint 504-Camp Victory, American troops opened fire on it under highly questionable and disputable circumstances. In an attempt to shield her from the gunfire, Calipari threw himself on top of Sgrena and took a bullet in the temple that killed him instantly.

 

In a war that has killed over 1,685 Coalition soldiers including over 1,510 Americans, in a war that has killed an estimated 198,000 Iraqi citizens, it at first may seem trifling to single out one person. What is it about Calipari that makes him special amid all the carnage, amid all the other families who are mourning their dead? Part of the answer to that question lays undoubtedly in the manner in which he met his demise. Calipari was an Italian government agent who died not while saving the life of a senior member of the Italian government, or protecting the life of a superior officer of the security services. Calipari was a government agent who died while saving the life of an ordinary Italian citizen, journalist Guiliana Sgrena, who had traveled to Iraq in the wake of the American assault on the city of Falluja to cover the event and was later taken captive by unidentified insurgent militias.

 

Gazing at the photograph of this man, I found myself wondering what would make a handsome young man like him voluntarily, and without hesitation, die for another citizen  of his country from whom he could expect no reward, with whom he had no relations, and whom, in all probability, he did not know from Adam? What kind of man dies for another? A man who is also an official of his country’s government?

 

For a non-African, perhaps, that question may seem silly. But for somebody with African roots and a Nigerian experience to boot, the question is all too pertinent considering ours is a country on the wane for want of heroes like Calipari who would put themselves in harms way, give of themselves willingly, and utilize their good offices to save and redeem others from the vale of despair and deprivation.

 

Nicola Calipari was obviously a man that was taller than the office or position he held in the government of his country. He was obviously a man given to a love of humanity and the upholding of human dignity. This was a credo to which he subscribed with religious fervor, hence his quest to restore the stolen dignity and freedoms of Guilinana Sgrena at all costs, even at cost to his own life. Nicola Calipari must have been a lover of men, a man of deep practical faith in a Supreme Creator who is the ultimate judge of all and to whom all will render account. He was a man who loved his neighbor as himself, and even more so than himself. Calipari is a product of a Western culture that eschews indignity, poverty, and inhumanity and promotes prosperity, security, and a social system that extends the hand of fellowship and succor to the less privileged.

 

This is of especial note in light of the wanton neglect and impoverishment being occasioned on the Nigerian citizenry by the present administration with rabid earnest and determination. Nigerians are a noble people traditionally given to hospitality and brotherhood, but who in the last 20 years and particularly in the last 6 have been pushed too far afield by a policy of maladministration, neglect, and outright corruption by those in power thereby turning them into one of the most intolerant, restive, and malevolent peoples in the world today, primed with a thirst for bloodletting and any other available outlet by which they might ventilate their seething and patent tribal, political, and social tensions.

 

A recent study of secure versus insecure societies across the globe found Houston, Texas to be among the most secure places in the world and certain parts of the Nigerian southeast, in particular the Delta areas, to be the most unsafe in the world comparable only to Iraq. In Nigeria, the citizenry have been forced to source for alternative measures to ensure the security of lives and property – a responsibility since neglected by both the Federal and State governments over the last 6 years of the Obasanjo administration – through an admixture of ethnic cum political militias of different shades and hue. And as is always the result of such alternate sourcing of local security and protection (see Afghanistan and Iraq) the service providers typically evolve into parallel governments threatening the corporate unity and stability of the country. Now we have OPC, NDPVF, MASSOB, etc., each capable of making proclamations that can hardly be challenged by the official government. And where has the government been all the time that these groups have grown and become strong? The government has either been junketing all around the world ostensibly in search of foreign direct investments, or praying for God’s guidance in solving problems that it was, itself, both the creator and instigator. At other times, the government was very busy rolling out economic reform programs that it, itself, admitted would lead to impoverishment of millions of Nigerians, asking them to have patience because those of them that survive will have more of plenty to share amongst less of starved.

