Ask Chuka

At an auto mechanic workshop recently, I overheard something that shocked me deeply. A man said a former two-term governor, two-term senator and former minister was currently broke and struggling to survive. Think about that for a second. That is almost 24 years occupying some of the most powerful political offices in Nigeria and still ending up with survival problems afterwards. At first, I found it difficult to believe until our discussion shifted to how easy it is for wealth, influence and relevance to disappear when discipline and structure are missing. But that is not even the real lesson. At my tennis club, one of our members, Mr Frank, once informed us that he was being considered for a major appointment in one of Nigeria’s ministries. We were excited and prayed along with him. Eventually, he got the appointment. If you understand how Nigeria works, you will know what many of us were thinking: “This connection could become useful for everybody.” But immediately he assumed offi...

  A few days ago, Yunga and I were discussing how to deal with the sound challenges in our parish. Catholic Church sound issues… hmmm. At some point, I got tired of the conversation and said we should just leave the matter. After all, we are not the ones leading the church. If the priests are comfortable with the sound the way it is, no wahala. We will keep managing it until we can no longer cope, and then perhaps move on to places with better sound systems. I honestly expected him to agree with me. Instead, he said something that stopped me. “𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐣𝐮𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐮𝐬.” He went on to explain that we had not implemented all the strategies we had in mind. We had not even shared all our ideas with the priests before deciding to give up. According to him, if we did nothing, a day would come when people would walk into that church and wonder what kind of people once worshipped there. They would say, “Chuka, Yunga, Hilary and others were here… and this was the r...