CAPITAL MATTERS: Justice Oputa's Political Burial
Posted by Uche Ezechukwu | 10 years ago | 3,879 times
The late Justice Chukwudifu Oputa was widely respected across the length and breadth of this land as a reputable jurist whose thoughts on different legal matters brought about new sublime vistas and whose judgments, delivered with unusual and deep insights, have continued to excite judges, lawyers and law students alike. It was not for nothing that he was widely regarded as the Lord Denning of Nigeria. Baron Denning, who lived for 100 years has been described as the most influential judge of the 20th century, in part because of the changes he brought to the British common law as well as for the personal touch that he left on the legal profession of Britain and such other countries like Nigeria, whose legal practice is hand in glove with that of the colonial masters.
When Justice Oputa also become a household name outside the legal circles on account of the famous panel on human rights abuses which was put together by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration and which he chaired. Even though the recommendations of the panel which was popularly known as the Oputa Panel were not implemented, they had their merit for providing the first national avenue for openly discussing and unearthing, for the first time, some provocative acts of impunity by previous administrations. After the Oputa panel, more Nigerians have found the voice and courage to question, and even challenge, impunity of governance.
Justice Chukwudifu Akunne Oputa, died at a ripe old age of 92 on May 4 2014 and has been mourned by all and sundry. It was difficult to see any voice which was raised in anger against the demised eminent jurist. It was, therefore, expected that his funeral would attract the presence and interest of Nigerians from all aspects of the national spectrum, in and out of government, in and out of the legal profession and amongst the ordinary people of the nation. People who make news in life usually make more news at their death. One of the key areas of the news-making process of Justice Oputa was in his having a son in whom he was well pleased, even if that son did not quite conform professionally to what could have been the best tastes of the jurist.
His son, Charles who had the best of education that an erudite and caring father could afford his favorite child decided very early in life to toe a path from where he knew he could best express himself for the benefit of his personal satisfaction and that of a public to which he was very devoted. Charles Oputa Junior was better known and reputed as Charly Boy, which was the name that defined the eminent but non-conformist roles he played, not in the judicial field but in the entertainment industry. Charly Boy was very good at what he did in such a unique way that defined him as a distinguished genre.
His father was well pleased in Charly Boy and said so in several interviews and public fora. The son was very enamored of the doting father who he cared for after his retirement until the old man joined his ancestors last month. The prayer and hope of every father is to have beloved children who would care for them in old age and finally confer a befitting funeral on him when it pleased God to call him back. Justice Oputa must have died a happy man knowing that he has a son who is capable of doing both.
Those who know the Oputa family well say the late jurist and his non-conformist son were very close and so must have understood and respected each other’s wishes and preferences. So, it was to be expected that Charles Oputa Junior knew how his father wished to be buried and remembered. He knew if his father wanted a politically vibrant funeral such that would have resulted in his body being ferried from pillar to post across the country, or if the man wanted to be buried respectably as a fervent Catholic and a good lawyer and judge. The way it finally turned out to the public looked as if Charly Boy was playing a script which conformed to an instruction that his father had left which was that he should not be buried like a politician, which he was not.
It is generally agreed by the Igbo that while a dead man would usually make a will on certain issues of his death and burial but it is often a convention amongst the Igbo that some elements of such a will are modified to suit the convenience of the living. On a very simple level, there are people who usually instruct that they should be spared the suffocating ritual of being put in the mortuary at their death and should be buried immediately they died. It is seldom that such wishes are respected to the letter because of the difficulty of the logistics of such an instruction on the living. Many people demand a quiet funeral and again because of the way the society is ordered and organized, it becomes next to impossible for a well-known person to have a quiet burial. So, you start to wonder: is it possible for a Nigeria big man or woman to be saved from a political funeral?
On Saturday, June 28, Justice Oputa was buried at his Oguta home town, in Imo State. As is usual with such a prominent Catholic a pontifical requiem Mass was celebrated to usher him to the great beyond. Such funeral occasions are definitely more than pure religious occasions. Their ecumenical nature is first and foremost the most eloquent testimony to the fact that the occasion is never confined strictly by the confines of pure religious demands. In such big funerals with high ranking members of the government and other organized and stratified institutions, protocol is observed and in circumstances in Nigeria where the lines between the religious and social affairs are blurred, any presence of administrators of states are given credence and recognition. In other words, many prominent Nigerians and outsiders from outside Imo State who came to attend the Oputa funeral must have enjoyed some protocol, security and welfare extended by the state government. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF)
who represented the president must have been received and hosted by the state government officials. No state government ever wants that fact not to be taken into consideration.
