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‘Stay where God
wants you to stay, do what God wants you to do, and say what God wants
you to say.’ These are borrowed lines from one of my wife’s songs in
her second album, titled ‘I am a plus’. The summary of the song is that
you will be ‘a plus to your generation, a plus to your family, and a
plus to your nation.’ Indeed, she ends it with ‘I am a child of God’.
That means a child of obedience, hence she is a plus because she obeyed
and did as God commanded.

Somebody then asked
me how he would know where God wants him to stay if he does not try his
hands in several things, even if he does not have the expertise.

In Abuja, the story
was told of an Igbo man who worked as a bricklayer for fifteen years,
with contentment. He married a wife who did not give him much problem,
and they both managed whatever he was able to bring in. They sent their
children to the schools around their area, living within their means.

But one day in his
place of work, one big man who came to buy blocks was talking to his
boss. He wanted to buy land in Apo area of Abuja and this bricklayer
happened to know somebody who owns a land in that area and wanted to
sell. That was how innocently, he became a middleman to honest
Nigerians, who ended up paying 10% on both sides. The man was given
cash and he almost went mad with joy. He opened a provision shop for
his wife in Wuse market and bought himself a car.

There was a lot of
drama on how he almost ran mad with about N3 million cash under his
bed, on top of his chest, inside the ceiling, inside the drum of water,
until it was dawn when he was advised to open an account immediately.
The moral, however, is in the fact that for 15 years, the man stayed
where God wanted him to stay. He did exactly what God told him to do,
and in spite of the low income and the low status of his job, he did it
happily and with satisfaction.

That is not the
case today with a lot of people who flow with the wind, ‘anywhere belle
face’, as we say in football. If they are selling yam and suddenly
their neighbour selling orange is making 200% returns on oranges, they
immediately change to orange. If their neighbour selling plastic
buckets begins to make profit, they change again and when pure water
begins to ‘move market’, they change too. They forget that the people
selling those items have also made sacrifices and must have incurred
some losses at the beginning. But these people are looking for short
routes. They want to drive flashy cars, live in gigantic mansions, and
‘carry the chromest of babes’.

And for the women, they want already made men, not minding how he is making the money.

Reduce your greed

My friend used to
organise ‘Christmas Jamboree’ in most primary schools in the FCT every
December – Father Christmas, two clowns, and two cartoon characters –
and they move from school to school. It was their idea and they were
the owners; that was how my friend paid his staff and raised money for
the beginning of the next year.

But suddenly,
because he was making profit from it, almost all the school proprietors
closed their gates to him and are now organising these events
themselves. They have hijacked somebody’s idea and added it to their
own. They have a school, they collect school fees. Now, they have
collected the little means of income of this young man. How do you want
him to stay where God wants him to stay?

In fact, that was
exactly what I told him. That is not where God wants you to stay. That
is not what God wants you to do. As a theatre practitioner, the world
is open before you. When you get to where God wants you to stay,
believe me, you would know. First, learn a trade or chose a vocation
that you enjoy and stay there. No matter how poor the profit is, with
consistency and continuity the heavens are bound to smile on you too.

But this ‘grab all
and acquire all syndrome’ is what is leading directors who earn monthly
salaries to be struggling with the genuine contractors. They are like
the school proprietors, not allowing some people to know where God
wants them to stay. If you reduce your level of greed and I reduce
mine, perhaps, it will be a better place for all.