Humility is the virtue of God. Humility is a damn good thing. Humility is the one trait every human being should have. Yes, but, no man, no woman, nobody should ever evince own humility as a foible.
Let us be humble all we can, all we want, but we must always, always show class or strength or both in the process. As we say in Nigeria, we should never come and kill ourselves just to prove humility. Overhumility is a no no as it never ends well. In fact, except where such a one is playing undercover boss (an investigative or research strategy) overhumility is not something I shall readily advocate.
Too much of humility always backfires. As indeed too much of everything else. Men and women of power and means who know God and who see everything as nothing must be smart enough to never be too simple. It is all right to be simple, it is never all right to be oversimple.
Even God, our very Father, the very prototype of humility or simplicity, is not overhumble or oversimple. He is quite humble, quite simple but He is not accessible let alone available like that. For instance one: where is His photograph or our photograph with Him, to accentuate familiarity? For instance two: where is His physical address that we could visit and He and we would sit side by side, as Father and children, for a tete-a-tete?
Furthermore, pastors of today seemed to have learnt how never to be cheaply kidnapped and killed as Jesus was. That must be the reason they keep a retinue of security guards. They do not want stories that touch the heart. Our pastors are humble but personal security, as we keep pleading with Global Ba’aba, Dr Abel Damina, should never be factored into that mix.
Dear Child of God, be like your pastors: be humble but never lose your essence or self in the process. This is not suggesting the wiles of humility. No, please; rather, this is warning of the dangers of being too humble. Be measured, be real, be wise, every time.
Next are two real-life stories of how humility disrespected a woman and a man treasured by this writer. BUSH HOUSE NIGERIA, our media firm, for years has been running its flagship programme, 20 QUESTIONS. Apart from Monday 4pm and Saturday, 8pm radio slots (Passion 94.5 FM, Uyo-Nigeria) the all-media witty Parlour Game also now broadcasts every Wednesday, 11am and Friday, 9pm on ADBN (DSTV Channel 258 and Startimes Channel 140). One day, in 2021, we held a special recording at Tropicana to honour a trio who had supported us in incredible ways.
The only lady concerned was at the time a serving honourable commissioner. In the build-up to the event, the University of Uyo don turned Akwa Ibom state executive council member had made a generous donation to help with preparations. So, we had all looked forward to seeing her. Alas, she was the only awardee who did not turn up.
Minutes after we were done and my phone switched back on, WhatsApp displayed the umpteen attempts she had made to reach me. I kept pondering if she had forgotten the venue or if some state emergency had redirected her. Then, I called her. Then, she narrated her incredibly funny experience.
“When I got to the premises of Tropicana, I told my securitymen and aides that I preferred to walk into the media event alone. I did not want to disrupt the recordings with an entourage. I was shown the particular hall, I was let in but there was one of your staff members sitting at a desk in the hallway. I spent over 30 minutes trying to explain to him I was an awardee and you were expecting me yet he maintained that he had words he could not flout; words to not let anyone in since the recordings proper had started.”
In my grief, I was shocked to the point of crying but, instead, I let out a loud laugh. This was a very popular, powerful woman, the dean of commissioners and special advisers, being disrespected in her state and at an event she sponsored 75%. Trying to contain myself, I said to her: “Our Dean, see how humility humbled you. Ma, imagine you had come with even one of your security or such other aides, do you think this disrespect by humility would have happened?”
She laughed off my half-joking reasoning. But, once back at work though, I sanctioned two simultaneous actions. One, I personally signed and got them to deliver to her a well-worded letter of apology. Two, the guy was fired for failing to deploy initiative which is a big thing at BUSH HOUSE NIGERIA.
However, I think he got to her to offer his apologies, two three months afterwards, because about that time she began to make a big appeal for his reinstatement. We went through this long road all because a good woman, Dr Glory Edet of the department of agricultural economics in the university of Uyo, chose a road less travelled. Humility is good enough. Overhumility is too much, too pyrrhic!
Let us go international for the next real-life proof that oversimplicity can be an anathema. It is a normal day or so it seems at one of Europe’s busiest hub airports. Passengers for Ouagadougou are boarding. Suddenly, we are told, someone important appears looking very unimportant.
He takes seat 2B in business class. With boarding nearing end, leader of cabin crew, a white woman, paces through the elite segment of the mammoth airboat, scanning. Because of his colour, he picks on 2B occupant and wants him to relocate to economy as one of the airline’s most frequent fliers, a white man, a grade A client, needed to be on the flight to keep a presidential appointment. Had someone not elected to be too humble, the unnecessary spectacle would never have happened.
Eventually, he holds his own and the airline finds another way. Then, take-off; then landing. Outside, there is presidential movement: an ad hoc motorcade just outside the aircraft. The last-minute passenger was even gloating that the elaborate protocol was for him.
With aircraft door thrown open, a senior military officer comes in, marches to business class and stops at seat 2B saluting smartly. He says something like, “Mr President, welcome back home.” Imagine the audacity of such humility. President Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso had been travelling incognito: I mean, who does that?
To be sure, there is no way to prove if that story actually happened. Yet, this unafrican president has so soon built the kind of image for himself that even the most unfounded public relations stunt about him would fly. Leaders and all of the rest of us should carry ourselves the way President Traore does. He seems to be a very good student of communication theories, three of which my University of Uyo Master’s dissertation supervisor and Ph.D. lecturer of communicology, Nsikak Idiong, an associate professor, last Saturday laid out on Facebook.
Prof. Idiong mentioned Erving Goffman’s impression management theory, Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s politeness theory, and Social norms theory (by Goffman in 1959 and developed by Robert Cialdini in 1984). It is interesting what information is available on the social media. All we need is a little clear headedness. The social media are a vast school, because even there you learn how never to be unwisely humble.
God bless Nigeria!
Mighty George’s Guinness World Records attempt
For the first time ever, this global event concerns me directly. Someone from my state and in my primary professional constituency, broadcasting, is aiming to break one record and simultaneously create another. George Iniabasi Essien of Comfort 95,1 FM, Uyo is looking to achieve 100 hours of uninterrupted live radio.
I was honoured to be his first guest, midnight of last Saturday. Two of the things I said that you may wish to never forget are: one, “anyone who forgets their yesterday today is not ready for tomorrow. Two, those who are upstairs today should do good to those who are downstairs knowing they shall exchange places tomorrow and by that time they shall be too weak to climb again!”
Please pray and support Mighty George even if you can’t. Try and tune in, as well. He is parading some of the best guests you can get on air and the conversations are deep!
Go, Mighty George, go. Akwa Ibom is behind you. Please, win for us!
Little things matter
Last Monday, this column carried just one entry. Unfortunately, for reasons I cannot place my finger on, the traditional last line was left out.
Something quite little or even frivolous, one would have thought. Alas, well over ten readers reached out to wonder why the trademark ending was not included.
In case, you read it but did not notice it, they were referring to “God bless Nigeria” which always rounds off every main serving of this Monday column. How people pay attention to the tiniest of details.
Teachers and public speakers and writers have to be more and more meticulous and vigilant because students and listeners and readers have become more and more attentive and inquisitive.
About the entry last week, it was not just the ever present ending that the printer’s devil affected, the very last or closing paragraph was also yanked off. It is served hereunder complete with the traditional ending as they should have appeared; which by the way gives this edition the traditional ending twice: to make amends for last week.
“Let us bow no more to deceit, to money, to power, and to allied empty airs. Let us be arrogantly humble and humbly arrogant when it comes to standing up for equality, for freedom, for fatherland. Otherwise we perish in foolishness. May that not be our lot.
“God bless Nigeria!”