It would come to pass, that General TY Danjuma, by virtue of his position, would come to own a few oil blocs, and in his own words, more money than he could ever spend. A few years ago, he inaugurated this philanthropic scheme, where he declared that he just sold one of the oil blocs and made $500million, which he claimed he could never spend till he died. He therefore started giving the money away – methodically. Many Nigerians responded then, by focusing on how he acquired the money, by questioning why he would be given an oil bloc in the first place. Yes indeed, such allocations may be questionable, but I bother not with such worries. I personally won’t know what to do with an oil bloc if I woke up one morning swimming in one. I don’t ever want to have anything to do with oil and gas! Life is too short to get involved in murky and oily deals (pun intended).
A few days ago, while giving out even some more of his money – ill-gotten or not – General Danjuma in his characteristic way, chose to throw some more barbs at his colleagues-in-stinking-wealth. He said to them ‘Sell thou some of the jeeps (SUVs) you don’t use, and give thou the money to the poor!’. Many Nigerians responded once again, by saying he was talking trash, that he was afraid of dying. But I see it just a little beyond that. In the first place, we have seen too many times in the past, the folly of primitive acquisition by some big men in Nigeria, who spend all their time on earth gathering useless chattel – private jets, Jeeps, Houses, yachts, diamond-studded wristwatches, Rolls Royces, fast cars, faster women, fame, vanity – men who lived their lives impressing others, trying to dine on the same tables as the Queen of England and the President of the United States; African men, who pointedly ignored their environments, and forgot that they would be measured and judged – by man and God – by how the lowliest person from their country fared. We have seen too many of them depart this earth without any legacy to show for their passage! We have seen them depart, only for their immediate families to descend into unbridgeable acrimony.
The truth, is that north or south, Christian or Muslim, if the very rich people in this country decide to bail out this country, Nigeria will be out of its misery in a few days. Yes, many of these mega rich guys have acquired their monies by privatising our commonwealth, but it’s an insult to the injury for them to revel in seeing so much poverty, decay and despondency, on our streets. Some are quick to latch on to the silly ‘Generals and northerners stole all the money’ bullshit (pardon my Greek), but today there are many young ‘subsidy’ billionaires from the south of Nigeria, especially from the Delta region, who would rather finance insurgency, and continue to complain about some ‘unfortunate amalgamation’, as they buy $50million private jets instead of helping their communities with health centres or even small primary schools.
To make matters worse, is the profligacy that has taken on a life of its own in government – with taxpayers’ monies. Visit any government parastatal today and you will be shocked by the number of glistening Jeeps (SUVs), lined up for the ‘Ogas’. In spite of the fact that governance is not reaching 95% of Nigerians, those running govt have absolutely no pangs, about casually allocating monies that should have been used for future investments in the lives of Nigerians, to purchase loads of luxury cars. I am not saying that people who can ‘afford’ it should not buy these cars (I own one myself), but money used to purchase one new Prado jeep (costing say N15miilion), could be better applied providing schools, health facilities and other sensible investments for OUR FUTURE. If you are Wale Tinubu, or Dangote, you can buy what you like with your money. BUT GOVT MONEY? PEOPLE’S MONEY? Haba!
My own resolve – if God permits, in tandem with what Danjuma is doing which all our over-rich big men have chosen to ignore, and which even Nigerians that are not that rich don’t appreciate – before this year runs out, I will do something I have always had in mind to help reinstate my shamefully dilapidated secondary school – ARMY COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOL, AKURE). I visited a couple of years back and it was a sight out of a horror movie! Maybe someone has taken the initiative, but I MUST do my own! We have reached a point in this country where we must save ourselves, because those in government have shuttered themselves in their bullet-proof SUVs (costing N50million each), away from the reality on ground, even as they wonder why armed robbery, kidnapping, disasters, are the order of the day. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, core capitalists from the USA, had shown good examples when a few years ago, they gave away almost all their wealth for charity, most of that directed to Africa. Granted that what our people need is not to be spoon-fed, but let’s not deceive ourselves – the situation is sooo desperate today, that we the privileged must give a little!
This matter of our fixation with exotic cars and SUVs, is also a reminder of what the Americans did to get themselves out of the GREAT DEPRESSION (and NIGERIA has always been in a GREAT DEPRESSION, judging by the fact that all the symptoms of a GREAT DEPRESSION has always been here with us – Unemployment at 50%, Poverty at 70%, according to Dr Yemi Kale, who heads the National Bureau of Statistics). President F. D. Roosevelt, after trying all sorts of tricks – including Keynesian-type government spending, The New Deal etc – to get the USA out of excruciating poverty in the 1930s, commanded that between April 1942 and December 1944, no American should buy any new car. Okay, it was war time, but is Nigeria not at war today? Car manufacturers then calibrated their assemblies so that they can assist the fighter jet and plane manufacturers to produce 100,000 planes and 60,000 jets in one year. All hands were on deck, and the Americans achieved it, without complaining. What we lack here in Nigeria, is any degree of unity of purpose, any sense of urgency, any sense of where our actions today will lead us to in future.
We have to return to modesty. But I remember Ali Modu Sheriff, former governor of now Boko-Haram ridden Borno State, boasting that he had 82 JEEPS, before he became governor. Perhaps he acquired another 82 while governor, while the state cavorted into the hands of terrorism. I hope he gets all the peace in the world, from admiring his ‘priceless’ acquisitions.
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