Decency in Nigerian professionals SJ Dodgson MJoTA v5n2 p1211
It is now Tuesday.
From Saturday to Monday, I was the intermittent guest of my favorite High Chief at Igbo functions, in the home he shares with his happily married wife the High Lolo and in his auto empire in West Philadelphia, a short walk from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. His houseguest was the Chief Pilot of Biafra, who was my host in Nigeria and is my business partner in Ganymede Movies LLP.
I am always delighted to be in the company of successful humans. The Chief Pilot of Biafra: pages on MJoTAtalks.org are devoted to Biafra and the Chief Pilot's participation in bringing peace to Nigeria.
The High Chief has been a success in every aspect of his life always: quietly and humbly loyal to his friends and family, always happy to say how much he loves and honors his High Lolo, his word is his word and his vision is soaring. He has spoken to MJoTAtalks about how he spent the years when the world's superpowers banded together and decided to bomb and starve Biafra into oblivion. He emerged from that time with dead family members, and yet also with huge optimism which has never left him.
I have witnessed the impossible hurdles he jumped over to expand his auto shop from an oily operation where cars were stacked above each other, to an additional 4-bay facility which is neat and clean and you could eat off the floor.
The expanded auto business was officially opened in October, and blessed with a kola nut ceremony from elders from his village, from neighboring villages, from all of Nigeria, from the United States, and with prayers and holy water from a priest attached to St Cyprian's Roman Catholic Church.
High Chief cheerfully explained in his interview that every person in Biafra was given currency of 20 pounds after the Biafran state reverted to Nigeria. He explained that everything came from that 20 pounds, which he immediately used to travel to a bigger town to buy supplies such as tooth paste to sell to his village.
I remember growing up reading a story about a poor boy who for some reason was challenged and told he had to become rich when all he had to start with was a dead mouse. He sold the mouse to someone who had a cat... and eventually owned an empire. I watch the High Chief, who was elected into his title because his community loves him, who quietly and calmly creates jobs and makes Philadelphia a safer and better place to live in.
The Chief Pilot has a different story, because instead of being given 20 pounds after the end of Biafra, he was imprisoned for nearly a year with the threat of execution over his head. He too has built an empire from a dead mouse, but in a different way, and always in the spotlight.
War does not go away when the shooting stops, but stays with soldiers and invaded civilians forever.
War is hell.
