This is my humble exhortation this week. The Great One did not put us on this earth just for ourselves and ourselves alone. We were all created to help rejigger somebody’s sorry story through our gestures toward them and a stretch of our helping hands. We were made to be a blessing to other created beings, whether we know them or not. We are here to help the helpless; feed hungry mouths; touch hopeless lives; strengthen feeble hands; and leave a mark of godly impact. Too many people around you are still trapped in despondency and deprivation. Their times of freedom from the strong grips of squalor may have been ordained to come through you. If you have been raised above the turbulent waters of poverty and hunger, it’s always good to remember where you are coming from and give to those who are still where you used to be. Giving back to society is a gesture beyond your religious affiliation. It is a heart conviction to do good and take sides with what is right.
As you read this treatise, your eyes may have seen many days of poverty. Your life may have been bruised by hunger. There may have been times in your earthly journey when you hobnobbed with lack and not-enough, and both friends and family members failed to lend a helping hand. And then, suddenly, during your torturous travails, divinity dispatched to you some human assistance from unusual sources. Somebody picked you up from the rut, changed your garments, and helped flip your story for good. If this is your story; then today’s treatise must be a reminder. In your orbit are hungry people. Times are tough, poverty is pummeling, kidnappers are grabbing, and the economy is harsh. While these are tearing through our society, there are still some people among us who are giving to the deprived. My family lends a helping hand in our little way, and I know many who do the same quietly. Are you one?
I stumbled on a report by a group called African Philanthropy Forum, a community of partners who foster shared prosperity on the African continent. The report, based on data from 31 philanthropists, Nigerian philanthropists have given at least $434,170,034 in the last five years. The median donation amount is $197,394, while the average donation is $14,005,485.
A few months ago, I met billionaire businessman Dr Deji Adeleke at my old students’ gathering in Ibadan. It was there that I learnt about his dumbfounding forays into philanthropy. Through his Springtime Development Foundation, he has touched many lives. It was widely reported that Adeleke provided N500m worth of food supplies across Osun State and donated an additional N500m to the Federal Government. Numerous underprivileged students have also benefited from the large heart of the owner of Adeleke University in my home state of Osun. Abubakar Shehu Abubakar III is the Emir of Gombe. Not too long ago, the affluent young man enrolled 1500 orphans and less privileged children in primary schools, accessing qualitative education. Through his foundation, the emir has touched about 3000 young lives. In a system like Nigeria with about 10million out-of-school kids, the Emir’s effort is laudable. Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has always been at the forefront of philanthropy in Nigeria. There are many Nigerians who aren’t holding back from helping the helpless in our nation. Unfortunately, however, among us are those who have stacks of money tucked away in secret accounts all over the world and know not what to do with it.
In the late 90s, Nigeria’s former Defense Minister, Theophilus Danjuma, was reportedly rewarded with an oil bloc in Port Harcourt, which was later sold to China’s offshore oil company CNOOC for the sum of $1bn in 2006. After paying the requisite taxes and other fees, he was left with $500m. “This was extra money I did not know what to do with. I did not just want to leave the money in the bank,” Danjuma reportedly said. About $100m was later put into his charity, the TY Danjuma Foundation. Danjuma also reportedly acquired a 300-year-old inn next to Hampton Court Palace, which once housed Henry VIII, the King of England, in 1509. He paid N1.2bn for it. Nigeria shouldn’t have room for hunger and poverty. What we have can go around.
In 2014, Borno-born businessman Mohammed Indimi donated $14m to have a business school at Lynn University in Florida, named after him. I don’t know what Indimi does as charity in Nigeria; it’s his money. But I know that in Borno, human beings are dying daily because of hunger, disease, and lack of adequate healthcare. The combined wealth of the five richest Nigerians is put at $40.9bn. This alone could end extreme poverty in the country. Yet, in a nation of about 200 million people, 120 million human beings are considered poor. Someone should tell this to Nigerians who stash cash in secret troughs and oppress the poor with their wealth. They should step up and give up some of that cash for the dying and hungry around them.
Around Christmas, not too long ago, I met a man in Abeokuta with a wife and two children, and like many people in Nigeria, there was no hope for celebration. “Sir, I don’t need new clothes, I don’t need juice, all I want is just to be able to feed my children this Christmas, and all I need is five thousand Naira, sir,” he lamented. Thousands are close to you who may be in that situation today. Without a shred of doubt, there are many affluent Nigerians with big hearts for the needy. Piercing plights of the poor make their kind hearts throb to help. These people make no noise about what they do, and their lives are impacted.
I am praying for a season in Nigeria where Governments will no longer be as inevitably and domineeringly relevant as they are today; where ordinary and unheralded men will stretch out their hands to help lift afflicted Nigerian families from the gutters of life to the gallery of self-dependence; and where Nigerians will be able to provide for themselves without awaiting a handout from the government. I am asking for more big hearts to take big leaps and help rebuild Nigeria’s ruined walls. If only 10,000 compassionate and magnanimous minds can come together and focus on what ordinary human beings can do to help the helpless and needy, poverty in Nigeria can be cut in half in the next 10 years. The purpose of government is to provide for the well-being of its people. But people continue to die daily under the bludgeon of ravaging poverty. Our people need a lift more than the government can offer. It’s the right thing to do.
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