Birthday Messages: Few politicians would offer you any favour without expecting something in return from you

Jones FCC

Few politicians would offer you any favour without expecting something in return from you. For most Nigerian politicians, any act of favour is actually a repayment for some kind of services you had rendered to them or you are expected to render to them. Very few of them do anything out of genuine compassion or an interest in helping to build a dream.

Six years ago, I was organizing a premiere for one of my movies. At that time, I was attached to a certain politician, whom naturally, I had chosen as the Chairman of the movie premiere. I told him about it, he agreed to in principle. So, I printed my invitation cards, including his name as the Chairman of the movie premiere. When I concluded my initial editing work in Lagos, I traveled by road to Abuja, booked an affordable hotel with the aim to spend, at the most two days in Abuja before returning to Owerri to continue my preparations for the premiere and to be able to return back to work early enough. I called this particular politician on the phone, sent him text messages, for four straight days, without any response.

I was disappointed, but I had to make excuses for him and hatched a new plan ( I make excuses for my stupidity a lot, until I snap). I quickly did a letter to Senator Samdaddy Anyanwu -who was freshly a Senator then – requesting him to chair the occasion. I hadn’t met Samdaddy any time before then, but when I thought of some of the easily accessible and progressive politicians within reach, he easily came to mind, as a result of testimonies I had got from those very close to him.

I sent a message via Facebook to his then Senior Legislative Aide, Ijeoma Nwafor, who graciously granted me a pass to the National Assembly gate. When I got to the Senator’s office, Ijeoma was kindly and welcoming. And that was my first time of meeting her. She assured me that the Senator was going to attend the Movie Premiere. That was enough assurance to me.

As a consequence of the disappointment from the other big man, whom I was doing a lot of FREE P.R for, I had to ditch the over 200 IVs I had produced and resorted to sending text messages and writing letters to my expected guests. This was because I had included the name of the proposed Chairman on the Invitation Card.

To cut a long story short, the venue of the 2015 premiere of the GREENPATH was the first ever time Senator Samdaddy was meeting me in person, and that was about the last physical meeting between us, but the mark it left is everlasting, not for the cash he pledged and redeemed but for the lessons it left in political leadership and human capital development. I have had cause to hit him wrongly with my pen at some point, but he never makes any reference to that great favour he did to me, but would tell me; ” You know you are my friend, you should have called to confirm things from me before going public.”

Happy birthday Senator Samuel Anyanwu. May good things continue to happen to you. Stay in good health and be fulfilled.