A STATE BURIAL FOR A COMEDIAN, A GOVERNMENT WITHOUT PRIORITIES?

Once again Icheoku is forced to join issues with the Enugu State government of Sullivan Chime for its lack of serious focus on what the states priorities should and ought to be. The last time it was the government's decision to spend the peoples over 200 million Naira on a jamboree of some "legislative skill-acquisition" in one named foreign country? Now the same rudderless and vision-impaired government of Sullivan Chime has rushed to lay claim of ownership of the dead body of a man who is not even from Enugu State and prodigiously wants to give it a befitting state burial - an honor exclusively reserved for departed statesmen/women who distinguished themselves in service for the home-state while they lived.  

Icheoku asks, what has a comedian done to deserve such an honor and more specifically put, what has this particular comedian, Samuel Loco Efe, done for Enugu State to be entitled to such a high honor of a state burial? It will be recalled that the same government of Sullivan Chime was coy in giving the late sage and founder of Enugu State, Chief CC Onoh, a full state's burial and in the aftermath of his death, was rather busy locking up in police cells one of the late Aninefungwu's blood son? Icheoku truly wonders what manner of a man is this Sullivan Chime that will be so distracted from Enugu State's core businesses as to want and desire to spend the state's meagre resources according a state burial to a man less deserving of the high honor. Sam Loco was a comedian and a good one for that matter; but there ends the eulogy, period. First of all, Sam Loco was not without a known identifiable state of origin and kinsmen - he is a Bini man and the Binis reserve the right to choose where and how to bury their son. Until they otherwise decline or the views of Oba Erediuwa sought and received that they do not want his cadaver, Icheoku says it is impetuous and puerile for the Sullivan Chime's government to rush to declare its interest to accord the comedian a state's burial, footed by Enugu states public fund. It also goes without notice that Enugu State is yet to implement the new miserly 18,000Naira minimum wage leading to the ongoing three day trial-strike by workers, yet the governor wants to spend the state's money running into millions of Naira, giving a state burial to a comedian who is not from Enugu State? 

Icheoku abhors the cheap publicity and showboating being sought by the Enugu State's governor Sullivan Chime with his declaration of intent to accord a "foreigner" and a comedian, a state's burial. Icheoku hereby condemns same as an outright misplacement of state's priorities by a government which ought to be saddled with solving the much pressing needs of the people of Enugu State rather than gallivanting on a publicity stunt of giving a state burial to an ordinary comedian whose presence or company the governor never shared, sought, desired or even acknowledged while he was still alive. Simply put, the proposed state burial by the Enugu State governor for a "foreigner" and a comedian is comical, opportunistic and imbecilic. Icheoku urges every son and daughter of Enugu State to speak out and condemn this madness and even resist the planned appropriation of Enugu States resources to bury a man from Benin Kingdom in Enugu State; moreso when Edo State governor has not said they cannot afford to bury their son or that the body cannot be brought back to Edo State for a Bini burial. 

The intention of Governor Sullivan Chime becomes even more pathetic when one remembers that the same government of Sullivan Chime has not proactively participated in the footing of the medical bills of Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu nor did it accord a state burial to the recently buried Supreme Court Justice Aniagolu from Enugu State. Chief Ojukwu is as Enugu as any Enugu man can be - he was a former governor of Eastern Nigeria with Enugu as capital, he is an inlaw of Enugu State married to Enugu States own beauty queen, he resides in Enugu and above all fought to protect and preserve the dignity of Enugu and surrounding areas from the then marauders of Nigeria. Governor Sullivan Chime considers Chief Ojukwu's current medical needs an Anambra State's private concern but is ready to splash on a state's burial for comedian Sam Loco? When Lomaji Ugorji died, what did the governor do or is Icheoku simply going mad trying to rationalize this development that Enugu State government plans to accord Sam Loco a state's burial? Icheoku does not understand the motivation of the governor and refuses to understand it as there is nothing there to understand to justify such reckless and puerile plans to bury a comedian and a Bini man in Enugu State and worst all, accord him a state's burial reserved for proven statesmen and women from Enugu State. 

The governor's Senior Special Assistant on Media, Afam Okereke, must as a matter of urgency clarify his offensive statement  - either that he was quoted out of context or that he never said a thing like that at all. It is only a government that is groping in the dark in search of what and where to invest the state's resources that could be churning such thought; and please let someone tell Icheoku that every employable youth in Enugu State now has a job or that every rural area of the state now has electricity and/or motorable road or even safe drinking water; yet their governor is embarking on a cheap publicity hunt to spend scarce resources to bury a Bini man in Enugu State and accord him a state's burial? What a deranged decision; even those Nigerians domiciled in the Diaspora still get transported to their respective home states for burial, talkless of a man who was barely acknowledged by the same people now trying to profit some cheap publicity from Sam Loco's demise.  

Even the deceased himself, while still alive, personally acknowledged his state of origin and denied being Igbo when he said in an interview that "I am not even from the Igbo-speaking part of the South South. I am from Benin. So Icheoku wonders how Sam Loco's spirit will even be rested if his body is buried in a place he had denied being from just because a confused governor who fails to get his priorities right is trying to pull a fast one and forcibly assert ownership of a cadaver which belong elsewhere in far way ancient Bini Kingdom with no nexus or lineage to Igboland talkless of Enugu State? Stupid, Stupid, Stupid is such a decision and Stupider is the mind that first thought it out. Icheoku says NO to a state burial for comedian Sam Loco Efe in Enugu State; if Edo State wants to do that, it is definitely their prerogative but definitely not Enugu State. State of origin and not state of domicile nor even state of marriage is still the controlling state authority in Nigeria. Samuel 'Boy-Loco' Efeeimwonkiyeke aka Sam Loco Efe while alive explicitly made this much clear that he is from Benin, Edo State, Nigeria and therefore Icheoku emphatically says his dead body belongs to Edo State, period. Icheoku says at best, Enugu State government of Governor Sullivan Chime could pay for the cost of shipping his cadaver back to Bini Kingdom if it must unnecessarily waste the state's resources for an unworthy and unreasonable cause but nothing more, including the ill-thought out delusional state burial being planned.