Becoming a star is not as taxing as maintaining stardom. Maintaining stardom is not as crucial as preparing for life after your reign. This is because life and living come in turns and no one will be a champ forever, except those like Bola Hammed Tinubu and Olamide Baddo. Before I proceed on the self-imposed journey of this short and straightforward essay, may I inform my dear readership that this piece is not propaganda or an attempt to eulogise the duo. Again, you will appreciate the essence of the piece if you look beyond your personal opinion of the personalities chosen as metaphor for this piece.
I have always thought to myself how anyone can live after they stop living and how one can remain when all that is left is his or her remains. One secret which I have found and which I have chosen to personify with Tinubu and Olamide is: RAISING OTHERS! Nothing will make you reign or remain forever; if your tenure perpetually gets elongated, death will resign you someday. The two questions on your mind while you reign, therefore, should be:
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Who will say if not for you, life would not have been so meaningful?
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What will posterity say about you?
Every man has been destined but what role will you play in others’ destinies? It is time I illustrated with the personalities I have chosen for this piece. It does not matter that it has been written; a league of politicians such as Aregbeshola, Fashola, Ambode, Sanwo-Olu, Osinbajo, Fayemi will not write their stories without having Tinubu’s name written in a golden colour. Well, it does not matter what differences they might have or have had with him, it is whoever we sit with that we quarrel with, what is certain is that only few Nigerians knew these brilliant men before Tinubu identified them. An Adekunle Gold or Lil Kesh too will not speak of their rise to stardom without the instrumentality of the YBNL Big Boy, Olamide Baddo. Maybe this is why they both men have remained relevant in their chosen fields—politics and music, respectively.
Here is the poser: with your small win, who have you helped to win too? It is, in my view, the secret of living forever which I have described in this piece as what makes a mortal immortal. Not having much is not the reason you are not giving. If you are stingy as a poor man, you will likely be stingier as a rich man. In the end, fulfillment will not be about all you have accrued to yourself, it will be much more of how many persons you can remember affecting their lives positively and being the instrument of their growth and how many persons will thank God that you were born. Lay the beat for the song that shall be sung when you’ve gone above the sun.
© 2020 Ganiu Abisoye Bamgbose, PhD.
