By OluKorede YishauOn Monday, the Emir of Kano again sang a familiar tune: the North is the headquarters of poverty. Emir Sanusis statement is not unrelated to a colleagues assertion that the South has unemployed youths but the North has both unemployable and unemployed youths.It is shocking that we have this situation in a nation with many privileged people like you.Terrible situations likethis have imposed it on me the right to examine your life and come to a conclusion.Let us start this way:The other day I passed through your garage and I thanked God for your life. I saw Rolls Royce. I saw a Cadillac. I saw smaller cars like Toyota Camry 2019 model, Peugeot 406 and so on and so forth.They had gathered dust and I needed no one to tell me they had not been driven for a long time. One or two even still had the nylon on their seats in place.I am told this is replicated in all your mansions in Lagos, Ibadan, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Johannesburg, New York and London.Many of these cars you got as gifts; some were attached to past offices you occupied, and some you cannot even recall how they came to be in your surface and underground garages.Then there are others whose acquisition you can never forget: One of the cars in the garage is a Bentley Continental GT, which cost you 120,000, and there is a Mercedes-Benz Maybach 62, which set you back by 407,000. You also bought a house for 2.2m in Hampstead, north London.In Sandton, South Africa, you sunk 3.2m on a mansion and also lavished 600,000 on a fleet of armoured Range Rovers. That you are a man with taste is not in doubt. The last time I checked, you have not been to New York or Johannesburg for some years, yet a coterie of staff is keeping the homes clean and secure.The wardrobes in these homes brim with hundreds of pairs of shoes, rooms full of designer wears and vaults with currencies running into millions. These houses are not all known to your wife and children. There are some of these houses that are love nests for your concubines.The mansion in your village has 10 rooms, three massive sitting rooms and is complete with chalets of 12 rooms, all en-suite. Your intention was for it to be able to accommodate your children and their families during festivities, but they now lead their own lives and are not interested in even visiting your village country home.Cobwebs have taken over the rooms. Your employees only clean when they know you are coming around. They are tired of cleaning what is not being used. Behind your back, they wonder why you need such a big home when you sleep only in one room.Beside your village mansion lives a family of five, whose breadwinner is a farmer. His total earnings in a month never exceed N80,000. From this, he struggles to educate his kids, feed them and sort out other responsibilities.You know the truth; you know you do not need many of the properties you keep, but greed will not allow you to give them away to those who really need it. You just derive some joy in keeping what is capable of making millions happy to yourself alone.You epitomise the saying that there is enough for everyones need but not for everyones greed. It means nothing to you that you are acquiring riches at the expense of some of the poorest people in the world.With the money you squander on homes you barely sleep one month in a year, hospitals of world-class standard can be built, universities that can rival Harvard can come alive and roads can be fixed.These cars lying unused in your garages are enough to fund the education of 100 children up to the university level.And the cash in your accounts home and abroad can fund all the projects of a state for one year and more. But you prefer to keep all this cash to yourself while infrastructure fall apart and the people suffer.I need to remind you sir that the day you leave this world all these properties become someone elses, and not necessarily your children and wife. Those ones you own secretly may even be inherited by yourmaiguard.Your mistress will also corner the love nest you got for her and the village mansion will go to rot. We have seen many examples. Go to Ado-Ekiti, go to Afao-Ekiti, go to Kafanchan and go to Nnewi, you will see one or two of these mansions that used to be the cynosure of all eyes wasting away.No one, not even the kids of the owners, is interested in them. Your village mansion will be too big that five churches will rent different sections and their members will still not fill the space.Read Also:Emir Sanusi blames almajiri crisis on parents, governmentSir, life is almost nothing. It is not worth taking too seriously to the extent of solely keeping the wealth that can turn around the lives of millions.The moment you die, chances are that people will begin to fight over your properties. Even when you have a last will and testament, your children will begin to quarrel, and we have seen instances where they start querying your sanity at the time the last testament was written.Your own children now start using style to say you were mad at the critical point. They have simply moved on. Fighting over your estate is part of their survival strategies.Do not bank on the fact that you have only one legal wife as a guarantee that no one will fight over your properties. You will be making a mistake to think that because you have only four children there will be no issue over your last will and testament.I will not mention names, but I am sure you have seen at least one case. I believe you know of a very successful lawyer with a wife and only four children, whose will is still being contested.His children are not on speaking terms. Judges at the nations apex court once forced two of them to hug and they refused to hear the case, insisting it must be resolved out of court.Let me also bring this to your attention in case you pretend not to know: You live in a country with over 100 million people in abject poverty, of high maternal mortality, of one of the worlds worst out-of-school-children statistics and of millions whose tomorrow are bleak just on account of their birthplace.My final take: You need to make a difference. You do not need those billions lying idle in your accounts. Start a foundation, give scholarships to hundreds of people and institute a grant-giving scheme for start-ups.Be like Femi Otedola, who gave out N5 billion in one day and is still giving. Emulate Tony Elumelu, Aliko Dangote and others who through their foundations are touching lives.The more, the merrier. Please join the train and not regret when you get to the other side and cannot do anything to turn back the hands of time.I look forward to seeing you turn a new leaf.Bye for now.
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