Leading members of the civil society in Nigeria are mourning the loss of loved ones, all of them nearly at the same time. Even as sketchy as the details of the deceased are in each case at the moment, they are flashed here given the relativity of meaning and, therefore, the centrality of reporting of who dies, how and where to the struggle for emancipation,
Dr Kole Shettima – lost younger brother
Prof Jibrin Ibrahim – lost elder sister
Among them is Dr. Kole Ahmed Shettima of MacArthur Foundation who lost his younger brother. The deceased whose name Intervention is still ascertaining left behind two wives and five children. He has since been buried in Yobe State in the Northeast of Nigeria.
Hajiya Saudatu Mahdi, a leading gender researcher and voice as well as the Secretary General of Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative, (WRAPA), has also lost her husband. The late community leader in Bauchi State who died last Tuesday has been buried. It is understood he has been sick for sometimes.
Prof Jibrin Ibrahim is not left out of the gale of fate. He has lost his elder sister who died in Kano at 86.
The civil society/activists circuit in Nigeria has generally been in grief of recent. Not only did Mr. Nelson Ananze who was Executive Director of the Community Action for Popular Participation, (CAPP) die, Dr. Kola Torimiro, the German trained exceptional pediatrician at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, (OAUTHC), Ile-Ife did too.
