Rochas: An Inspirational Book That Can Exorcise Femi Fani-kayode

By ONWUASOANYA FCC JONES

It is from the reading of the right books and associating with the right men that ordinary men are made great. There is nothing as impactful as studying the life of a man or a woman who has attained heights you envy- in politics, academics, business, sports or any other profession- and living by the secrets you discover about such men or women. Great men are actually living books; studying them gives us a chance to be great or even greater than they are, but envying them will only keep us stuck to the wrong side of the ladder of life. According to Confucius; “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is the noblest, second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”

One trait that is common among failed and unfulfilled men is the predilection for labeling great men as either criminals or magicians. Because they cannot see themselves at the level of such men or women, they comfort themselves by thinking and also proclaiming successful men and women as having come about their wealth or fame by indulging in some voodoo practices. While this unfortunate mentality was most expected among illiterates, it is pathetic that someone who brags about holding several degree of a prestigious institution like Cambridge University could also toe the same pathetic line of thought. However, there is little difference between illiterates and the toxically indolent. No matter how many degrees, an indolent fool can boast of, he or she remains worse than an illiterate, for even though he can read and even write, he is irredeemable from ignorance and brutishness.

Successful men are marked out by their inquisitiveness and positivity. A successful person always tries to find out what is or are the secrets that made great men, great, and he follows the same route or finds his own route. Great men do not allow themselves to become prisoners of their history, but they move out of the shadows of their parents or siblings and carve niches for themselves. They live with that orientation that no matter whose children they are, what is most important is who they turn out to become. A man, who has not made a history different from that of his parents or family, is as good as never having lived.

That Fani-Kayode could speak derisively of those who had indulged or are still indulging in doing legitimate, but small scale trading as ‘residing in gutters’ speaks volumes of his feelings about majority of Nigerian citizens. Femi, obviously do not have any respect for the child or man on the street striving to make ends meet, legitimately. For him, if you are not wealthy (no matter how you came about the wealth), you are living in the gutters and should not be considered a human being. This gives an insight into why he allegedly diverted funds meant for the protection of lives of ordinary citizens in the Northeast. His belief is that those poor people deserve to die or at most, languish in IDP camps, because they are not better than pigs and lowly animals living in the gutters. Fani-Kayode obviously respects fraudsters, kidnappers, armed robbers, drug peddlers and other immoral men and women as long as they have enough cash to throw around. For him, there is no dignity in labour.

Governor Rochas Okorocha is one of the few Nigerian politicians whose source of wealth is known and whom we can trace the history of their first One Million Naira. For a man, whose parents were not among the wealthiest in Nigeria at his time, it could have taken an unusual level of integrity, diligence, hard work, providence and intelligence for him to have seen himself where he is today. It is only men of untainted integrity who do not feel shame about their humble backgrounds. There are very few great men who were born with the proverbial golden spoon, most others work out their own greatness. Okorocha hawked petty goods; including second handed clothes, popularly known as okrika, because he was determined to break through in life through legitimate channels. He was not unaware of some other shorter cuts to success, neither was he a coward not to have tried, but his deep seated Christian beliefs and proper family upbringing, ensured that he kept away from any form of crime or dirty route to success.

There are handfuls of great world leaders who rose from very poor homes to respectable heights in both politics and business, and such leaders have special pages reserved for them in history books, so that they may serve as role models to upcoming generation of leaders. Okorocha is a self-made man who understood from the time he could discern the difference between hunger and pangs of stomach ulcer that his success in life does not depend on whose child he is, but on what steps he was ready to take to attain the height he dreamt of. He knew that the major things that could determine where he would end up in life were his drive and ambition, or the lack of both.

Naturally endowed with great wisdom, Okorocha knew that he needed good education to be able to operate at the level he dreamt of. It is not easy for anyone who delved into the world of business at the age he did, to still have time to attend school, but he has always been the kind of man that lets nothing stop him from attaining his goals in life. He was able to effectively combine his early education with business. Going to school in the morning and getting to do business, the rest of the day. Today, he is not just a university graduate, but also holds a Masters’ Degree from one of Nigeria’s most prestigious universities, the University of Jos, Plateau State.

One can appreciate Femi’s incapacity to understand these things. For a man, who at 57 years of age, is still straddled to his late mother’s breasts and cannot live without his late father’s support, you do not blame him for feeling that it is impossible for Okorocha to attain the height he has, even though, he didn’t have a father to send him to Cambridge or a grand-father whose name he might drop in order to get some Government appointments or free monies. Femi can be compared to a thirty years old man who is still writing university matriculation exam, but hears of another 25 years old woman who is on the verge of defending her Doctoral Dissertation. He would shamelessly give all kinds of excuses, including that the woman must have slept her way to such height and other stupid excuses. Another sensible man who is not so lucky to have the drive and special providence enjoyed by the young woman, would sit back and try to learn how that woman achieved that feat at such a relatively young age. Following her footsteps instead of looking for excuses to justify his failures, will most likely help him.

