The fact that a presidential aspirant used the making of 20 million Nigerians millionaires between 2023 and 2030, as a campaign bait, is an indication of how far Nigeria has sunk, value-wise. That presidential campaign stunt was attributed to a state governor, Yahaya Bello, which also implies that such a person whose driving value is to make 20 million Nigerians millionaires, must himself be a multi-million money-bag. Nigeria is a nation where individuals can flaunt their wealth and throw their weight about, without anyone asking what lies behind such show of bravado. Wealth is might, power and can take impunity along as an accoutrement.
Considering the current state of Nigeria where insecurity is a biting challenge, anyone would have thought that anyone aspiring to become the next president would place such a challenge in the front burner as campaign promise. But what we have is a promise to make 20 Nigerians millionaires within a space of seven years. Surely, there are millions of Nigerians who would be caught by that campaign bait, and their votes swayed by such aspiration. The next step would be to approach Yahaya Bello personally for mentorship on ways and means to become millionaires in seven years’ time. We already have a cult of money-bags.
To say that misplacement of priorities and values is one of the predicaments of Nigeria as a nation, would not be a wrong assumption. But the issue about choices of priorities and values is an issue having to do with the inner quality and development of individuals. Wealth has been known to lure many people away from serious goals and callings in life, whereby, even with great wealth at their disposal, many and their lives in misery, regrets, frustrations and quilt-feelings.
20 million millionaires in seven years in a country where millions of people can be killed, maimed, kidnapped, traumatised, rendered homeless, helpless, jobless, etc, in a space of seven years by bandits, terrorists and unknown gunmen, is surely a country where eternal values must feature as political priorities and aspirations. What if the 20 million millionaires make their quick wealth in wrong and unethical means? Can we vouch that no such “mandarin millionaires” exist in Nigeria currently? Are sharp, sordid and unethical practices not involved in the pursuit of wealth?
Mahatma Gandhi of India listed seven Blunders of humanity as: “Wealth without work; pleasure without conscience; knowledge without character; commerce without morality; science without humanity; worship without sacrifices; politics without principles, and rights without responsibility”. For an aspiring president of Nigeria to place the acquisition of wealth as a campaign promise, without defining the ways and means of such priority proposal, shows the tendency of using short cuts to achieve results that rarely last long. Especially when the person making such campaign promise is a sitting state governor, then comes the question of why he has not deployed such magic formula to improve his state.
Frankly, Nigerians are wary of politicians who claim that they can be more effective and diligent when they become presidents, while they are unable to apply similar diligence and effectiveness in current and previous positions held. Let us admit that money, power, cunning and the ability to bamboozle the masses do not make for patriotic, diligent and effective leadership. The challenges and needs which confront Nigeria currently are too complex that making millions of Nigerians millionaires would not resolve or address the challenges and needs. More money can mean more acts of madness, than sober reflections!.
Those endowed with hypodermic vision are aware that current perplexities and experiences in the country are not without causes and purposes. Current challenges are meant to bring about a forced and rapid change or transformation, whereby every individual must examine himself and make appropriate adaptations. Such adaptation does not call for 20 million Nigerians becoming millionaires by 2030. Rather, what is needful includes sober reflection on the part of every individual Nigerian, because what we are passing through currently are the results of human failures and negligences. From avarice and greed, to insincerity and deceit, every Nigerian has some blame.
Those who know about specific law governing wealth would tell us that it goes with intensity of mindset, fixation of attention, willingness to give an equivalent value in return, coupled with taking the collective well-being of the larger society into consideration. We have story of legendary King Midas whose miraculous power turned everything that he touched into gold. What is unacceptable about the millionaire mindset is usually the inability to take the collective well-being of the larger society into consideration. Getting what you want through obsessive propensity, does not always guarantee happiness and peace of mind thereafter.
Ian Fleming, author of James Bond popular detective story books, propounded a theory which he called The Quantum of Solace. Briefly, the theory of The Quantum of Solace states that the quest for peace of mind is a vital priority among humans, but the means towards such ideal state differ widely among individuals. One man’s meat can be another man’s poison. Therefore, the bait of becoming a millionaire in seven years’ time may be attractive to some Nigerians, but surely some other Nigerians would consider such “success” as grossly myopic and materialistic.
Surely, wealth and the desire to become a millionaire cannot be described as evil, but what can become quite unhealthy is a mindset or a propensity which chokes the mind of higher values and strivings which enrich the goals of an ideal life. There have been millionaires who died dusty death, including by suicide. The fact that we live in a world where materialism holds sway, can expose those who are poverty-stricken to various dangers, including humiliations. Therefore, wealth constitutes a countervailing force to deal, measure for measure, with unscrupulous people. Thus money can be a weapon for self preservation.
In the past few years there have been several online trading groups seeking to sponsor and make millions of people millionaire, through selling other people’s products. Thus gambling and betting practices have continued to take various guises, whereby there are promises to make patrons of the “system” millionaires with little work, except to link as many people as possible into the “system”. There was a time when Britain was described as a nation to traders and shop-keeper, marketing the products of other manufacturing countries.
Current digital global economy has been structured in such a way that the flow of wealth is not determined by hard work or productivity, but by on-line technology. We are being told that the time is near when cars would be driven by robots, dignoses of ailments done by machines and babies produced in test-tubes, etc. Right now there are sex toys which can make a man do without a nagging wife and a woman do away with men who can get tired soon. Manufacturers of such “electronic wonders” shop in Africa for marketers who can become millionaires from the comfort of their homes, by selling their products on-line.

By: Bright Amirize

Dr Amirize is a retired lecturer from the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt.