So handsome and comely he could go away with murder. With superbly maintained haircut, he melted anger against himself if such ever arose. And, on top of it, he played football. So, he could be said to be a case of future guaranteed, all other things being equal.
However, on May 4th, 2025, he fell down and died, leaving the mother and, in fact, Ajide Eke community in Edumoga District of Okpokwu LGA inconsolable. It is not unlikely that they are inconsolable because 26-year old John Okoh had every chance to still be alive.
His latest bout of ill-health did not take anybody unaware. He was rushed to the hospital at Otukpo and had every opportunity to be well. He was actually discharged and told to return on May 5th, 2025 before his death on May 4th, 2025.
For a very active lad who played football, it is a puzzle for a non-medical person how this could have happened. This is more so that an Abuja based relation of the mother whose trip to the village coincided with John’s hospitalization around April 20th, 2025 beefed up their options and finances to be on top of the situation.
Now, the 26 year-old hope of the community is gone with a finality that leaves everyone wondering what it all means. Is it possible that whatever ailed him was beyond containment if Nigeria were that organised in terms of basic healthcare provisioning? And how many John Okohs are lost across Nigeria on a daily basis to either absolutely manageable ailments, domestic violence, accidents, petrol tankers bursting, inter-group violence and other manifestations of generalised insecurity?
It is such a huge paradox. Every Nigerian leader since 1999 came as a crusader for neoliberal reform. Yet, there are no signs of the basic deliverables of neoliberalism anywhere in Nigeria. It then raises the question of who schooled them in neoliberalism. What do they think made even the colonialists never to joke with census, inoculation, tax assessment and drug control. It is because biopolitics is what connects the state to the population and thus the process by which neoliberalism is made possible as a break between feudalism and capitalist civilisation. The metrics of biopolitics have shifted in the 21st century but the biopolitical character of the state remains.
So, where did our leaders study their own idea of reform that their training had no elements of biopolitics in it? With the exception of Babangida through Olikoye Ransome Kuti, no other Nigerian leader has manifested any iota of biopolitics. What sort of country is this?
All said and done, John Oko’s death is Nigeria’s loss because no one can guess what a guy whose death at 26 touched his community could have become in another 10, 20 or 25 years from now? Great to hear that his fellow footballers were not overawed by death. They quickly recovered enough from the shock to organise and preface his burial with a farewell football match!