The challenge of success 2

This column had gone to bed before the news broke. On Friday the 21st of April, I was on the highway returning from Lagos when my phone rang. It was a friend of mine on the other end. He was calling to commiserate with me on the demise of someone he knew I had a close relationship with. The friend on the phone could not believe that I hadn’t heard! It took me a long time to process the news. I simply went blank. It could not be Dipo. After I had tried unsuccessfully to convince myself that it was all a rumor (I hadn’t heard that he was ill) I summoned the courage to call Yinka Odumakin who confirmed it to me. Dipo Famakinwa, the late Director-General of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission, was a younger friend for whom I have (I still loathe referring to him in the past tense!) a lot of respect. Unassuming but highly cerebral, Dipo was a patriot par excellence. A quintessential gentleman, he was passionate in his convictions and dedicated to every cause that he espoused. He was not your run-of-the-mill ideologue. His capacity for execution was infectious. Our last conversation was during the meeting of all Western Nigeria governors in Ado-Ekiti. By that time, he had been able to get all governors in the region irrespective of party affiliation to come into the DAWN fold! We had discussed extensively on the various programs the Commission under his leadership had mapped out and was to start rolling out. A few weeks earlier, I had attended an Agriculture Summit organized by the Commission. Dipo Famakinwa lived out his convictions. He leaves behind shoes that will not exactly be easy to fill.

While I was still trying to get used to the demise of Dipo, I got the no less unsettling news about the demise on Saturday 22nd April of another friend and fellow thespian, Olumide Bakare, a Nollywood veteran. Our paths first crossed at the Western Nigeria Television (WNTV) – which later became NTA – in the mid-seventies where we worked together on some TV drama productions. Olumide’s fame blossomed with his playing the lead character in what was arguably one of the most watched sitcoms on TV at that time, Koko Close. He played the part of Chief Koko, landlord of Oluwalambe Lodge. He brought such joie de vivre into each episode that made Koko Close larger than life and a darling of every viewer. Although he fell on bad times as a result of a not too enviable lifestyle that almost cost him his life, Olumide bounced back and instantly hit the limelight again, especially in the Yoruba genre in Nollywood. Acting was his natural forte! It is quite unfortunate though that when he needed it most, the industry that he served his life projecting could not do much to come to his aid.  And so Olumide died. But his works live on! Another sad commentary on the state of social infrastructure in a country so well-endowed but ravaged by mindless savages who seek their own medical interventions in saner climes!

Dipo Famakinwa and Olumide Bakare, good night! You both did your bit. The remaining burden falls on the shoulders of the living!

What is success? I define it as the internalization and progressive realization of God-inspired goals. Understood in this context, it can therefore be surmised that success is relative. It is a function of what the individual sets out to achieve. It is not measured in material acquisition or bank balance. A woman who is convinced that her divinely inspired goal is to be a stay-at-home mother to raise good children and who, inspired by that conviction, ends up raising children who are of significant value to the family and the larger society can be said to have succeeded. True success is never about what we achieve, it is about who we become in the process. In measuring the true success index the disposition is of greater value than the position. Positions don’t change people. Neither does power. Both only amplify the individual’s persona. This underscores the fact that a change in status is never the same as a change in persona.

True success gives you power over others in the particular area of your success. But that is not the problem. The true use of power is a reflection of who you have become. What a man does with success and the attendant power that it confers is rooted in the rationale behind one’s desire to succeed. Several people desire to make ‘it’ in order to prove a point to people around them that they too can achieve or attain a status. The rationale is therefore to impress or disdain some people who are perceived as not wanting them to be ‘successful’. Some see success as a way of hitting back at those who may have despised or emotionally injured them in time past. While it is true that success vindicates, it must never be seen as an instrument of vengeance or oppression. True success assumes no airs and does not vaunt any of its accomplishments.

True success seeks to empower others. Its real flavor is to enhance other people’s capacity to become successful by using the power conferred by the success to serve others. The consciousness of this higher purpose is what makes success not only desirable but sustainable. Any form of success that benefits only the one who has it is actually failure on steroids. Success that seeks to oppress or impress is short-lived and unsustainable. After the point has been made and the impression created, what next? There are seven things that true success should produce in those who have it.

The first is that even when success vindicates you, it should not make you vindictive. King Saul was supposed to be David’s mentor. But he turned out to be his tormentor instead. On more than one occasion, David’s life was threatened by Saul who chased him from one cave after another when throwing a javelin at him could not do the job of eliminating David. When David however had the opportunity to eliminate Saul delivered to him almost on a platter of gold, he chose a nobler approach. Even when vindicated, he refused to be vindictive. According to him, if God wanted to kill Saul, He could do it Himself, but he (David) was not going to be a party to the death of one anointed by God. Even after he eventually became king in place of Saul, David did not forget to extend kindness to the household of Saul through Mephibosheth!… continued.

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!