How soon many forget that our wealth becomes someone else’s when we are, no more.
It is an undisputable fact that a number of significant wealthy billionaires bestride the Nigeria socio-political space like a colossus. While this writer is not in any way opposed to how wealthy individuals should spend or use their wealth, they in fact should in whatever way they deem appropriate, yet it is known that this wealth is usually amassed at the expense of the very mass of the poor. Today’s billionaires cannot take away the importance of the millions of people around the world who serve as potential clients of the products they sell, one which ultimately adds monetary value to the pockets of big business corporations owned by these billionaire’s. Without ‘us’ there cannot be ‘them’ and so when an individual becomes wealthy through the people, it is expedient and mostly imperative for the latter to do same by giving back to that society in many ways.
Rather than engage in charity works, what a number of our billionaires in this part of the, world does is to keep accumulating wealth and do it at the expense of wealth itself. Such accumulated wealth becomes so huge that it turns out to be our worst nightmare that we begin to fear the next man who we think has an evil intent even when such fear is unwarranted.
There is a growing movement today which has taken up the banner of social justice and ultimately sparked a golden age of philanthropy unseen since the days of Rockefeller, carnegie and Morgan. This is simply to help fight a number of causes around the world.
Back to Nigeria, one can hardly hear of such pretty initiatives pioneered by our wealthy class, unlike most Americans who share the desire to help their fellow man, the wealthy class in Nigeria see this as an uncharitable venture. This writer, after a brief research, recently discovered that a paltry number of foundations set up by our wealthy class exist today in Nigeria.