SOUTH KOREA, SUICIDE OF A PRESIDENT!

See no more evil of me; speak no more evil of me; hear no more evil of me as I can't take it any longer! Lo and behold, it was all over for the former president of South Korea! The pain of a loss of name and reputation was simply too much and so unbearable that life had lost its very essence; and he proactively ended it. His method of choice, suicide by jumping off a 100feet cliff known as the Owl Rock, to a painful death, putting an end to his misery? He is survived by his wife, Kwon Yang-sook, son Roh Gun-ho and daughter Roh Jeong-yeon. His name, President Roh Moo-hyun and he was just 62 years old!

Icheoku asks, did the Korea prosecutors drive this former president to his death? Were his alleged crimes so unforgiveable that only his blood could possibly "atone" for them? Now that he is dead, Icheoku asks, were his transgressions worth the life abruptly taken? President Roh had a name and a face worthy of protection; and he chose not to continue to live a life shrouded in infamy of official corruption. Unlike so many members of Nigerian ruling class, who are worse than President Roh and could use some of his courage, if only they are concionable and gutsy enough? These crop of Nigerian leaders ought to make similar plunges to atone for their iniquities against Nigeria and Nigerians? But nay, they are lily-livered despotic cowards who will rather use the instrumentality of the state to keep the population cowering down in fear; in slavish applaud of the HE who must do no wrong? What a pathetic people that genuflect at the feet of these despots! Who said it shall be ok with Nigeria when her leadership is shameless and have nothing to protect, not even a family's name or reputation?

President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea, enmeshed in a burgeoning corruption-scandal, jumped off to his death from the mountains of his rural southern village of Bongha. A man deeply disappointed in himself, was hiking on a mountain and churning his options, when his grief suddenly overtook him and off he jumped, plunging some one hundred feet to his death. He died of severe head injuries and compound fractures of his entire anatomy? In a suicide note found on his computer, President Roh wrote that life has lost meaning and has become so difficult, he then apologised to Koreans for "making too many of them to suffer because of him"! He asked for some undersstanding on why he did what he did and requested that his body be cremated; possibly suggesting that he so much disappointed South Koreans that he does not want any further reminder to the people of a leader who failed them by breaching their trust and confidence? Icheoku says, what a statesman President Roh was:- he screwed up, he apologised, he felt contrite and unworthy to continue to live with the painful load of shame and odium of bribery; and then he called death's bluff!

President Roh, a former human rights lawyer, served as president from 2003 until he was forced out by what has now become a life-taking scandal in 2008. He had prided himself as a "clean" politician who desired to make a clean break from the murky corrupt past administrations in Seoul, but failed at last to escape the long hands of corruption which eventually claimed his life? His wife, Kwon took a bribe of $1 million dollars from detained Park Yeon-cha, head of a local shoe manufacturer; and so did his relative who received another tranche of $5million dollars kickback from this same man, both allegedly acting as fronts for the now dead President? Last April, 30, 2009 prosecutors questioned him for about thirteen hours concerning these allegations, particularly that he accepted the $6 million in bribes, from the detained South Korean businessman while in office? However President Roh never recovered from the public shame and odium of these bribery scandal and had to end his life as we know it? He had personally apologised to Sout Koreans, saying "I have no face to show to the people of South Korea. I am sorry for disappointing you"! Icheoku says, if the wife was paying any modicum of attention and not thinking how to spend the bribery money, may be she would have read this man's agonising pain and sought serious and immediate intervention on his behalf. Whether some effort was made in this direction or not will be subject of further future discussion as we beg to move on here. Icheoku says, here is a man who understood that it is country first; unlike Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, who instead of admitting and apologising; or even taking his own life for the atrocities he committed against the people of Nigeria while in office, was boisterously saying that he was not elected to build roads or provide water or electricity for the people of Nigeria? And this monster is still walking the streets of Nigeria, a freeman? Icheoku says, what a decrepitude person, the deity of Otta is!

A native of Gimhae, 280 miles from Seoul, President Roh hailed from a poor farming family background and never went to college? He taught himself law and easily passed the South Korea's bar examination? A feat indeed! As a human rights/defence lawyer, President Roh built his reputation defending students accused of sedition under past military backed regimes; and was himself once arrested, and had his law license suspended for supporting an outlawed labor organisation/protest? He later ventured into politics, joined the National Assembly as an opposition liberal lawmaker in 1988. He won the presidency in 2002 on a patriotic mantra of change and to be an independent Korea president for Koreans and not take dictates from Washington, a slogan which resonated with young voters who propelled him into the presidency? He was later impeached for breaking South Korea's political neutrality law by playing partisan politics as an elected president when he urged South Koreans to vote for his party's candidates in an election; he later regained his office following a court's over-ruling of his impeachment?

Icheoku says South Korean have lost one of their own, and a former president for that matter! Whether these allegations of bribery were enough to drive him off the cliff is debatable but did the former president ever seek serious professional intervention to save his moribound life? Better still did he ever consider relocating to a Penthouse suite in Las Vegas to forget his sorrows and put his past behind? Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand, when similarly embroiled in a bribery scandal, relocated to a posh London suburb to decompress, so why kill yourself because some money exchanged hands corruptly? Was it worth the life? Or was this man simply a coward, too squeamish to stare down his accusers, and then as an escapist, took his life in this manner? Do Koreans believe in God or heaven and hell and if so, where will this suicide-president now go? Anyway, as we send our condolence to South Koreans, the family of President Roh and his friends and admirers, Icheoku asks, isn't it ironic that the same prosecutors that literally drove him off to his death are now expressing their condolences on his death? Life's irony is sometimes incomprehensible. They also said that their investigation will be wrapped up soon and you ask yourself, against a dead person? Maybe the Korea style? Either way, adieu Mr. President!