MUST EVERY NIGERIAN BE A THIEF?

If my cell phone rings ten times, you can be sure that seven times, the guy on the other end has a problem waiting for me to solve. I don't get fooled anymore if he spends quite some time asking about my wife and the children and work and the weather and the economy.

Patience… he will get to it. Eventually, he tells you that you are the only one who can save the situation. His landlord is on his case and he needs money urgently to settle the very troublesome landlord or to pack to a new place. The children are at home because of 'ordinary' eighty thousand naira to pay their school fees. His wife is in hospital and if you do not intervene, she might die there! There is not even 'one cup of garri' at home and he does not know what to do.

Believe me, the situation in the land is that serious. The guy on the other end does not have to be your brother, cousin, old friend or former classmate. You probably never heard of him but it does not matter. Somehow, he has got your number. What do you do? Tell him to go to hell and switch off? Let him know that you are struggling too? Of course, he will not believe you and will not give up. He will tell you "I am sending you my account number. Just do something". After all, like a friend of mine would say, "half bread is better than groundnut" or better put in the famous words of my guy, Segun Arinze, "at all… at all, na him bad!"  If after trying, his hook does not catch immediate fish, he would ask you, 'when do I hear from you?'. Guy, you have just acquired a new customer.         

I do not want to make light of the difficult situation people in the land are facing. Times are tough and there are many with genuine problems that we should address if we have the means. There are also many who have graduated with honours from the University of Begging. From Monday to Sunday, they are on the phone with a list of numbers telling their tales of woe.

If you have a job that once in a while puts your face in a newspaper or on television, you are in trouble. The assumption is that you have a big carton of money around you to dispense and each time you do not give, you are being tight fisted or like some young ladies will say, 'the man na Aradite, in fact, na Super Glue!". You want to blame my people? When they see the billions and zillions that public officers in our land steal and get away with, there is this huge assumption that everyone in Nigeria that has been associated with some kind of leadership has stolen some money and buried some in a soak-away pit.

I know some of my kinsmen who loath me because I have not erected a glittering mansion in Banana Island or Maitama. In their thinking, 'he should have a house worthy of the positions he has held'. I understand them. In our world, the achievement of a man is measured by the size of his house and the money he donates in public and not by his intellect, character or his contribution to the development of mankind.

Yes, I once served on a Federal Government Board. My allowance was the tidy sum of fifteen thousand naira. Please, how many times would I multiply fifteen thousand naira to build a mansion? In my other situations, I have been an advocate, mostly unpaid. I have led many risky demonstrations and carried different placards unpaid.

I once had to say that I spend eighty percent of my time working for free and twenty percent, working to earn a living. But in Nigeria, it does not matter. Everyone believes that once you hold a position of leadership, you have a duty to conjure something under the table and you are expected to distribute the loot to your friends and kinsmen. That is how they get their share of the national cake. In our land, the dominant position is that you are an imbecile if you hold public office and you do not steal.

My biggest problem over the years has repeatedly been with close 'friends' who verily believe that I must steal 'something' and distribute it to them. When their expectations are not met, they become frustrated, troublesome and complain loudly to everyone that you are not being a good friend. The truth you realize is that they were never really your friends. Their fake love was because of what they thought they would grab from you. Some believe that because they are your 'friends' you should leave the organization you lead open for them to freely rape. Because of the prevailing culture, it is difficult for many to believe that there are citizens of Nigeria who do not steal and would not allow you to steal.

I have told this tale before of how I was invited to the EFCC office in Lagos while Ribadu was Chairman, to respond to some crazy allegations made about my tenure as President of PMAN. The EFCC had just been set up. I met some very bright officers at the EFCC. My impression before then of law enforcement in Nigeria was garagara, crudity and brute force. I was really impressed by the professionalism and thoroughness with which the gentlemen at the EFCC went about their work.

The people who reported me to the EFCC were people I had once considered to be my friends. They thought I was 'chopping' alone and swore to deal with me. The officers at EFCC left no stone unturned in search of the truth. They went back ten years to obtain PMAN cash books, records of PMAN accounts in different banks, information filed by PMAN with the Registrar of Trade Unions under my tenure, etc.

In the final days of their investigation, the EFCC officials brought me and my accusers into one room with accountants, auditors, bank officials and former PMAN executives and for an entire day went line by line through practically every financial transaction during my tenure. Nothing escaped their attention. At the end of the day, no one could show how I stole one Naira from PMAN and the EFCC officers shook my hand and asked me to go. While my accusers and the reporters they brought with them, drove away in a fleet of choice SUVs, I left the EFCC with my son in my only car of the time, a Tokunbo Mercedes Benz 190 which had only three of the four cylinders working. I was tired but proud that not one word I spoke could be impeached.  Many times, I have gone through such an experience.

