The Myth of Personal Wealth and Comfort

Chukwu C. Ikechukwu

There is a limit to the comfort personal wealth can provide a person and their family. There is a limit to which personal wealth can take care of what societal wealth can provide. There are some things that can only be provided by societal wealth and the inherent structures, infrastructure, and institutions that are inherent in such societal wealth. Invariably, these structures, infrastructure, institutions, etc. would be missing in a poor society and may not be made up for by individual wealth that remains in private pockets.

Where am I driving to with this? There is this notion here that “you can be comfortable if you make money and become rich, even if the society/environment you live in is poor. This has led to, in most cases, unbridled individualism in the pursuit of personal wealth and comfort at the expense of the pursuit of collective common wealth, common good, and a society that caters to the needs of all. We have made no meaning of the Jeremy Bentham, the  19th century English Political Philosopher expression of “The greatest good of the greatest number. Rather, we have substituted it for the greatest good for the greatest and wealthiest individuals. We have betrayed that Igbo axiom and world view of “onye ahala nwanneya” (let no one leave his siblings/kits) a call to not just “colletivism” and “communal” living, but even a greater call to being thy brother’s keeper, as God demanded in the Bible days.

You hear many, even those who should know, deride those who protest for a better society as poor. They postulate that if you make money, become rich, you can live comfortably, even with a bad government and society. You can provide your own clean water, generate your own electricity, pay for private services, and you will be good, they say.

If you can create personal wealth, you can take care of over 80% of your needs, they say. Hmmm, what they fail to reckon with is that the 20%, no 5% outside your power, can make a mess of your 95% or more provisions. Granted, health care could be one of the private services you can pay for. What of the policy or policies that guide that sector? What are the rules or provisions for an emergency? What policies even guide your wealth and so-called comfort?

For security and its converse insecurity? You may provide private and sophisticated security in your house and office(s). What about when you commute? No wonder, even the highly placed have fallen victim to kidnappers. Yes, members of the State House of Assemblies have been kidnapped. I know of at least one who didn’t come out alive. If you understand Nigeria and personal comfort very well, you do agree that those guys at the legislative quarters across the country have it good, yet they fell victim, thereby rubbishing that theory of personal security over collective state security.

In a world where environmental concern is increasingly becoming a big issue, the personal generation of electricity, using fossil fuel-powered generating sets, not only worsens environmental pollution and its inherent consequences for health and the future, but also exacerbates class consciousness and perhaps class conflict, if not now in the near future.

Some years back, the former Manchester United Fantastic Coach, Sir Alex Ferguson, had a brain haemorrhage that needed emergency surgery. Sir Ferguson’s survival of that ordeal was more a result of his environment than his personal status. He lived and still lives in a country where he could access medical care in a matter of hours and not days or months. Imagine if he lives in a country where he must first apply for a visa, with a possibility of not being granted an entry visa lurking, then when or if the visa comes, he must make travel arrangements in a first-class plane with no health emergency provisions, no air ambulance, he probably wouldn’t have made it out alive. At this point, personal wealth counts for nothing.

Remember the many avoidable circumstances and deaths that only happened because of the environment/society. Remember, the barrister was killed in the presence of her family by trigger-happy security men over a slight disagreement. Remember the Apo 4, remember the Aluu 4.

Now, to what prompted all these, just yesterday, the Nigerian-born British boxer, world-class Anthony Joshua, was involved in an accident that turned fatal for his friends. Please don’t give the excuse that accidents happen even in the advanced world. Rather, consider how many accidents happen elsewhere because trucks park perpetually on major roads with high traffic. So much so, you wonder if it is a constitutional provision for trucks to obstruct the roads. Or why have the authorities done nothing about this?

It is a shame to see the kind of response accidents get in Nigeria. There is hardly a state with a planned emergency response. The survivors of accidents hardly ever get emergency responses in the real sense of the word emergency. Victims are left lying on the floor, both on the roads and in hospitals, for hours. In the case of AJ (Anthony Joshua), that shame became a global spectacle. Consider AJ for a few minutes. 

There were no paramedics available for many minutes after the accident. The FRSC came, perhaps to arrest the “erring” driver(s) rather than rescue the injured. Or explain to me why ambulance and paramedics are not part of the makeup of the FRSC (Federal Road Safety Corp). If AJ had a spinal injury, his spine would have been completely damaged because of how he was handled in the absence of professional handling. Yet, AJ can afford all the personal comforts the world can offer, but emergency response for a road accident is not within the purview of an individual to provide. It is amongst the things the state should provide. Security against insurgency and violent criminals like kidnappers, etc, is for the state and not the individual. 

Hence, much as it is fantastic to strive for individual wealth and comfort, let us not lose sight of our collective good and join our voice in collective demanding from the state that which it ought to do for our collective safety and good. Let us, as a people, jettison the thinking that “I can be fine while society burns, because I have a certain level of wealth. Talking of burning, do you remember the high-rise building that went up in flames and claimed lives, because we live in a system that only considers safety as a secondary subject rather than a primary concern? We are better off if our state is better organised. A word they say is enough for the wise.