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Today, I remember many years ago. James Edet, an award-winning broadcaster, now permanent secretary, had just finished granting me one of those breakfast television interviews. Director-general (at the time) of Akwa Ibom Broadcasting Corporation (AKBC), the state government’s double-arm broadcaster, Pastor Praise Okon, on running into me that afternoon, critiqued the interview with the words, “that was a hard one. Very hard.”
I didn’t have to wonder too long what he meant. You too don’t have to. In the evening of the interview, I met Gov. Godswill Akpabio (as he then was) at what is now Victor Attah International Airport, Uyo. Even before we had a handshake, he said: “Bush, I watched your interview.”
To this day, those who know Sen. Akpabio well will tell you he is quite expressive, intentionally and unconsciously. When he’s happy with you, his smile says it all. It gathers and dissolves like waves on a seashore; spreading from his lips to the cheeks and to the whole face. When he’s not, the smile stops before it starts leaving his lips shunted in a funny way and his face in a don’t-mess-with-me stare.
Let’s connect the dots, the same way Pastor Umo Eno, PDP Akwa Ibom State governorship standard-bearer, has promised to continue from where Gov. Udom Emmanuel stops on May 29, 2023. The interview spoke truth to power. It was, therefore, truly hard because it held on a government station; if you like, against that same government. But what has all this digression to do with this piece?
Well, this writer needed to warn that you may find this entry a little hard. Now, you know who holds that copyright. Vanity is hard to eschew. Its transience makes its popularity (or is it notoriety?) even harder to comprehend.
Take political office, first of all. Being a tenured privilege, everyone knows it would end sooner or later. Why then does the holder play deputy God? Is it possible to forget yourself enough to get carried away when 24/7 you remember that the political power you hold is not forever?
Why don’t new testament power chiefs ever learn from what befell those of the old testament? You can be so high up there today but tomorrow even your successor won’t pick your telephone call let alone help you. The crowds you see today, you shall see them no more; they gather because of the office, not because of you. When you leave an office, the office leaves you and with that the crowds too.
Take wealth, second of all. You suddenly come into humongous money or asset and humility flees through the window of your heart. You become haughty and insult even your benefactors. What happened to make you unconscious of the ephemerality of this life not to talk of these acquisitions?
I have seen the rich beg for bread. Yes, against the run of play, they become suddenly and forever poor. How then is it so easy for the nouveau riche to conveniently ignore the truism that no condition is permanent? Why do you worship money and expect the rest of us to worship you plus when you barely respect our very humanity?
Third of all, take the silliest of all vanities, looks. This particular foolery brings nothing to the table and wants not only all the attention and encomia but also to take credit for everything else. Just why do people brag about something as shallow and as flimsy and as evanescent as looks? It’s ugly to see so-called beautiful or handsome people flaunt something they neither bought nor worked for.
Looks is nothing. Perhaps, except in a beauty pageant. Beauty is beyond skin deep. The looks that is not vanity is that which qualifies in character and in appearance.
To be sure, power, wealth and looks are not vanities in themselves. The trouble is not how powerful or how wealthy you are or how dashing you look. The trouble is how you mind them. Vanity clocks in the moment you allow yourself to enjoy the grip of obsession.
Look around history, look around where you are, look around especially government. Without a doubt, you come face to face with the foregoing hard facts of life. People who posed as tin gods and who we thought did not come to the world from our same source not only crashed but have remained either totally irrelevant or totally forgotten. How more useless can power or wealth or looks get?
If something is not going to be valuable forever, that is in the afterlife as well, why the obsession? Always use what you have to add value to humanity. Otherwise, you only succeed in excelling in failure. Otherwise, you only build a vanity empire, which, unfortunately, shall speak against your name and family in future.
Vanity is like a pack of cards. It crumbles at the slightest breeze. Vanity is like building castles in the air. Building takes place but no building is standing as a result of all such efforts.
Beware of vanity, my dear. Regrettably, even life is vanity. The day before you arrived the world after the journey of nine months, where were you? And, since you know everything, where were you before you proceeded on the earth-bound trip?
More questions for you, dear wisest one. The day you die, where would you be headed? Would the journey back take the same nine months or less? Stop grinning sheepishly at me, please.
I don’t suffer fools gladly. I have told you how dangerously good-for-nothing-ish vanity is. If you have ears, hear; if you don’t have, continue. My prayer is that you never learn the lessons of vanity when it is too late.
Semi-finally, in case you missed it earlier on, vanity is nobody; vanity is nothing. Never kill or die for anybody, nor for anything. It is not worth it. Vanity has no place in eternity.
Finally, everybody and everything is soon forgotten. Meaning that, at the end, everybody is vanity; everything is vanity. Life and this world are transitory, and therefore both are vanity. Vainglory is sheer stupidity in that it is too shortlived.
God bless Nigeria!
