In a viral video trending on TikTok, Coscharis Group founder Cosmas Maduka speaks about the five levels of money. Having been in business since he was 17, the 66-year-old magnate is lyrical about defining values from the money or wealth perspective. He identifies the levels of money to be (a) credibility, (b) credible relationship, (c) integrity, (d) character, and (e) competence, the last being the least. He, however, adds a sixth, but he is not keen on making it a level of money for reasons he explains in the clip. His classifications are generally sound, if not profound. It is hard to fault him on any of the five, or even the six, but his perspective on character appears inconclusive, perhaps for reason of time on a video clip to explicate the subject; or perhaps because trying to tie that virtue to success and wealth can be sometimes very arduous and limiting.
Apart from being a successful businessman, he is also a pastor, motivational speaker, philanthropist, and business mentor. In explicating character, he suggests that it is at the foundation of anyone’s life. He also explains that character is the fulcrum of leadership, but adds that once a person possesses character he will ‘have success and make wealthy’, obviously because he is talking about the levels of money. But since he brings the issue of leadership into his talk, it is important to let his publics know that wealth may not necessarily accompany character. If wealth comes, of course, character should undergird it. But success is a little more universal and perhaps less discriminating, implying that sometimes success in money terms can be achieved unscrupulously and exploitatively. The success subject is, it seems, much wider and even less ethical than Mr Maduka has argued in a short clip. But as for character, it will be far better and safer to disentangle it from money terms.
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The dictionary definition of character is restrictive and unhelpful, regardless of its generally acceptable connotations and denotations. The dictionary defines character in two flexible ways to mean the “mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual”, and/or “the way someone thinks, feels, and behaves: in short, someone’s personality”. The definitions are sensible but not expansive enough to give a profound feel to what Mr Maduka is saying on the subject, especially since he links it to leadership. Other sources have provided a list of constituents of character that help expatiate the subject, including but not limited to integrity, which Mr Maduka describes as the third level of money, courage, empathy, resilience, accountability, vision, collaboration, passion, and judgement. Both former United States president Richard M. Nixon, and a former French president Charles de Gaulle wrote copiously on the subject of character, even though ironically, Mr Nixon fell short of profiting from his own counsel and knowledge.
But in his recent book, On character: Choices that define a life, highly decorated US Army general Stanley A. McChrystal explains what it means to live with purpose and integrity, encouraging everyone to engage in self-examinations and judge the end results of the choices they make. According to him, “Generations will view themselves and the world differently. And they should. Their vantage points aren’t the same, and we live, work, and struggle for what we value as people, not as generations.” Last week, on television, the general dismissed US president Donald Trump as destitute of character. The House of Representatives in Nigeria will in fact find the book valuable for its recommendation on compulsory voting in which the general suggests that voting be made mandatory even if the voter would end up selecting ‘no preference’. In his compelling 118-page 1932 book, The Edge of the Sword, President de Gaulle provides what may be described as a most enthralling dissection of the art of leadership. In it he talks eloquently about what character is, including characteristics that seem sometimes absolutely counterintuitive, such as the need to cultivate mystery and aloofness, even apparent lack of empathy. With character constituting one chapter out of about five or so, he wanted the book to help everyone get a grasp of ‘the very substance of man’.
If Mr Maduka speaks restrictively of success in the business sense, and goes ahead to qualify or circumscribe it by the definitional cultures of how to make money, a reader might be tempted to gloss over the deeper intricacies of what he glibly conjoined as success and wealth within the context of character. His explanations are gripping as far as motivational speaking is concerned, what with its reference to business ethics, and the general import of his conclusions appear to be indisputable and unquestionable. But placed side by side with much deeper treatments of what character means, even exclusive of moral and religious underpinnings, not to say regardless of the idiosyncrasies of great and successful leaders, Mr Maduka’s argument appears superficial and unnecessarily moralistic. But he at least has done the country a favour by giving that interview in a video clip that has now gone viral. Younger Nigerians, many of whom have a dimwitted approach to wealth and society, should listen to him and take some useful lessons.
