It is those of us who have not achieved anything that live in million dollar houses, wear watches worth tens of thousands of dollars, shoes that cost more than a year’s salary of most workers, dresses of astronomical cost. We do so because we have not got to the level where we define ourselves by who we are, what we do and what we have contributed to humanity.
Dear Stella,
I write you today from my hotel room on top of Mount Carmel. I write you after spending quiet moments looking at the landscape of this old city of Jerusalem from the comfort of my room. It was great that you recommended that I travel with the great Bishop and the professor. They both made this experience richer than the last one. But, most importantly, I missed your presence.
The Bishop said I’m on the same spot where Peter wrote the letter to the Corinthians. So, what better to do than to write you a letter.
Having escaped from the noise of Abuja and the multitude of visitors ever waiting to see me, I’ve had time to reflect. Amongst our brethren in the largest party in Africa, it is you that I trust the most and I wish to share some of my inner thoughts with you.
I don’t know if this was true for you but when I was young, I was fed with lots of folklores under the moonlight. On this scenic evening on the edges of the Holy Land, I recalled one. It was the story of a tortoise whose mother was sick, literally on her deathbed. The tortoise left home with a promise to his kinsmen that he was going to seek help for his mother and to reinforce his arsenal of medicinal herbs. On his way out, the tortoise said to his brethren, “If anything ordinary happens, follow the usual protocol. But if anything extraordinary happens, call me.”
One day, his brethren called him to report that the palm kernels have sprouted from the tail end of the palm frond. The tortoise was bemused. He packed his things and returned home. On getting into his compound, he found that his mother was dead. As we say in our region, when a crafty man dies, a crafty man buries him.
I’m getting worried about all these things that we do in the guise of serving the nation and helping the people. You and I know the truth. It’s essentially all about us. That people are not surprised by deceit does not make it right. Even when we get away with it, it doesn’t get away from our soul. Giving people false hope is also deceit, you know. In the course of this trip, a little part of me wants to be true to myself.
Just today, Reuben sent that acidic press release to defend my wife from Amaechi’s accusation that her demand for a share of Rivers State money was the cause of their quarrel. Forget Amaechi’s theatricals, the truth, which you and I know, is that governors, ministers and other top government officials are expected to send gifts to the First Lady each time they come to the villa, each time she marks her birthday, each time she returns from a medical trip abroad, each time she celebrates our wedding anniversary, etc. In fact, nobody who wants to remain politically viable can ignore a First Lady’s invitation to anything. And the gifts that accompany each invitation are not small gifts. Ok, look at what politicians and business people gave at my daughter’s wedding. They amount to quite a lot. It has been that way since the beginning of our republic but that doesn’t make it right. Does it, Stella?
I think we are greedy. Staying here and stepping on the same ground that several dead biblical figures stepped on is forcing me to think. What is really enough for us? How much is too much? Will my children’s children ever finish the wealth that I’ve accumulated? How much land do I need? How many houses are necessary? At first I thought getting one in my hometown, one in my state capital and one in Abuja would be enough. But quickly, a dozen seemed too small.
I tell you, Stella, I think we are suffering from what the professor called “scarcity mentality”. He said the concept is in a book he would like me to read called, “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey. He said that we have this sense that what is out there is not enough and we must accumulate and accumulate until resources start gushing out of our ears and mouths. The professor said that if we embrace the “abundance mentality” we would think in a win-win way, seek first to understand before we demand that we are understood, and we will combine our people’s strength.
In the last few hours, I’ve asked myself, what would people say when I die? And I ask you the same. What will people say when you die, Stella?
“The history of the world,” Thomas Carlyle said, “is but the biography of great men.” Benjamin Franklin chimed in that it is easy to make history. “Either write something worth reading,” he suggested “or do something worth writing about.”
Have I written something worth reading? Have I done something worth writing about? Answer me, Stella. I wish you were here, like last time, so that I could ask you these questions face to face.
The truth is that history will not remember most of us. One hundred years from now, one thousand years from now, we may get just a paragraph in an encyclopedia.
But people who came in contact with us will remember us. They are the history that will be told about us. Though not written, their history will remain in their memory and will be read and transmitted and downloaded each time they tell it or the people they tell retell it.
The professor used the life of all the biblical figures here in Jerusalem to help me picture them as men who reached the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. They reached what the prof called the self-actualization pinnacle of human needs. He said that it is African men and women’s greatest challenge- to take a step up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
According to him, most of us are still stuck at the lowest three steps of the pyramid. We are lost in the pursuit of what Abraham Maslow called physiological needs, safety needs, and the need for love and belonging. Under these three are needs like breathing, food, water, sleep, home, and security of body, of employment, of health, of resources, of property, of family and of morality. Others are friendship, family and sexual intimacy.
He said it is the reason most of us define ourselves by the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the house we live in, the food we eat, the companions we have, our jobs and the clubs we belong to.
Prof said that people who are at the upper level of the pyramid have reached the esteem and self-actualization points. That is where the concern is about self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect for others, respect by others, morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice and acceptance of facts.
People who are at this level measure their accomplishments not by the same parameters most of us do. That is why one of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffett, still lives in the same home in Omaha that he bought in 1958 for $31,500. That is why Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, wears a $10 wristwatch. That is why Mark Zuckerberg is often seen in a simple shirt and jeans.
It is those of us who have not achieved anything that live in million dollar houses, wear watches worth tens of thousands of dollars, shoes that cost more than a year’s salary of most workers, dresses of astronomical cost. We do so because we have not got to the level where we define ourselves by who we are, what we do and what we have contributed to humanity.
I did not doubt him after I took a look at the people who accompanied me on this trip. I have a governor who has not paid workers in his state for four months but it did not stop him from collecting his billions of naira in security votes. What security is more than having the people who work for you get paid? I have the one who drinks champagne but not alcohol. No wonder less than 100 days after his predecessor left office, with N72 billion intact, he cried out that there is no money in the coffers. Who’s fooling who? I don’t need to mention our friends whose PR problems as large as Mount Arafat. They advise me and I advise them too. I told them that until every qualified Segun, Tijani and Ada, whose parents pay tithes in their churches can afford their universities, they are not serving common good.
Who are we fooling but ourselves? How dare we suggest to millions of our people who cannot afford it that, somehow, God hears your prayers quicker if you pray near the place his son was born?
Do you care what people will say about you when you die, Stella? Will it count in what happens in the afterlife?
Despite our faith, we are not sure where we go when we die but we are definitely sure that people will give their judgment before the final one to come. What will their assessment of you look like? Will you be remembered as a good girl, Stella? Will they remember me as a good boy?
Stella, don’t wait until something extraordinary happens before you call me. Just call me.
Yours truly,
Goodluck.