During my Junior Secondary School years at King’s College in Lagos, I had the privilege of reading the news to the school assembly alongside my dear friend, Jide Jacobs. We would read the news just before our highly respected principal, the late Sam Balogun, came on stage to deliver his address. Legendary producer Cobhams Asuquo once assisted our mini news production with an introductory sound.
Mr Balogun did not appreciate the addition of music and swiftly put a stop to it. We were only looking to add some flair and creativity, as young people would do. The bit that made me recall this memory comes from the summer of 1998, just before the France ’98 World Cup.
This continues to be one of my most enduring memories from this period. To close the news, we would leave the audience with a memorable line or quotation. On this occasion, we picked a line from William Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like. It’, from the first lines of its most famous speech, ‘the Seven Ages of Man’,
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances…
And I added, ‘and so shall France ’98 be’ to close. This was to emphasise to our fellow students that they could not afford to be distracted by the manic effect of that World Cup because, after all, it would come and go. The World Cup indeed came and was soon over.
Here I am, a quarter century and six more editions later, writing about it, the memories as fresh as it was last Friday. That experience left me with many lessons: the biggest ones are that whatever has a date will soon arrive, and whatever starts, no matter how exciting, will soon end. These lessons help one to have an appreciation for every great opportunity without getting lost in its allure. You are left experiencing the grandest stages with enough detachment to see yourself as you go along.
If you want to experience a faster year, just plan a to-do list that goes from January to December. If you want to experience a faster day, schedule it out. But even without a schedule, time moves forward, and days, weeks, and years pass by in the blink of an eye.
These lessons are particularly relevant for those in power. Whether through death, other vicissitudes of life or in the case of the government, the constitution or some other form of removal, a time would come when your watch is over. If you were doing any watch. What will be left is your legacy.
There is a reason, without the moderating power of the Constitution, most people prefer to stay put in power. It is not just because of the privilege and the unending rewards it appears to deliver to those who wield it, it is also because of the general feeling that there is still more to be done. Indeed, work no dey finish. You just do your bit and keep it going.
Everything will come and go, including power. What would be left is your legacy. 4 or 8 years, in many ways, is a long time. In hindsight, in the mind of the person that spent it wielding power, it often appears a really short time. That is not just because power appears to be sweet, it is because in the neck-breaking speed of your new life and the endless activities, without moments of reflection, you get distracted by the glitz and the show and before you know it, it is over. As new individuals take on these roles, former leaders may reflect on missed opportunities and unrealised potential. It is only then that they may come up with innovative ideas and fresh perspectives that could have made a significant difference during their tenure.
This is a lesson everyone must keep to heart. Humans have a good memory, but we often forget. Once distractions like wealth, power and fun set in, we either forget or refuse to remember the guiding principles we hoped we would live when those same opportunities found their way to us.
We are now at that point, even before a handover, where some people’s phones are beginning to ring less and some other people’s phones are ringing a lot more than usual. At equilibrium, just after the handover, the former’s phone will stop ringing and the latter’s phone will not stop ringing. Dr Reuben Abati shared a useful reflection on this after his time as Senior Special Adviser to the President.
We all need anchors, values and words to live by. People who will not be afraid to tell you as it is. People in the presence of whom your titles and portfolio only have meaning as much as they must respect the office but never see you less or more than you always were to them, say a friend, sister or brother.
Even with these people, you must be certain to have layers of them because some of them could get sucked into the manic effect of being close to the corridors of power than even you at its core. We have seen this happen.
Waiting until the final whistle before realising how much you want to get done is futile. By that point, it is often too late. You must design an agenda and commit to it before kick-off, or risk getting lost in the frenzy of your office before you realise you had power but never really did much with it.
In the end, you must seek to do your best and ensure that best meets certain minimum standards. That is not to say everyone will agree you did enough, but the records are there to reflect your time. Power may be temporary, but legacies are forever. That way, you are not left with needing Twitter threads to show workings that aren’t there.
© Joshua J. Omojuwa
