Nasarawa and the que sera sera sermon

HISTORICALLY, there was a man regarded as the world’s first trillionaire in dollars. That was long before his modern version, Elon Musk. After he did nearly all that money could do on earth, including literally filling his conjugal barn with record-setting belles and even experimentally getting drunk to test the inebriating power of alcohol, he documented his understanding of life for men of immense power, authority, wealth and fame, to learn from.

Speaking of life, he wrote, “The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. “Vanity of vanities”, says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” “What profit has a man from all his labour in which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes, but the earth abides forever.

“All things are full of labour; man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.

“There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come by those who will come after. I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

“What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered. I said in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with mirth; therefore enjoy pleasure”; but surely, this also was vanity. I searched in my heart how to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.

“I made my works great, I built myself houses and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. I acquired male and female servants, and had servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds.

“So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour; and this was my reward from all my labour.

“Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labour in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun. The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I myself perceived that the same event happens to them all. So I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, it also happens to me, and why was I then more wise?”

Then I said in my heart, “This also is vanity.”

“For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever, since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.

And how does a wise man die? As the fool! “Therefore, I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind. Then I hated all my labour in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labour in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. For there is a man whose labour is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his heritage to a man who has not laboured for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. For what has man for all his labour, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

“Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labour. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God.

“For God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight, but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.”

Quoted above almost verbatim, with just a few verses left out, was Solomon, mourning life in Ecclesiastes chapters 1 and 2. Except God even opens the mind-gate of man to this exhortation, it will still sound hollow, the same way it has appeared as empty emission to countless souls since it was penned. So I add my own ecumenism to it: “Except God shows man mercy, His word will remain foolishness to him.”

Penultimate Sunday, when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared APC’s candidate Barrister Danladi Halilu Envu-Alanza the winner of the preceding day’s by-election for Nasarawa North Senatorial District seat, I was pensive for days, after congratulating the winner. Barrister Danladi, the famed judicial encyclopedia, who held the NJC’s top job for a record-breaking 15 years (between 2002 and 2017), is well known to me. Our friendship (as my big uncle) survived office. Whenever I’m in Abuja, he has a standing instruction to me to always show up at his residence for breakfast and the invitation for dinner is also open-ended, regardless of whether I’m staying in something-star or no-star hotel. In recent times, after breakfast, I teach him some table tennis lessons (smiles), though he has his boys around who avenge him (laughs).

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I know of his political heartbreaks before his recent Red Chamber inclusion. Here was a man who could have easily been Nasarawa’s governor in 1999 considering his all-encompassing political and administrative influence on and in the state by the time the military was relinquishing control, despite still being in service as a judicial administrator. As the first-ever chief registrar of the state judiciary before transferring his career to the federal level, he would conveniently wear the garland of an architect of modern Nasarawa. Somehow, he stayed put in the judiciary till his retirement in 2017 despite his towering figure in the state. In fact, many considered him governor-in-waiting anytime he chose to show up. But it would seem ground had shifted a bit and by the time he showed up, it was one heartbreak after another and serial treachery from associates; from trying to be governor, to scaling down a bit, to be at least, senator.

One lesson here is to always strike when the iron is hot. There was a time the governorship ticket of the ruling party (regardless of which) would have been handed to him without a fuss from other aspirants. But times do change.

If there was a political challenge that almost broke him, it was the one thrown at him by the one he practically made. But since the fellow has now become a four-eyed soul, as the Yoruba would describe the departed, I will leave out the details and even the identity, though those who know will know. It was so bad he had to get into a direct senatorial contest with the mentee and then the unthinkable; the “son” wrestled the “father” to the ground! He was said to have lost a mere senatorial contest to the “boy” he made politically; from the same zone. Three years ago, when the result was announced, I found no words to console him but I noticed his total faith in God even in his disappointment. Words from certain confines suggested a grand conspiracy by leadership (trying to choose my words), to “cut” him.

Then the one that was meant to be down and out suddenly sprang up and the seat that was treacherously taken from him three years ago, was restored!

When you see today’s men of power gallivanting, cornering what is meant for everyone, sleighting collective will to snatch and run with mandates not freely-given, ask them where those before them are. But power has a kind of arrogance to it that blinds. Men in the lush of authority hardly remember the Yoruba admonition “awaye iku kan ko si” (every mortal will go the way of all mortals).

Solomon received this sense before he departed. That must have moderated him. When a man leaves, what is left of him, are memories that are always occasional. So why the rat race? Why the desperation? Why plotting to snatch what you have not been given?

Even when those they sat together yesterday answer the final call hours later, nothing appears to temper today’s power men and other power seekers, forgetting it’s all about times and seasons for everyone.

We are just creatures of opportunities. Something will just happen and someone will just be favoured. Without Atiku Abubakar playing a “soulmate” which preserved Lagos from the PDP South West tsunami of 2003, there is likely not to be a Bola Tinubu presidency today. The Lagos strongman could have gone into oblivion with re-election defeat. All indications are there. But the presidency was going to be and it is!

The story of the one I call “Oga Danladi” is a full sermon on its own and practically all power seekers and those who have already gained it, can fit into it. Opportunities certainly won’t always be there. The moment everyone is saying it is you, that is likely your moment. Vox populi, vox Dei. If you suddenly find what should be easy, tasking and consuming, it is likely time to step back and recalibrate; the latter, meaning letting God direct you as His child or servant. And for you already in, know nothing is given. Here today, gone tomorrow. For you with another chance, know it’s still God. Many did not get such a window.

I would watch Oga Danladi fast and pray while I eat breakfast in his beautiful Abuja home (my gratitude to the entire family). I could see through his pains; the odds crafted by men whom God had used him for to stunt his rise. But he kept trusting God. Then, it happened against all odds, using his own words. Now, the hour has come and just like the NJC job for which he received accolades home and abroad, this senatorial job must also be, first as unto God, then, man. Congrats, Uncle.