Governor Okorocha, having achieved great success through a dint of hard work, did not lose sight of where he came from. One of the first things he did was to set up schools for children of the poorest in our society. He understood that the special drive that made him succeed in combining business and education will not be easy for many children, yet, he does not want any child to fall short in the attainment of his God-given prospects because of lack of education. Through his Rochas Foundation Schools and other educational development initiatives, including sponsoring specially gifted children to universities abroad, Okorocha has been able to help more than 100,000 children to have access to free and qualitative education in his personal capacity, and millions other children have since benefited from his free education program as a governor. Okorocha makes these sacrifices to send other people’s children to school, not so that they will be of any direct benefit to him as a person, but because he loves humanity and would love to have these children become useful to the society in future.

For a man who cannot make anything for himself, except it comes from dipping hands into public funds, Femi Fani-Kayode has destroyed millions of lives of ordinary Nigerians as a result of his involvement in many heartrending financial scams in this country. From allegedly diverting billions of Naira meant for the maintenance and upgrading of our airports, Femi, is today standing trial for several financial crimes he is alleged to be involved in. These scams include the alleged diversion of Millions of Dollars meant for the purchase of arms for our armed forces to fight Boko Haram insurgents in the Northeast, alleged misappropriation of the “Aviation Intervention Fund”, alleged money laundering, etc. Femi Fani-Kayode is not known for bringing any serious reforms to bear on any ministry or agency he has ever been appointed into. What the records say about him, is that he always leaves many reasons for investigators to suspect that he stole public funds.

A criminal in the class of Evans, the notorious kidnapper, can as well claim to have come from a wealthy home, after all, his father was able to build a duplex in the late seventies, but what Evans, like FFK cannot lay claim to is any shade of integrity or class.

I am fortunate to have been brought up by parents who instilled in me necessary moral etiquettes that I cannot find myself questioning the paternity of my fellow man, especially, when I am sure there is not a single controversy surrounding the birth of such a man. Okorocha is a full blooded Ideato son and there is no doubt about his paternity. Okorocha comes from a well bonded family with at least six direct siblings. He is neither the last of his father’s children nor the first. His father, who was popularly known as Ochiedike was a popular and well respected community leader in his own right and resided in Jos with his family before returning home to Ogboko. Though, not wealthy, the senior Okorocha made sure that his children were well brought up. Today, all his children are doing very well in their chosen areas of life and there is none that has any scandal or the other on their names. None of the children of the senior Okorocha has died from complications arising from HIV nor have any of them failed to maintain their marriages. Good temperament, ability to maintain trust, maintaining relationship, whether marriage or business and the attitude of compassion to fellow human beings are parts of good upbringing. None of them has allowed wealth or power to get into their heads, such that they take to pouring invectives on people without cause. Those, more than anything else, are the surest signs of good and noble upbringing.

In a country where political witch-hunting is almost a culture, Okorocha is one of the few billionaires in Nigeria who is involved in politics that has never had any of his companies investigated for any form of financial crime. One of the reasons he is under attack by some people who are major beneficiaries of the old days of decadence is because he has fought corruption to a standstill in the State. It is no longer possible for a clique of pot-bellied elites to gather in the Government House to share the people’s money, rather the ordinary people of the State get adequate share of the money through the many people oriented projects the Rescue Mission administration executes for the benefit of the people.

Femi finds it difficult wrapping his head around Okorcha’s kind of person. Because he is possessed by the evil spirit of stealing and wickedness, and he has long been accustomed to diverting public funds to private pockets, he does not think Okorocha belongs to this world for utilizing public funds to the service of the people. This is a major reason why he needs to take his time to study Okorocha so that he might be exorcised from the evil spirit that has made his life a terrible Abyss, here on earth.

The Bible book of Timothy warns us of the kind of individuals we must stay away from in these last days; “Traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers God. Having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!”. (2 Timothy 3:4-5). Femi Fani-Kayode is obviously in a battle with too many evil spirits who have held him hostage and don’t seem ready to let him be. It will be difficult to exorcise these evil spirits from a man whose heart seems closed to repentance, however, should he humble himself and take some time to understudy the person of Governor Rochas Okorocha- from his early beginning in life, to his courageous and gracious breakthrough from biting poverty to one of the wealthiest Africans alive, to his credentials in humanitarian services, to his special and enviable brand of politics devoted to serving human kind, spreading love and promoting peace- I think, Femi may finally be exorcised of these dangerous demons threatening to devour him.