 

Our President recently prayed, again, for God’s intervention in winning the battle against “corruption.” To Obasanjo, corruption begins and ends with giving and taking bribes. But what about the corruption that was evident in mobilizing for the removal of different leaders of the National Assembly from 1999 to date? What about allegations that members of the presidency had offered ‘Ghana-must-go’ bags to effect the removal of Ghali Na’Abba in particular, evidence of which was manifestly shown to all? Why have we needed to have 6 Senate Presidents in 6 years but only one President of the republic during the same period?

 

What has happened to the clear and unambiguous ruling of the Supreme Court directing the Federal government to release Council funds to the Lagos state government? Funds, by the way, that the Federal government has no right to withhold to begin with? Our President went on air to say quite emphatically that he would not release those funds until Lagos state complied with the wishes of the Federal government – regardless of the ruling of the Supreme Court. Bear in mind that we are not talking about the egos of Lagos state or Federal government officials, but really about the salaries and emoluments of everyday, working, Nigerian men and women and by extension their families. What kind of humanity is that? What kind of religion and personal faith is it that allows some to wantonly and willfully impoverish others simply because they are in a position to do so, as it were unchallenged? Yet we are inundated daily with rancid sermons of religiosity from this President. A man, who in six years has no demonstrable humanity to offer Nigerians only his very uncouth, signature inhumanity.

 

Now, lo and behold, he has invited Benny Hinn the renowned televangelist, to come and offer up prayers and proclaim God’s blessing over Nigeria. Why do we have to call upon God in areas over which we have not first of all done our God-given duty? We have been taught to love our neighbor as ourselves and to esteem others as being better than we. How has Obasanjo fulfilled this injunction in the six years of his stewardship as Nigeria’s President? How have other government officials at the federal and state levels fulfilled this injunction to their constituencies? Recently, I read where Ambassador Greg Mbadiwe was making a case for extension of Obasanjo’s tenure to 2009 by saying: “it doesn’t hurt anybody.” How did he know that? Or was he speaking for himself alone?

 

Nigerians at large should see themselves as the servants of others and her officials as the servants of the people. Today we celebrate the demise of Abacha by demonizing his family, simply because the man is not here to respond. I’ll wager that if Babangida were also to have met his decease before or during the tenure of this administration Obasanjo would have pursued his family with equal gusto. But what about the corruption that is ongoing in the president’s own family? In more civilized societies, the mere fact that the president’s wife and family were implicated in a property scandal similar to the Ikoyi housing affair would have meant a significant weakening of the president’s authority and possibly even, ultimately, his resignation or impeachment. Instead this president sacked the minister before a public inquiry into what actually happened could take place, and he proceeded to apologize to those whose names were mentioned in connection with the sordid affair for the “embarrassment.” We are being asked to believe that Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo simply compiled those names while she was in trance and nobody made any solicitations in regards to the said properties. As if the absurdity would not end, a respectable commentator in one of the leading national dailies rushed to write and publish an article “congratulating” Obasanjo for his “courage” in firing Mrs. Osomo and canceling the sale. That is some sections of a once great Nigeria for you -- a nest of cowards who will say anything that suits a narrow parochial interest regardless of its making sense or not or being warranted or not.

 

Another sign of our national decline is the attention the media is giving to the National Political Dialogue (one would almost think they were commenting on our National Assembly), regardless of the fact the body lacks any legal instrument backing it up and is little more than a presidential advisory committee, the umpteenth this administration has inaugurated since 1999.

 

Nigerians should reach for something higher than themselves or their narrow, parochial, interests. We should reach for a sense of humanity and human dignity. We should reach for excellence of the human spirit as exemplified by Nicola Calipari of Italy who saw not himself or his position but a greater cause, a greater calling; a comprehensive benefit that he believed should accrue to the greater good of all and to which he would pledge all in the service of his fellow men.

 

The question of Obasanjo until 2009 for example, should not be viewed in terms of its impact on a given few privileged people, but in terms of the 130 million people whose collective dreams and aspirations were not only twice violated by a compendium of vile electoral malpractices, but have been pilloried, peddled, and pawned these six years to indulge the narcissistic whims of one man and his personality cult of sycophants whose collective resume shows that they have faithfully served successive despotic regimes one after the other since IBB.