Of prosperity and adversity

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends – John Churton Collins.

The quotation above is very apt as we go to the polls today to elect the next big shots into various political positions. Many would retain their positions and many would be thrown out. For those who are fortunate to win their re-elections and remain in prosperity, their friends would know them. But as for those who would end up as losers and slip into adversity, they would know their friends.

These vicissitudes of life remind me of some close friends who had life under their feet and their friends worshipped the ground they trod. But they were nearly driven to suicide when life turned the tables against some of them.

Steve was one of my buddies in Jos. He lived in London for years and relocated to Nigeria in the mid-80s. He was not altogether a ladies’ man but he coached a leading football club. Girls love coaches and they were soon all over him like rashes. His elder brother also ran a flourishing insurance business where he doubled as a part-timer. At a point, I wondered what charms he had that attracted ladies to him. Neither did he spot a hairstyle that we used to call “girls follow me” when we were in secondary school.

As time went by, he lost his coaching job. To worsen matters, his brother’s insurance firm was no longer flourishing. Consequently, cash flow suffered. Then, one by one, the traffic of ladies began to thin down. Steve came to me one day and lamented the treatment meted out to him. And because prosperity had given way to adversity, his girlfriends treated him like strangers whenever he came across them in public. They would not even answer his greetings let alone look in his direction. It was like they all conspired to treat him that way.

Steve made a last desperate attempt to rescue himself from adversity. He wrote a soccer-related book and arranged a launch billed for the Rwang Pam Stadium, Jos. A few of us and fellow coaches rallied round him but the occasion was a huge flop. That fiasco appeared to be the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Steve learnt his lessons the hard way and died a frustrated man.

James is a certified accountant. He was kind, accommodating and generous to a fault. His apartment became a transit camp for friends passing through Jos to places like Bauchi/Maiduguri axis. He would take them out to joints where he would spoil them with isiewu, pepper soups, point-and-kill, etc. His guests were given blank cheques to order choice wines and cold beers with which to flush the chewables merrily down their throats.

 Then, adversity set in for James. His accounting business nosedived. And as soon as his friends found out that besides accommodation, their friend had nothing else to offer, but he was rather looking up to them to reciprocate his kind gestures, they deserted him one by one to the extent that if they saw him coming from the northern direction, they would swerve to the opposite direction. James became so disappointed he hugged high blood pressure. James later bounced back but his runaway friends were too ashamed to show up in his apartment again.

Among my prosperous friends that later suffered adversity but forgave those who abandoned them was the late Chief Solomon Daushep Lar, the first Executive Governor of Plateau state between October, 1979 and December 31, 1983. Everybody knows that any Government House is like sugar that attracts all manner of ants.

After the overthrow of the Second Republic, Chief Lar retired to his private law business but the kind of favour he could dispense as a private citizen was nothing compared to when he was a governor. Of course, the huge crowds that usually milled around him began to thin out. Only close associates were seen popping in and out of his sprawling private residence in Jos occasionally.

One morning, I visited the former governor in his house. The compound was deserted as usual. When I got to his expansive sitting room and announced my presence, he asked me to join him in the kitchen. I did and we shared breakfast together.

Well, I thought the acclaimed man of the people had learnt his lessons. But Chief Lar was a rare being. When Gen. Sani Abacha shoved aside the Interim National Government of Chief Ernest Shonekan and formed his military government, Chief Lar was appointed as Minister of Police Affairs. And everything around him came alive again overnight. The people who deserted him in his trying times regrouped. It was time to chop again.

When I showed up to rejoice with him over his appointment, it became a difficult task accessing him. Just a couple of months back when I had that breakfast with him, there was no crowd problem. The whole premises became a beehive of activities as hundreds of fair-weather friends swarmed all over the place like locusts. Professional praise-singers were not in short supply. They painted the whole place red that you had to shout at the top of your voice to pass a message to the person next to you!

What surprised me was that the Emancipator, as he was well known, was in high spirits, pumping hands and hugging well-wishers. It was not easy getting across to him. The best I could do to register my presence was to wave to him from a distance. And he acknowledged with a wave of white handkerchief.

Although Chief Lar’s response teaches us not to repay ingrates in their own coins, we should make provision for what to fall back on in times of adversity which is the other side of prosperity.

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