By Chris Onokpegu

Last week, the media was awashed with the news of the stampeding of about 67 people, many of them children, during three Christmas charity events across the country.

About 35 children were killed in Ibadan, Oyo State on Wednesday and four days later, on Saturday, 22 people died in Okija town, Anambra state while 10 people were killed in the stampede in the early hours at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Maitama, Abuja.

There is no doubt that there is serious hunger in the land, especially when one considers the skyrocketing of fuel prices that jumped to 77%, electricity surged to 217%, beans at 135.6%, and rice, bread, garri, etc, all up to 50%.

However, experts blame the economic crisis on government policies, that prefer to save money and attract investors, hence pushing the inflation rate to a 28-year-old high of 34.6%.

Information revealed that at least 63% of Nigerians, more than 210 million people are presently poor, according to the government’s statistics office. And when people gather to protest the hardship, which has rendered many useless and hungry, the security forces who are also suffering were quick to clamp down on innocent citizens. In August, more than 20 people were shot dead by security forces during nationwide protests.

This is a big shame in a country where governors and other government officials waste money on frivolous things including renovating houses with billions of naira, lining up more than 10 vehicles with dispatch riders as their convoy. Our correspondent came across a governor in one of the States in the country passing with 24 vehicles, including ambulance, with many of the vehicles empty, with just the driver in the entourage.

It is a shame that people are dying because of bags of rice which is less than 80,000 naira, in a country where four out of the 10 richest men in Africa are Nigerians, mostly businessmen that they patronize their products. Where out of the top 25 Richest Women in Africa, 11 are Nigerian women, who are into business, music, real estate, entertainment, just to mention a few with the lowest amongst them, worth $1.65 million.

In a country where people spend a minimum of N1.5 million for a short time and N3 million for a night at Ilase, a Palm Beach hotel in Lagos, with the super rich, top Nigerians as their customers. Information has it that the place is always fully booked.

People are dying from stampede due to hunger, in a country where people are buying and building expensive, luxury, digitalized houses at home and abroad; buying and displaying the latest, expensive and flashy automobiles.

In a country where people are eating in the most expensive restaurants around the world, buying yachts, buying and chartering private jets, showing off and wasting money at shows; wasting and spraying money carelessly at occasions/ceremonies (wedding, burial, etc), while some people are dying of hunger.

People are being stampeded for trying to get what they will eat, in a country where some people were reportedly to have spent $1 million on an engagement ring, N100 million worth of SUV as gift, N7 million for outfit, while some people gave out 3 billion Naira for a one-day event and leave the poor to continue to suffer.

What about buying a N30 million foreign gold casket with a diamond chain for the dead when the living has not eaten, slaughtering 46 cows, and roasted 500 goats. That is the irony of life, people prefer to spend for burial ceremony than spending on the living.

People are trying to acquire everything on earth to themselves while others are suffering. King Solomon in the Bible said, “Vanity upon vanity, all is vanity…”

Many people don’t seem to understand what life is all about, maybe they should make reference to those that are dead or probably visit the graveyards once in a while and see those who acquired more than them in the past, how they ended.

For our information, God entrusted wealth into our hands so that we can be a blessing and not to behave like that foolish man in the Bible who saw Lazarus struggling with dogs to eat from the crumbs that fall from his table instead of giving him food to eat, but he was boasting. When they got to heaven, the table turned.

It was the wealthy man that was begging Lazarus to even dip his hand in water for him to drink. Let anyone that has ears reach out always not only during festive seasons. I am not just a preacher-man but a doer, in my little capacity, I have reached out to the needy also. Jesus said during his earthly ministry, “Whatsoever you do the least of my brother (poor), that you do unto me (paraphrased) – Matthew 25:40.

Finally, I will round up with the saying of the Queen and wife of the Ooni of Ile-Ife, Her Royal Majesty, Amb. Dr. Temitope Morenike Enitan-Ogunwusi who said recently in Accra, Ghana, where she was being honoured with Mother Africa Merit Award, that, “I hear people say to me that, Your Majesty, you are not supposed to be with these sets of people or you are not supposed to relate with anyone who is not in your class (poor).

“I said no, those are my identities. I want to be seen in the slum. I want to go to the ghetto, I want to be seen with the street kids, I want to move with the market women. We are all the same. As a matter of fact, they chose me, either spiritually or physically to serve them. So I am a servant.

“Logically speaking, I am a servant, if you are in a place of authority, and you don’t have it stated in your mind that you are a servant, then you don’t have to be there. A great leader is a true servant,” she concluded.

If only everyone can reason like the Queen, Nigeria and the world will be a better place to stay, where everyone will not be afraid of what he or she will eat tomorrow, or be afraid of his or her future. A world where the poor can breathe well. If only we have many Queen Enitan-Ogunwusi, one can go to sleep.

Rather than flaunt your wealth and use it to oppress or intimidate the poor, why not empower them or better still, teach them how to fish so that they can start fishing on their own, by giving them skills acquisition and empowering them with take off packs in the form of money and equipment. If you don’t help them today, they might become a thorn in your flesh tomorrow, if they don’t come for you, what about your children and generation after you? A word is enough for the wise! Have a wonderful Christmas celebration.

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