By Douglas Anele

If the former Director-General of NAFDAC could resurrect temporarily and read the encomiums from some highly-placed Nigerians, she would be disgusted by the hypocrisy of it all – the very people that truncated her political ambition now eulogising her to high heavens! President Jonathan was very generous in praising Dora Akunyili’s achievements. Yet, he did not include her in his cabinet but merely appointed her member of the just-concluded National Conference at a time she was very ill. Mr. President’s action in this regard is consonant with the hypocritical attitude of members of the ruling class we highlighted earlier. That said, the best way to honour Akunyili’s legacy is by emulating her exemplary performance as a public servant. It is meaningless to praise someone to high heavens without making genuine efforts to exhibit those qualities that made him or her outstanding.

Dimgba igwe’s death, like Ekwealo’s, signposts not only contingent nature of life but also the decadent nature of our society, particularly the comatose state of health services in Nigeria. Probably, if Igwe had received appropriate medical attention on time, he might have survived. But our hospitals, which were mere consulting rooms according to Abacha, have degenerated to the status of glorified graveyards, while our doctors are gradually becoming undertakers who quicken the process of death. The unknown hit-and-run driver that knocked Dimgba Igwe down behaved like a typical irresponsible Nigerian bereft of civilised human feelings. The decision to run away rather than stop and assist the person he (or she) knocked down is unjustifiable. It might be argued that stopping to assist an accident victim in Nigeria is dangerous and deadly sometimes, because some people that did so either had been maimed for life or had been killed by irate bystanders.

Even so, despite the dangers due to the primitive consciousness of frustrated Nigerians, one is morally obliged to extend duty of care to an accident victim, especially if he or she was responsible for the accident. In any case, to mitigate the dangers of “jungle justice,” a responsible driver would drive to the nearest police station to report immediately an accident occurs, and return as quickly as possible to the accident scene with police escort. Such a civilised response might not save the seriously injured, but at least it would send a clear message to those concerned that what happened was unintentional and that the person responsible for the mishap is remorseful and willing to make restitution.

In a very important sense, Nigeria is regressing into the infamous Hobbesian state of nature in which life is poor, solitary, nasty, brutish and short. Cruelty, wickedness and disregard for the sanctity of life are everywhere, despite unprecedented expansion of religious consciousness nationwide. That is why top government officials embezzle funds earmarked for the health sector, and why some medical doctors ignore dying patients brought in for medical care without qualms or demand a huge deposit before commencing treatment. It all connects to the increasing dehumanisation of people in our society arising from decay in humanistic attitudes such as empathy, sympathy, kindness and love.

Because humans, of all creatures that have evolved on earth, have sophisticated brains with the capacity for rationality, intuition, and creative imagination, the phenomenon of death has a special meaning for people in all cultures across the rich mosaic of recoded history. Thus, there is a fantastic array of possible eschatologies purporting to describe life after death, including belief in metempsychosis or reincarnation. Now, deep-seated craving for continuation of life, the aching sense of loss when a loved one is deceased, and deep horror concerning the irreversibility of death provide a very strong psychological motivation for belief in life after death.

But before we can determine whether one survives death or not, it is important to point out that the apparent continuity of the body of a living human being is mainly a matter of appearance and behaviour, not really of an unchanging substance, due to the continuous processes of metabolism and excretion. With respect to the mind, soul or spirit, it is evident that the ancient doctrine of a spiritual substance cannot be sustained on the best scientific evidence. As human beings, we exhibit mental characteristics such as thinking and feeling; but it does not follow that there is a soul that undergoes these experiences. The assumption that there must be commits what one may call, following the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, the fallacy of “the ghost in a machine.”

David Hume, the iconoclastic Scottish philosopher, points out that the mental continuity of a person is a continuity of habit and memory. There was yesterday one person whose thoughts and feelings I can remember, and that person I regard as myself of yesterday; but in fact, the person I regard today as myself the day before is a certain mental occurrence now remembered, and is considered part of the person that recollects them presently. Logically, personhood or self is a series of experiences connected by memory and habit, with biological endowments serving as substrate.

From the foregoing, belief in survival after death entails that inherited characteristics, memories and habits, which constitute the person, will persist in a new set of occurrences after bodily functions, including brain processes, have ceased permanently. From the scientific perspective, memories and habits are intimately connected to brain structure, analogously as a river is connected with the riverbed. The water in a river is always changing, but it maintains the same course because previous rains have created a channel through which it flows. Similarly, previous events have created pathways in the brain, and our thoughts flow along these pathways, thus generating memory and habit. At death, the structure of the brain is destroyed, and memory that relies on it would naturally be obliterated too. Russell concludes, correctly I think, that there is no more reason to think otherwise than to expect a river to continue in its previous course after an earthquake has raised a mountain where a valley used to be.

As already indicated, the personality of a human being is constituted by heredity, memory and habits, all of which are interconnected and are bound up with the characteristics of certain bodily structures. Serious injury to different parts of the brain can obliterate mental functions that depend on the damaged parts, whereas certain drugs can alter someone’s personality either temporarily or permanently. Lack of iodine below a certain level can turn a clever child into an imbecile. To sum up, the scientific evidence against life after death is far stronger than the mostly anecdotal tales about ghosts and pre-natal remembrances, which constitute the strongest arguments for it.

In the final analysis, I commiserate with the families of Dr. Ekwealo, Prof. Akunyili and Dimgba Igwe. No amount of prayers and wailings can undo the irrevocability of death. Therefore, the essential lesson for those of us still alive is to live in a manner that makes life a little bit better for ourselves and those we encounter in our daily transactions. This means that we should not postpone for tomorrow any good and noble deed we can accomplish today: tomorrow is full of existential uncertainties and death can strike at any moment in different ways. Human life is so precarious, so indeterminate and, yet, so precious that we must set aside comforting myths about immortality of the soul, about eschatologies purporting to describe a heavenly abode and confront boldly the finality of death. We must learn, gradually, better practice of life based on knowledge, honesty, kindness, forthrightness and human solidarity.

CONCLUDED.