The Nigerian Billionaires.



While going through the latest list of the 14 richest black individuals in the world, I saw Folorunsho Alakija in the 12th position with $1.1 billion, in the 11th position was Abdulsamad Rabiu with $1.6 billion, 2nd position had Mike Adenuga with $9.1 billion and occupying the 1st position was Aliko Dangote, $10.9 billion. I asked myself, how the heck did those guys make their billions of dollars in a country rich in Oil but now rated as one of the most poverty-stricken nations in the world?

Folorunsho Alakija

Here are two examples; Alakija was formerly a sewing mistress until she met the wife of the then president Babangida through whom she was gifted with an oil well and…boom she became a billionaire…just like that! And what about the richest Nigerian (Dangote)? Using his powerful connections with the nation’s political leadership, the man was able to monopolize the supply of sugar, cement, flour and other essential commodities in a nation of over 150 million people. 

Aliko Dangote

That was when I remembered “King Rat”, a 1962 novel by James Clavell which was set in the World War Two era. It was a narration of the struggle for survival by American and European prisoners of war in a Japanese camp in Singapore. At the end of the war, the Japanese surrendered to a battalion of American troops that arrived at the camp. The American troops were shocked to discover that all the prisoners of war were in terribly deteriorating conditions as a result of a deliberate act of starvation used by the Japanese.  As the soldiers went around the camp to provide immediate succor to the physically-emaciating prisoners of war, one of them stepped forward before the stunned Americans. He was looking very robust and fresh and everyone was wondering how the heck he looked so different. The commander of the American troops was so disgusted and angry that he ordered the immediate arrest and detention of the erstwhile prisoner of war pending a court-marshal. It was discovered during the trial that the erring soldier had, all the while, been collaborating with the Japanese captors and taking advantage of his fellow soldiers. In return, the Japanese allowed him to maintain an “animal husbandry” whereby he reared some bush rats that he was selling, as a source of protein, through trade-by-barter to feed only those who had personal valuables to offer him. 

Nigerian billionaires simply reminds me of King Rat.