I feel sorry for our countrymen who try to make sense of the horror film called Nigeria. While Nigerians shout about corruption, they don't mind corruption as long as they are the beneficiaries. They don't care how much anyone steals as long as they can get part of the loot. Believe me, there are people working right now to show the incoming government officials how to steal money from government, so that they can benefit.

Please, let me ask again: must every Nigerian be a thief?

See you next week.

ARE YOU A GIVER OR A TAKER?

When I pray to the Almighty, I do not ask Him to give me anything just for myself. I ask Him to put me in a position where I can give of myself to create positive change for the people I come in contact with. I believe that success is putting a smile on the faces of as many as I can.

If I enter an office, hotel or restaurant, the people I endeavor to give most of my attention to usually are not the General Managers or Managing Directors or Ministers. I try to find time to spend with the security men, the junior staff, waiters, janitors, drivers, clerks, etc. They are the ones I believe need my smile and attention more. I try to find out how life is treating them and how they are managing. Boy, you cannot imagine what it does to them when you show them that you care.

I believe that there are two kinds of human beings; the givers and the takers. I also believe that the difference between successful nations or institutions and the never-do-wells, is in the percentage of givers and takers each of them harbors.

Giving is what builds nations and institutions and families. It is the giving by many of their intellect, time, love, hard work and sometimes, their lives that have created those countries that we admire and whose visas we are desperate to have stamped on our passports. It is giving that has built the institutions that have stood the test of time – Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, Greenpeace, etc.

I recently observed the spiraling New York subway system and marveled at the giving that went into building that incredible network of rail lines under the dizzying skyscrapers of Manhattan and the under-water tunnels that connect New York and New Jersey.

Oh! the marvelous road network in Germany, the Autobahn, is also the product of giving.

Across the world, you see nations with structures and systems that work so very efficiently. Why? It is because these nations have people who are happy to give of themselves.

There is nothing wrong in making money if it is done without milking the system and if the objective is to try to bring happiness to the greatest number. In 2007, the world was stunned when the Billionaire investor, Warren Buffet gave away almost $3.2 Billion of his money for charity work around the world. The sage of Omaha says that he plans to give away practically all of his massive wealth for the benefit of mankind.

In 1997, CNN founder, Ted Turner announced a one billion dollars donation to UN agencies to do charity work around the world.

The Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation and other such foundations continue to do great work across the world. The great men who set up these foundations could have willed their enormous wealth to their children and grandchildren so that they would never need to work in their lifetimes. No, they decided to give so that the world can be a better place.

Why is poverty and hopelessness bestriding Nigeria, our fatherland? It is because we have become a nation of takers. We give nothing and take everything. Give a Nigerian the nation's pension fund to manage and he takes all the money and leaves the pensioners hungry on the streets. Give a Nigerian Army General money to buy arms to fight the terrorists traumatizing our people, the General will bury the money in a soak away pit and send innocent soldiers without weapons to go and die in Sambisa Forest. Across the country, everyone is in a mad scramble to take. Very few are willing to give. Pastors are on the take, civil servants are on the take, INEC officials are on the take, custom men are on the take, immigration officers are on the take, judges are on the take and policemen are on the take. And we want to build a nation? How?

I know people who every day warn me that I work too hard. In my country, work is seen as drudgery instead of a source of pleasure and satisfaction. So, a lot of Nigerians go to work but do no work. They spend much of their time scheming about how to sap and sap their employers.   

Considering that we come with nothing and go with nothing, is it not curious that we spend so much time acquiring and taking and taking things much of which we do not need and will not go away with?

I am convinced that if you make your life one of giving, the good Lord will make sure that you do not lack. It is the same way that I am convinced that if you take that which does not belong to you, you will not escape from paying for it one way or another. 

Think about it, Nelson Mandela did not become great by being a taker. Martin Luther King did not become great by being a taker. Mother Theresa certainly did not become great by being a taker.

I was very pleased to learn that in the later days of his life, the immutable Prince Bola Ajibola whom I had great admiration for, sold practically everything he had and used the money to set up a university from which he was not expecting any profit. When asked why, he said that your wealth is of no use if it does not meaningfully impact on others. Gbam!

Please think about it: Are you a giver or a taker?

See you next week.