In other words, no matter how much anyone might want to pretend that the burial of Justice Oputa in Oguta was a family affair, such assertion cannot hold much water due to the stature of the person for whom the bell tolls and on account of the heavy government facilities that are bound to be made available at the occasion.
The unfortunate fracas that took place during the funeral service led by Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, last Saturday was definitely unnecessary and avoidable and displayed a shameful lack of maturity on both sides of the fracas. To refresh the minds of those who are very conversant of the event under discourse, Charly Boy had reportedly snatched the microphone from Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and had prevented him from speaking after Senator Anyim who represented the president. From my enquiries, I learnt that Oputa Junior had insisted that he did now want the funeral of his father to be politicized. I did not hear directly from Charly Boy, otherwise, I would have taken the statement as laughable because there was no way the speech of the governor could have been a greater politicization than that of the president. If there were to have been no speeches from political people, as I have seen done at some other occasions where speeches were limited to the members of the clergy and the bereaved family, it ought to have been observed across the board. To, therefore, stop Governor Okorocha from making a speech was the height of indiscretion and disrespect for the office he occupies. While not everybody in the any state might like the person of the governor but every citizen ought to feel insulted if the office a governor occupies at the behest of the people is desecrated. Snatching a microphone from a governor is the height of such desecration.
It hardly matters what might have been the other underlining issues that might have caused bad blood between the governor and the Oputa family, like the story making the rounds that the N20 million which the governor claimed to have donated for the funeral might not have been true. But the fact remains that nothing should have been done to drag the office of the governor to disrepute, for it was the entire Imo State that was denigrated and not just Owelle Rochas Okorocha. Charly Boy with his very wide exposure ought to have known that.
The flipside of the argument is that it was be counter protocol and even irresponsible of Governor Rochas to have sought to speak after the president had delivered his speech, thus, creating the situation whereby the microphone had to be snatched from his hand. Yes, it is unexpected and almost abnormal for the president to have spoken without the governor who was visibly present unless the governor had declined to speak. It is also a big surprise that Anyim had not invited Okorocha to speak before him, unless he saw that as an opportunity to belittle the governor who belonged to a rival party, and that would be most unfortunate.
Many observers I spoke to are describing the fracas as having been caused by three ‘big babies’. As angered and miffed as he might have been – and justifiably so – Governor Okorocha should have maturely kept his cool and allowed the funeral take its course in tandem with the respect which he claims to harbour for the man who was being celebrated. He and his government have ample avenues and opportunities to speak out later and complain against the slight and disrespect against his office, and therefore, the people of the state. To whom much is given, much is expected. Before that occasion there must have been incidents that would have provided him with the inkling that things were not on a proper keel between him and the Oputa family. Needless to say that Charles Oputa’s act was most disgraceful, immature and unexpected.
The event at Oguta last week ought to provide a watershed and redefine the role and behavior of high political figures when it comes to the funerals of the high and mighty. It has become almost an epidemic what infests political leaders and makes them see it as a right to hijack funerals with high visibility. It happened during Ojukwu’s burial, when governors of the component states had made more sound and fury than the whirlwind. These were the governors who had promised to bring down the cloud for Ojukwu but had ended up contributing nothing that could make the memories of the man and his times enduring. With all the noisy carnival that the likes of Governor Okorocha organized for Ojukwu in Owerri, he reportedly contributed nothing to efforts to produce materials that would immortalize the man. I was in the Ojukwu burial committee, so I know.
As funerals have become the biggest events in Igbo land, it is only such self-effacing leaders like Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State who do not run around hearses and throw their weight about in self-adulation. It might have been such showy attempts to wail louder than the bereaved that might have infuriated the likes of Charles Oputa Junior to the extent of exhibiting the type of unbecoming show that he enacted before the world on his father’s funeral. He should not have allowed the antics of desperate politicians to push him into an act that tends to denigrate the memories of a man who deserved the respect of Nigerians, especially at such a solemn occasion of a pontifical requiem Mass.
Extra photos from City People.
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