By Abuchi Obiora
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones so let it be with Caesar.
The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious; If it were so, it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Caesar answer’d it …….”
The above are the opening paragraphs of the speech by Mark Anthony in his eulogy for the assassinated Julius Caesar, as in the epic play called ‘JULIUS CAESAR’ written by William Shakespeare. Occurring in Act III, Scene II of the play, it is one of the most famous lines in all of William Shakespeare’s works. William Shakespeare is the English playwright, poet and actor regarded as the greatest writer in English language as well as the world greatest dramatist.
This week, I shall discuss a matter which greatly touches my heart. The matter is no other than the recent collapse of a 21-storey building in Gerard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. First, I must commiserate with the families, friends and professional colleagues of those who lost their lives in that most unfortunate incident. I pray that the souls of the departed people should rest in perfect peace, Amen.
Specifically, I shall be discussing this matter from the point of view of examining the personality of Citizen Femi Osibona, the Chief Executive Office of the company, Fourscore, who was the developer of the collapsed building. I shall also, based on information available to me, take a forensic moral audit of a great Nigerian who I believe has unnecessarily been maligned, even as he paid the supreme sacrifice of dying for what he believed in and worked for.
Citizen Femi Osibona, a middle aged man was, through what I deem to be divine Providence, trusted with the mantle of being the arrowhead of the ill-fated, yet one of the major projects in the Nigerian real estate industry. He recognized that the country is presently challenged with a pitiable shortfall in the provision of housing for the teaming population of Nigerians, and acted accordingly to bridge the gap in the supply of decent housing facilities.
I shall be comparing the exploits of Citizen Femi Osibona with that of another great man in history, who like Femi did not also have the opportunity to fulfill his noble ambitions and live out his dreams because of the capricious hand of fate.
That man Is Gaius Julius Caesar, born July 100 B.C, in Suburra, Italy. Julius Caesar was a Roman General and Statesmen who was also a member of the first triumvirate. Other members of the first triumvirate are Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey) and Marcus Licinius. Julius Caesar led the Roman Armies in the Gallic wars and later defeated the dreaded Pompey in a civil war. He was to rule the Roman Republic as a benevolent dictator from 49 B.C until his assassination by one of his closest allies and bosom friend, Marcus Junius Brutus (also known with his adopted name of Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus) on the 15th March (the ides of March, as the Soothsayer told Julius Caeser), 44 B.C. at the age of 55 years, in Largo di Torre Argentina, Rome, Italy.
A man equally from a noble background and modest beginning like Julius Caesar Citizen Femi Osibona piloted his life, with ardent belief in God and the understanding of Jesus Christ as his Lord and savior from a humble middle class to elitism – a feat which he achieved, pulling in, in the process, his family and childhood friends. It is most unfortunate that he perished with some of those long-time, devoted friends of yesteryears.
There have been insinuations that Femi cut corners, having involved in sharp practice and wrongly acquired approvals for the properties he developed. But these types of stories can only come from hearts darkened more than the charcoal. Reason is because it is impossible to believe that a man full of life and with the type of experience and exposure he had in the real estate business, will prefer to dig his own grave in that collapsed edifice, where, according to his closest associates, he had wanted to live. Was Femi that callous that he even deceived himself, preferring to live in an ill-constructed edifice? It is difficult to believe that a very intelligent man as his record shows, will do that. Femi, a great and recognized soldier of Jesus Christ, was even accused of hopping between churches, and receiving prayers from men of God around the world. Thank God he did not hop around shrines and such devious places, where his accuses and traducers may choose to be.
Femi was a great philanthropist. According to the neighbors in the family house in Lagos, anybody Femi touched changed for good. Femi was known for charity inside out – from his Ikenne ancestral home to wherever he sojourned. What a great soul, who, not only preached Jesus Christ, but also lived like our Lord and Savior. He was a prayer warrior. Multiple accounts I read about him said that Femi prayed more than he slept every night. Why wouldn’t he be rich? The Holy Bible tells us that “the earth is the Lord’s and its fullness thereof” Femi understood this. In one of the interviews which he granted to Channels Television, Femi asserted that whatever he was doing at Ikoyi was just a little when compared with what he had in mind to do. What a great Nigerian worthy of emulation.
