Director who became poor to enrich his family

Director who became poor to enrich his family

Nothing can be more contradictory than the headline above. How can a poor man enrich anybody? But wait a minute. The Christendom has a place in the Holy Writ to support the philosophy of a director of finance in one of the ministries in Abuja – a citadel of corruption. In the Good Book, we are told that Christ became poor so that through His poverty, Christians can be rich. When the Guinness Book of Records is updated, the director in question will go down in history as the most altruistic being after Christ, i.e. ever to show such eternal love by living the life of a pauper so that through his poverty, his family would not only be rich, but also stupendously wealthy.

The director who is now late was seen as a man of honour and integrity, an epitome of righteousness. He was always complaining of hardship and how the country was being misgoverned by thieving bureaucrats. As a director of finance, not many people believed his story each time he chorused the usual refrain: “Country hard o.”

His immediate family members often wondered why their breadwinner should be lamenting over thirst when he was neck deep inside water. For refusing to steal like his counterparts in other ministries, departments and agencies (so his family thought), he was despised by his children. They wondered why they were condemned to live in the Ancient Marina where there was water, water everywhere but none to drink.

After two years of being a director, he was finally pummeled to death by poverty. When the mourning was over, the family members were summoned for the reading of his will. They wondered what a departed miser could offer in his will. But their lower jaws fell when the lawyer began to reel out the content of the will and they were all in a state of shock until what sounded like a line from Nollywood ended.

Hear him: “Your generous father left behind 27 houses in Abuja, not in Nyanya, Mararaba, Idu or Karmo.

“That is not all. He also left 15 houses in one of the nation’s commercial cities and another 20 houses in another state capital. Your father loved you and worked so hard to ensure you did not suffer after his demise.”

One of the children found his voice and interrupted the proceedings: “Excuse me, you mean papa was that rich and he refused to take care of us while he was alive? Why did he refuse to send us overseas for training to save us from the incessant ASUU and SSANU strikes?”

The lawyer chuckled and asked them to prepare for more shocker: “Finally, your father left a whopping sum of N4.2 billion in cash in his offshore and onshore accounts. The money is to be shared equally among all of you.”

Although smiles soon suffused the faces of all present, they could not believe that their father had acquired so much and did so little to improve the quality of life of his family and the poor around them.

“Well, papa tried, but he did not do well when he was alive. Though we would have liked him to live and enjoy the fruits of his labour, God in His wisdom took him home. We only hope that He will grant him eternal rest,” one of his children said.

Another child cut in: “For me, papa was not fair to himself. He looted the treasury silly. Did papa think that he would go to heaven with the loot? He could as well be dispatched to the hottest space in hell…”

The last child of the family of six then sermonized: “It is not for us to judge papa for what he did. He sacrificed his comfort so that we could live happily ever after. Whatever he gets up there is God’s decision. We should pray for his kind soul to rest in eternal peace.”

Their mother, on her own part, couldn’t utter a word as she broke down in tears in total disbelief.