Buhari: From the villa to the grave

Steven Gate said that “Death is meticulous in collecting every living thing sooner or later”. Death, the silent sovereign, claims all crowns. It does not knock, nor does it slink like a thief in the night, as the old adage dares to suggest. A thief can be caught, bound, and caged; a thief can be outwitted by cunning or barred by locks. But death? Death laughs at such comparisons, its mirth a hollow echo in the void. There is no simile for death, no metaphor to tame its truth. It is the inevitable creditor to whom every soul is indebted from the moment breath sparks life. You are born owing death your life, and when it desires, it liquidates your soul with neither mercy nor malice. It simply collects what is due.

Consider Muhammadu Buhari, a man who once strode the gleaming halls of Nigeria’s presidential villa, his footsteps echoing with the weight of a nation’s hopes and burdens. Barely two years ago, he was the steward of power, a figure cloaked in authority, his name a lightning rod for praise and scorn. Yet today, he resides in a six-foot hollow, a silent chamber carved from the earth’s unyielding embrace. From the villa’s opulence to the grave’s austerity, the contrast is stark, a poetic reminder that death levels all thrones. No palace walls, no guards, no titles can bar its entry. The shovels and diggers, those grim architects, have crafted his new abode, where worms now feast and the body melds with the soil, a return to the earth from whence it came.

They say death comes like a thief, but the phrase is a lie spun by hopeful tongues. A thief can be thwarted, but death is no such fugitive. It is the guest you cannot refuse, the tide that sweeps all shores. Buhari’s journey from the villa to the grave is not merely a fall from grandeur but a mirror held to every soul. We are all tenants of time, leasing breath until the landlord calls. And call it will. So, live with purpose, for the earth awaits to claim you. Do not chase riches that glitter only to rust; instead, befriend the sand, the soil, the dust. Be humble, be down-to-earth, for that idiom is no mere turn of phrase—it is a sermon whispered by the ground itself. Those who heed it may find the earth kinder when it cradles them at last.

And what of Buhari’s legacy, etched in the hearts of a nation and now in the silence of the soil? Some point to faults, to missteps and promises unkept, as though any man could walk the earth without stumbling. But one truth stands unassailable: Buhari was not a man of greed. To climb the pinnacle of politics, to wield the sceptre of power, and yet turn from the siren call of wealth—this is a virtue rare and radiant. The earth, that final landlord, surely takes note. It will not scorn the body of a man who lived unswayed by gold. His soul, now free from the villa’s weight, is ushered to a higher court, a VIP lounge of spirits awaiting judgment. There, in death’s divine hospitality, he may find a peace surpassing the luxuries of any palace, a rest unbroken until the final day.

So, let us be wary, for death spares no one. Live not for fleeting treasures but for a life that echoes in the hearts you touch. The grave cares not for your titles or your wealth; it measures only the weight of your purpose. Buhari, once a president, now one with the earth, reminds us all: the shovels wait, the soil beckons. Be down-to-earth, for in the end, the earth will claim you as its own. And if you have lived well, perhaps it will hold you gently, as it surely does a man whose heart was never bought.