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Adenuga’s Unassuming Lifestyle and Lessons for Wealth Exhibitionists

By Chidiebere Nwobodo
The great Socrates, founder of Western philosophy who lived in Athens in 5th century BCE, opined that unexamined life is not worth living. A society begins to teeter on the brink of moral collapse when its value system start eroding without commensurate efforts being made to stem the ignoble tide. It becomes a downward spiral into abyss of ideological degradation.
Igbo nation is at moral crossroad again. Immoral behavior of wealth exhibitionism has risen to stratospheric height that should alarm any sane mind to begin to ponder on the cultural dangers we face as a people, when money and sententious manner it is being flaunted, defines us as a nation. Ostentatious lifestyle of wealth exhibitionists is replacing our revered values.
Young boys in the Igbo land no longer have a role model who they should look up to learn the real essence of material prosperity. Most of our rich folks fall upon themselves in the depraved competition of self-glorification, just to be seen as having money. Funerals in the southeast that used to be a solemn moment for the living to reflect on their lives, have been corrupted as an opportunity for the supposedly mourners to display wealth in the most craziest manner.
Festive period in Igbo land has taken up a new definition. It is no longer a cherished moment when relatives and loved ones gather together in love and harmony to celebrate what binds us as a people. It has metamorphosed into a razzle-dazzling time of the year when extravagant displayed of wealth defeats the real essence of home-coming. It is like UEFA champions league finals for wealth exhibitionists.
It is now contest of who built the most expansive mansion, came in the longest fleet of exotic cars and whose security details (escort) has more military trucks in it. During social events, the “billionaires” are seen throwing wads of money at each other in most mundane form, just to flaunt riches. Our people on social media take it further by chest-beating via all sorts of warped narratives of being the richest tribe with the highest numbers of billionaires per square kilometers.
You might be tempted to think that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, etc., were of Igbo ethnic stock. While this noise was ongoing, I began to ponder on what had happened to my people. Why are we becoming too loud in the display of wealth, albeit unnecessarily? I goggled list of dollar-denominated billionaires in Africa, as recognized by Forbes Magazine, none was Igbo. And I asked again: why the hoity-toity attitude?
Take a look at Chief Mike Adenuga, Jr., dollar-denominated billionaire—2nd in Nigeria and 5th in Africa, in the hierarchy of wealthiest people in the world. He is worth almost $7 billion dollars. He has been a member of this exclusive Forbes club of billionaires as long as I can remember. Chairman of Globacom, Conoil, Cobblestone Properties, etc., with vast interest in banking, construction, oil, gas, telecommunications, etc. He is one of the biggest (if not number one) philanthropists in West Africa.
Yet, he is reclusive in nature with unassuming personality. He shies away from attention and highfalutin spotlight. He has a larger-than-life lifestyle, yet not noisy about it. His palatial home, Adenuga Villa, is the most expensive home owned by a single individual in Nigeria. Situated at waterfront of exquisite neighborhood of Banana Island. It is valued at over $35m dollars. The Ijebu-born billionaire did not only build mansion but estate of mansions graciously engraved on a 4-hectare land.
Do you know one of the interesting things about this palatial home? Most of the pictures of it on the internet are the drone views—taken from the top. I am yet to see any of the pictures or videos of inside of Adenuga Villa, captured directly at close range. Most Nigerians do not have an idea what the interiors look like. Imagine for a second that this exquisite home is owned by one of my Igbo brothers?
Content creators would have ran different documentaries on it. The noise would have been so much on social media you might begin to think that its foundation was made of diamonds with supporting pillars of gold and the rooftops carved out of silver. I am yet to see a video of anyone walking around inside the compound.
Am I a moral police? No. Am I trying to pigeonhole Igbo billionaires on how to live their lives and spend their monies? Not at all. All I am saying is that we should stop exaggerating and exhibiting our riches in disgusting tone, to the extent that it becomes offensive and morally eroding. Yes, we have higher number in terms of wealth distribution across our population, but we have a lot working against us than we have working for us.
We are gifted in entrepreneurship, especially commerce, yet all the institutional enhancers of trade are not in our control. Igbo nation does not have access to functional seaport, international airport, railway lines, etc. When was the last time an Igbo son or daughter headed customs and ports authority—two strategic agencies for importation business? Despite the decibels of noise we ooze out on social media of being wealthiest tribe, we have zero influence on monetary cum fiscal policies of the government.
At this juncture, no one will label me a bigot suffering from Igbophobia because I am unapologetically Igbo. I am always at the media warfront defending collective interest of my people when there is perceived injustice against us. What my message is driving at is this: there is wisdom in discretion. Too much of anything is annoyingly bad. Let’s tone down on the chest-beating and loquacious tendencies. We complain of Igbophobia yet supply oxygen to it.
We rent private jet for an-hour flight, yet more loud about it than the owner of an airline. We are too eager to impress it on people that we have “arrived”, ironically those who have truly arrived, like Chief Mike Adenuga, Jr., do not flaunt it like our rich folks do. Globacom chief owns fleet of private jets, yachts and Rose Royces, but you rarely see a picture or video of him entering or disembarking on any of the luxurious machines. Still waters run deep.
We engage in charity for publicity. We are handing out bags of rice to villagers, yet have more cameras beaming at us than the number of items being gifted out. It is all for showiness—wealth exhibitionism. The real philanthropists detest publicizing the work of charity. Chief Mike Adenuga, Jr., for example, has built corporate offices for private organizations, donated multi-billion naira hospitals to communities, gifted brand new schools to the needy, etc., yet all these deeds of philanthropy were intentionally blocked from making it to the media.
Wealth exhibitionism in Igbo has become a threat to the future of our youths. It is fueling the vile ideology of get-rich-or-die-trying syndrome. Many of our youths are languishing in prisons abroad because of drug trafficking. Insecurity is ravaging our land because more Igbo youths had ventured into kidnapping in the last three years than we had recorded in the last three decades. We are all worshipping the new god of mammon of wealth without work.
We pride and parrot in being the richest tribe yet collectively impoverished as a people. Recently there was a fire incident that burnt parts of Nnewi market because of non-availability of fire-fighting equipment. A town like Nnewi that boosts of having high numbers of billionaires could not afford good fight-fighting trucks to protect their own businesses. Individually progressive but collectively backward. Our public infrastructure is in gross decay yet we are wealthy. Maybe we need to redefine wealth.
*Chidiebere writes via @chidinwobodo1 (Twitter) and Chidiebere Nwobodo (Facebook).