CHARACTER, MEN & THE "LEGION"

KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE
with Remi Akano
E-mail: remiakanosr@believeandrepent.com



In “Dinning with Heroes” (October 21), I had spoken about the privilege my involvement with the men’s ministry affords me to join with “a crop of men, some young and starry-eyed; some burnt but wiser, to together work on our manhood.” I had also expressed joy that the process gives me the opportunity of meeting with and sometimes even dinning with truly great men. These truly great men, I described as “real men; men of integrity and character; men who strove in private and public life to be Christlike – and are of course still striving”

I identified Elder Felix Ohiwerei as one of such people, announced that he would be speaking at the then impending Christian Men’s Network Nigeria’s event and then gushed:
“…it will feature one of my heroes, Felix Ohiwerei, former Chairman and Chief Executive of Nigeria Breweries Plc. A man who ran an alcohol beverage company successfully and didn’t come out with a “beering” reputation; a man who has not been the darling of the soft sell magazines in spite of his fame and fortune; and whose preoccupation with service to God some have seen as zealous. That’s the man I and my brothers would be having lunch with…and it would be his pleasure and ours to have you join us!”

Of course, not many men accepted my open invitation and a sizeable percentage of those who even had direct invitation either came very late or could not make it at all, which is hardly surprising. It rained that day, you see; and being a Saturday, an environmental sanitation day when Lagosians are “gated” till 10am, the reasons are legion! But I shall come back to that later.

Elder Ohiwerei was billed to speak on “Wanted: Men of Character” and he began by acting the man of character that he is by arriving the Sparkles, Ikeja GRA venue of the event from his Ikoyi home a quarter hour before the schedule take-off time of 12noon. Of course that got everybody straightened out, as it were. And when he began to speak, you sought in vain for any airs; no posturing, no affectations; nothing but down-to-earth heart-talk from a father to those he saw as the hope of our nation. And what he had to say was so inspiring that on conclusion the fifty-something or so men, who had the priviledge of hearing him, gave a spontaneous prolonged standing ovation.

For space constraints and the nature of the forum, this is not the place to recount all he said, but let me attempt a snapshot of the highlights. He began by stating what looked like the obvious, but which is certainly fundamental to the understanding of the subject. You are a man, he said, “you think, you speak and you act. What you think influences what you say and do. Your thoughts, your words and your deeds determine what you project; so it all begins with the heart.” He therefore defined character as “the personality of a man as determined by his thought, his word and his deed.”

Standing as sprightly as ever at age 70, Elder Ohiwerei took his audience down the memory lane. He recalled those days when it was his practice to simply leave the doors of his house open for an expected visitor while he leaves for work…when the most heinous crime anyone ever committed to his knowledge was the removal of the four tyres of a car while the owner slept blissfully in it!
He posited that the Nigerian civil war was the turning point; when all values nosedived and character became the exception, leading to a leadership crisis. This of course was not a rationalization of the state of affairs, but a simple statement of cause. Nor was his speech just a litany of what had gone wrong; this was a ministration about what needs to be done. It was not a just a call for moral reawakening, but a call to return to God and his ways of doing things. So, inevitably notable examples were given from the Bible. From the Lord Jesus to Samuel to David to Joseph, the man of God who is a top member of Redeemed Christian Church of God made a number of prescriptions.

Among these is the need to pursue only things of eternal value. Understand, the fallacy that “everybody has a price” does not apply to you. You are made in God’s image and after his likeness, so how can you have a price! Never forget that a true leader seeks to serve and not to be served; he is other-centred, not self-centred. The Lord Jesus exemplifies this. That is why he said the son of man has come to serve and not to be served. That is why he washed his disciples’ feet just before the last supper. That is the origin of the concept of servant-leadership which the President has offered to Nigerians.

Elder Ohiwerei climaxed his ministration with the forthright declarations of Samuel when he handed over rulership of Israel to their first king, Saul. In this respect, he quoted the first few verses of Chapter 12 of the first book of Samuel: “ And Samuel said unto all Israel, Behold, I have hearkened unto your voice in all that ye said unto me, and have made a king over you. And now, behold, the king walketh before you: and I am old and grayheaded; and, behold, my sons are with you: and I have walked before you from my childhood unto this day. Behold, here I am: witness against me before the Lord, and before his anointed: whose ox have I taken? or whose ass have I taken? or whom have I defrauded? whom have I oppressed? or of whose hand have I received any bribe to blind mine eyes therewith? and I will restore it you. And they said, Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man's hand. And he said unto them, The Lord is witness against you, and his anointed is witness this day, that ye have not found ought in my hand. And they answered, He is witness. And Samuel said unto the people, It is the Lord that advanced Moses and Aaron, and that brought your fathers up out of the land of Egypt (verses1-6).

How many of our leaders can boldly stand before the people after their stewardship and make such a declaration, he asked. How many can boldly declare that they have not stolen from the commonwealth; that they have oppressed no one; that they have met the needs of the people? About how many of our leaders can the people truthfully, honestly, without equivocation say as they did of Samuel: “Thou hast not defrauded us, nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken ought of any man's hand.” The only charitable answer, you and I know, has to be “few, very few, indeed.”

The interactive session which followed afforded men in the audience the opportunity to ask questions and make observations. This proved really revealing. In answer to one of the questions on his experience as a born-again Christian at the helm of a big company like Nigeria Breweries, he recalled one of his encounters with corruption at one of Nigeria’s seaports.

According to him, the top man in charge of raw materials was for some reasons not available and so he was contacted on the need to “do something” (euphemism for paying some bribes) about clearing their consignments at the port. He refused. Things began to drag and raw material stock was running low with possible adverse consequences for production. He knew he had to do something else! So he instructed that fresh orders for raw materials be made and air-freighted into the country. This was done. Production was not affected and he virtually had to be begged to come and clear the earlier consignment.
Needless to say, this sent signals to people in certain quarters and the rest, as they say, is history!

What Elder Ohiwerei was saying was I did not just talk the talk, I walked the walk. It could not have been easy, but he had the courage to do what had to be done. One of the most important components of character therefore is courage; courage to stand for what you believe; courage to pursue your dream and vision.

And this incidentally brings me back to the “legion” of reasons I identified earlier as possibly responsible for the level of attendance at the Luncheon; the same courage is required to give whatever it takes to be at places we need to be on time, rain or not; environmental sanitation or not. But one has been around for a season on this beat and knows that the “legion” that keeps men away from events like this is similar to the one that had held bound that demon-possessed man set free by the Lord Jesus, as recorded in Mark 5: 1-18. I know because, time and time again, you can pack halls to overflowing with of men were the subject business or prosperity; but mention character, sex or purity, the “legion” bares its fangs! Men and brethren, these things not ought to be so.

Thanks Elder Ohiwerei for pointing the way.

First published in a Nigerian Daily, the Sunday Independent, published in Lagos Nigeria.