2021: Another Annus Horribilis?

By Aaron Artimas 

Not a few people were quick to dismiss the previous year as the most horrible year ever.  What about the horrendous Corona pandemic, the unending bloodshed from insurgency, banditry, kidnapping and armed robbery. 

The monstrous boko haram continues to ravage our people while breeding instability, poverty and hunger in the land. Many people were happy to see 2020 disappear for good. 

 

But, as it now appears 2021 comes with its own version  of tragedy; the infliction of personal pain and deprivation. Barely one week of the new year, I received a phone call announcing the death Taraba's finest politician and gentleman, Nuhu  Rimamde Bitrus. Yes, the finest because if he ever had an enemy such a person would be too afraid and ashamed to show himself in the face of the unprecedented outpouring of emotions on his monumental loss. 

Within just an hour of opening a watts up page on  his demise, nearly five hundred people had been added and each of them had a special connection with Rimande. 

A two time governorship aspirant, Rimande was in all honesty the best governor Taraba never had. He was a Jukun man to the core, a Kuteb man to the bones and a great Taraban, in all ramifications. The least you could compress his resumè is three pages of a full scape. 

 

Just as we are settling down to the reality of this colossal loss, another iroko tree had fallen on the plateau; Chief Emmanuel Njuwa, frontline politician, educationist, elder statesman, and traditional father.

They said he was not ailing but his soul flew away at night and they found the body in the morning. Ambassador Njuwa was many things in Taraba and the defunct Gongola and therefore needs no elaborate introduction. It is a huge loss to our state. 

 

And then, the January continued to hit. More earth shaking departures were announced and among them the primus inter pares of Inspectors General of Police in Nigeria, Alhaji Gambo Jimeta. But, death refused to leave Taraba state. 

After  the loss of my good friend and neighbor, Headman Nanjo, death came to me personally and took away my brother and confidant, the famous Barr Anthony Danburam. You can say he was brave and fearless, controversial and brilliant but history will record him not only as one of the biggest political figures of his state but also the most successful of his modest community of Yandang in both Adamawa and Taraba state. He was the first Speaker of the Taraba state House of Assembly, a commissioner and local government chairman among many other political positions. 

I have received many calls as if I were sitting inside his house in Jalingo, including the Taraba APC chairman Barr Ibrahim Elsudi, expressing regret and disbelief at the passage of this young political giant. 

What a year 2021 is turning to? It must not proceed this way. Let's pray please.