Riches versus Good Name

Riches is now better than a Good Name in the Nigeria of Today.

By   Ogiri John Ogiri.

My very good friend, Godwin Ekwote of the Department of Banking and Finance, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue, this morning, challenged us with this question "As The  saying goes; A Good Name Is Better Than Riches, But In the Nigerian Context, Does It Really Matter?"
Before I begin, I must confess that I owe my friend, Goodwin Ekwote, an unquantifiable debt of gratitude for raising this poser which triggered the ideas in this write up. Having accorded honour to whom honour is due, let me now submit my contributions by addressing the question.
For me, a question of this nature is a rhetoric that calls for sober reflections. However,a cursory analysis of the question in the light of the current Nigerian reality certainly reveals a new thesis statement I have adopted as the heading of this piece "Riches is now better than a Good Name in the Nigeria of Today"
It certainly reveals an answer in the negative.
Yes,Negative! The answer is negative. My reasons are not farfetched.
Nigerians aren't interested in protecting the revered dignity of their names anymore. Their unquenchable penchants and uncontrolled cravings for crass materialism have blinded their moral capacities to understand that a good name is better than how much is available in their bank accounts or how many mansions they can or have built. This situation even is compounded and worsened by the distorted teachings of some depraved and highly unschooled men of the cloth, theologically speaking, that to be poor is to be cursed.
The result is that,as it is now, Nigerians can do anything to acquire wealth even if it means killing a fellow man in order to ascend to a political office, sleeping in the grave, having sex with a mentally-deranged individual,merchandising and selling job spaces in the civil service at a fee as outrageous as the evil it represents, deliberately hoarding petroleum products in order to maximize outrageous supernormal returns at the expense of the comfort of their fellow country men and women, starting a business under the classified code name of the church so as to milk dry the unsuspecting and gullible poor in furtherance of their private estate expansionist objective of huge material acquisition, or even if it means taking the desperate risk of becoming victims of slavery in modern day Libya or in the worst case dying while crossing the Sahara desert and the Mediterranean sea to Europe.
As a matter of fact, the humble philosophy of 'Being contented with the little one has' has lost its meaning in their lives. In fact,the core values of honesty and hard work, or the philosophy of humility has now become a cliché, something used only in the superficial sense of the words. "I must be rich at all cost" is a very dangerous mentality that has made many Nigerians drag their family names in the mud.
And so in Nigeria today, our situations have produced surprising yet disturbing outcomes. Before now, honesty used to be the best policy but now, lies and dishonesty pay more. That explains the situation and the reason a forty-year (40) year old man or woman can confidently claim he or she is twenty-two (22)years old,if not less, because our public service or civil service has a structure that places high premium on one's age instead of what one can offer.
Further more, the golden, age-long aphorism etched on a page in the book of proverbs from which my friend drew this fundamental question indeed is that a good name is better than riches. But in the Nigeria of today, becoming rich,at the expense of a good name, is the ultimate pursuit of many. In other words, Nigerians have formulated a different philosophy that suits their situations. What we have now is "A bad name is better provided you have the money." Or "riches is better than a good name"
We must, as a matter of urgency, thus embark on value reorientation of the psyche of every Nigerian if we must reverse this trend.