Hassan, demise of a shooting star
By Betty Abah
Hassan Mohammed’s life was fine and promising despite the odds around him, so it ought to be a cheerful good morning but it’s realistically a teary goodnight for a shining little star.
He was only 13, just finished from the Opebi Primary School and was very much looking forward to entering the Opebi Grammar School by September. But yesterday morning (August 18), our ever-energetic and friendly Hassan was buried at the Muslim Cemetery at Agege here in Lagos.
No way, you could never miss Hassan, he was the chief Noise Maker, the very definition of ebullience at our children’s events at Monkey Village, our informal community in Lagos. He loved to dance and to laugh out loud. But beneath the surface restlessness was an academically keen and brilliant soul. I watched Hassan grow into a calmer personality, a tall and elegant boy whose beautiful ebony skin radiated even in the dark.
We had spotted Hassan at about age five, that playful little boy with bright eyes, fiery energy, tiny voice and infectious laughter. He lived with his grand mum Halima and was one of over a 100 kids that we enrolled into school in September 2016 at the onset of our work in Monkey Village and which remains one of CEE-HOPE’s most enduring programmes on educational empowerment of vulnerable children. Like most of the other children, he remained in school with lots of enthusiasm and made steady progress.
Even after Monkey Village community was demolished unlawfully and without notice on December 31, 2020, Hassan’s grandma like many of the parents and guardians there found small places around the area to continue staying so their children and wards could continue schooling at the nearby Opebi and Oregun government schools and to carry on with their sources of livelihoods around Opebi.
My last encounter with the boy was earlier this year when we went to his community for the distribution of school bags and school materials as part of the multi-state 1,000 school bags donation effort supported by our amazing old couple friends and great supporters, Mal and Carol. He was restless as usual and I said, “Hassan, you again!” I then jokingly threatened to take back his bag and he immediately fell into line, laughing. A progressive-minded young soul, Hassan, against the conventions, opted for the cosmetology class in our last year’s Summer School program in his community and was one of the best. He specialised in gele (headgear) tying and became very handy in helping his aunt Fatima and other women around his home in their fashion quest. At a recent sallah celebration, he also helped paint his grandma with lalle (temporary local tattoos) designs on her body even against her initial protest citing her age (she is 70 plus).
Hassan’s death is all the more excruciating because this was one very avoidable one. He had complained of ear ache for a couple of days. By the time he was taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) on Saturday in great pains by his dad Mohammed Hassan, who had rushed down from Akure, the case had degenerated, yet we had hoped for the best. Typically, LASUTH doctors rather than take him in as in-patient, emergency case, prescribed some drugs and asked that he be brought back in two months’ time. The pains however escalated and on Saturday evening, he was rushed to a private hospital at the Dopemu area, slipped into coma later in the night and passed around 5:44 am on Sunday. He is survived by his dad, mum Aisha and two younger sister siblings. A dazzling only son is gone. Just like that.
As I sat weeping at the entrance of the Muslim cemetery on Sunday (women were not allowed in), shortly after he was interred, an older relative of Hassan’s emerged from the well-maintained and gated enclave and tried to console me: “Auntie Betty, don’t cry, it was God’s time for him to go.” I didn’t argue but didn’t agree either. No, I don’t think it was Hassan’s time, our systems failed him. His untimely demise speaks eloquently to the broader and unsettling reality of governmental failure. He would still have been here laughing, playing around and gearing up to fulfill his dreams if things were better, if he had lived in a more functional country.
His aunt and our community coordinator, Mrs. Fatima Dawud then interrupted my thoughts to air her observation that about five bodies had been brought in earlier that morning including those of two babies wrapped in cartons. The others were also mostly young people, she added.
After our collective crying session, Mrs. Dawud and I alongside CEE-HOPE’s staff members, Gloria Matthew and Ireti Ogunderu (who also knew Hassan too well) embarked on our sober walk away from the Muslim cemetery section. We went past vehicles parked by the road side, some still with bodies inside, awaiting their turns to move in their own dead for burial rites. In one of the vehicles, a minibus aka korope, a young man sat dejectedly, his head placed on the chair before him, almost at parallel with a body wrapped in mat and flung across the seat besides him, touching almost body to body. A quiet voice told me that must be his dad or mum’s remains.
More and more bodies were being brought into the nearby Christian and general cemetery as well. A woman with a baby strapped to her back stood opposite the cemetery’s entrance, wailing inconsolably. Her brother’s burial was ongoing inside. “He was at my place just last Sunday to ask after my welfare and said he would see to the fulfilment of his promise to me,” she said in Yoruba amidst profuse tears.
As we stood facing the cemetery overgrown with weeds, discarded burial clothes and a colony of fruit trees, one of the deceased’s male acquaintance produced a photo of the young man who slept last night and didn’t wake, a bubbly and fashionable 34 year-old dude. But that’s not even all the sorrowful details: their elder sister had slumped shortly after boarding a bike on her way to the hospital just after complaining of feeling unwell, and died instantly. That was just a month ago. She too had been buried a couple of weeks back. Same cemetery, same siblings. I patted the wailing woman to say ‘pele’ in Yoruba (sorry) and we walked wearily away. No words.
Life spans in Nigeria are shrinking at a scary rate. Like that of Hassan and many of the dead at the sleepy neighbourhood cemeteries on that heartbroken Sunday morning, the demises were avoidable, many being hapless victims of callous and desensitised healthcare workers or plain poverty. Again, there were mostly young people with the world ahead of them.
Increasingly we are seeing the depressing impacts of marginalisation, gross lack of economic safety nets in a biting economy, worsening housing injustice and a government eloquent at lip service and toxic propaganda rather than sincere, impactful programmes that uplift citizens stuck at socioeconomic fringes. Lack of access to an efficient and inclusive health care system which have already led to a number of avoidable deaths in Monkey Village and some others of our Lagos communities, remains one of the most visible manifestations. Yet the death of the young and promising Hassan is particularly crushing.
Government at all levels can do well by focusing more resources and energy at improving our comatose healthcare systems rather than promulgating ill-thought decrees to check the massive migration of underpaid and disillusioned healthcare personnel to greener-pastured lands. Until then Nigeria will continue to contribute to the dark statistics which led to Africa being labelled “The continent of young people” owing to the brief lifespans phenomenon. Ours is a continent littered with dead dreams.
Rest in peace, my dear Hassan! You will be sorely missed by your heartbroken relatives, fellow little friends and the CEE-HOPE family.
Ms Abah, a journalist and activist, writes from Lagos.
