While crimes of any sort including kidnappings should be condemned by any right-thinking person, the rich in the country have their own share of the blame for the sorry state of affairs.
One reason for this is the manner they flaunt their wealth. In a country like Nigeria with so much poverty, disease and other developmental challenges staring us in the face daily, it smacks of the highest level of insensitivity for those with money to ‘show off’ their riches so flagrantly.
It’s even worse when all this ‘flaunting’ is done by our elected leaders. It’s an open secret that those in elective positions in the country, like governors, senators, House of Rep members and other representatives live above the people-many live lifestyles of immense luxury and extravagance while most of the citizens whose interests they are supposed to represent live in grinding penury. They live in multi-billion Naira mansions, fly around in private jets and helicopters and drive exotic cars that even the Queen of England (one of the richest women in the world), doesn’t drive. To them, the word ‘modest lifestyle’ doesn’t exist.
And the sad thing about this is that most of the money used in funding their flamboyant lifestyles which they flaunt in our faces, are public funds, money that is desperately needed to develop our country. Looking at their lifestyles, one would think that Nigeria is a country with the resources of the U.S and China combined instead of a resource-rich but poor country still battling with the challenges of a developing country.
Land of show-offs, tax evaders
Nigeria must be the only country in the world where a man will announce to the world that he is a rich man. In other climes, especially in the Western world, the opposite is the norm-the rich live mostly modest lifestyles and hardly flaunt their wealth. The reason for this is obvious: to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to themselves and because of the taxman. For over there, the rich are heavily taxed and flaunting your wealth is an open invitation to the taxman to come and take his ‘cut’ of your wealth.
Here, though, most of our wealthy class don’t pay taxes, at least not as much as expected, considering what they make. It’s the ordinary workers whose taxes are deducted at source from their meager salaries who are the real tax payers in this country.
Besides tax evasion, the rich in our midst have no idea what wealth is meant for. To them, it’s just for living a life of affluence and grandeur: for acquiring the good things of life such as big houses, expensive cars, designer clothes, foreign holidays to exotic places, an Ivy league education for the kids and so on…
Nothing wrong in living the good life if you can afford it, have worked hard and genuinely earned it (and not by looting public funds or through other unscrupulous means).
But there’s more to wealth possession than the above. One man who understood clearly the real purpose of wealth was Andrew Carnegie, an American billionaire industrialist, philanthropist and at one time the richest man in the world. Carnegie believed wholeheartedly that the rich should use their wealth to enrich society, stating publicly that ‘the rich have a moral obligation to give away their fortunes’- that those with great wealth must be socially responsible and use their assets to help others. This belief was stated in his book, “The Gospel of Wealth.”
He did not mean charity but philanthropy- his idea being to use his wealth to give people the opportunity to help themselves. He did this by providing funds to build libraries, schools and other training institutions. In total he funded more than 2,500 libraries throughout the UK, the US and Canada and at his death in 1919, he had given away $350 million out of his wealth.
Though small in stature at only 5ft 1in tall, he was a man with a very big heart indeed!
In Nigeria today, we have a lot of Carnegies, but what do they do with their riches? Apart from a few who are humane, the majority do nothing but live ostentatious, flamboyant lifestyles, endlessly seeking after the pleasures that their money can buy, acquiring frivolous items like private jets that add no value to society. And all this smack in the middle of millions of deprived, hungry and needy countrymen who have lost hope in the system.
Are you then surprised that kidnapping and other crimes are on the rise? The chickens have surely come home to roost!
Now the rich live in fear. They can’t even drive their expensive cars on the roads anymore for fear of armed robbers or kidnappers. Has it thus, not become glaringly obvious that for the rich in the society (especially the ruling class) to have a peaceful environment to enjoy their wealth, they must care about the poor, the teeming masses in their midst? The days of ignoring them, pretending that they don’t exist must end.
From history, we know what happened in societies that ill-treated the poor masses among them, while the aristocrats wallowed in their profligate lifestyles. The French Revolution that took place in 18th century France, which led to the demise of the Royal Family and other members of the ruling class, is a good example. Let’s learn from history and avoid the looming catastrophe hanging over us.
•Concluded