Like Mark Anthony said in his eulogy for Julius Caesar, my aim in this discourse is to join my sympathy with that of good hearted Nigerians who saw the loss of talent and human resource in the death of Femi Osibona, and not to praise the deceased. Some people called him ‘wicked’ and all sorts of names. Well, I do not blame them because I understand that empty vessels make the loudest noise. Femi, a veritable vessel for the wok of Jesus Christ on earth had done his best and gone home to his creator. He must have been welcomed by the Savior, accompanied by the hosts of heaven.
A young man came on television screen, interviewed by a television station. He said that Femi denied him employment for a job he was well qualified to do because he is a Muslim. I think that was cheap blackmail for Femi, who stood tall as the colossus riding akimbo the vicissitudes of life.
Secondly, in my opinion, there is no federal character code of employment to promote in a private business investment. More so, the one we all pretend we are promoting in corporate Nigeria is ridiculed with double standard and marked in controversies as is presently witnessed in the key federal government agencies and Chief Executive Officers of the core investments and corporations in Nigeria, like the NNPC, whose management staff are all northern Muslims.
Whether that guy who claimed that he was sidelined by Femi because he is a Muslim granted the interview to mock the trapped Femi whose remains had not yet been pulled out from the ruins by the time he granted the interview, or the mockery was directed to Christianity, is not clear. But one thing is clear and certain: Citizen Femi Osibona had done his part. He died like a Christian saint.
In that eulogy for Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony noted that “The good is oft interred with their bones, so let it be with Caesar”. Yes, though the world may deny some of the good works of Citizen Femi Osibona, especially the ones he did secretly as he was known to do, those works must have been recorded for him in the Book of Life for the judgment day.
Addressing Romans in the Capitol to exonerate Julius Caesar of blames, Mark Anthony, Caesar’s true friend and benefactor further said in the eulogy, that “When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; ambition should be made of sterner stuff:…..”
Citizen Femi Osibone, the man with the golden heart, would not have been very deep in charity and philanthropy, feeding and clothing the poor, if he was a bad man. Though ambitious as to blaze the tail for prospective young Nigerian investors in real estate business, Femi was not inordinately ambitious.
Somebody should initiate a biography of a humble beginning, focus and ambition unto immense wealth for this great Nigerian whose life must continue to inspire anybody who cares to be useful in life, irrespective of the obstacles that the person may face.
As Nigerians await the findings of the Panel of Enquiry that has been constituted to dig into the remote and immediate causes of the accident in order to forestall a repeat of such a mishap, my quick verdict, as a Christian who believes in the sovereignty of God to whom all Honour, Glory, and Majesty belongs in both times of happiness and sorrow, is that the collapse of one of Femi’s 21-storey edifice in Gerard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos on that fateful Monday 1st November 2021 where at least 41 persons died with Femi was an act of God. For the reason that man is not Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscience, man must understand that what man had not been able to stop from happening, he must accept.
The death of Julius Caesar signaled the beginning of the demise of the once powerful and prosperous Roman Empire. There were to be Power tussles which eventually yielded a second triumvirate of Mark Anthony, Augustus Caesar, and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus.
With the second triumvirate, events moved so fast in Rome that the hitherto conquered nations under the Imperial Majesty of Rome began to forcibly regain control of their territories and assert self-rule in the process.
Like a colossus, Citizen Femi Osibona rode akimbo the Nigerian real estate industry. Unfortunately, he experienced the rare accident of the grounded stilt walker who in the same manner of the colossus that he was, rode akimbo in style to the admiration of the bemused and shocked crowd who had previously watched and cheered him.
I sincerely hope that this rare accident of fate will not deter or discourage other young, ambitious, visionary and able Nigerians, especially those in the Diaspora, from taking the bull by the horn and using their funds to address deficiencies, not only in the housing infrastructure, but also in other salient and distressed areas of the national economy.
For this reason, this is the time to strengthen the existing Lagos state building laws and eliminate human sabotage and error and not the time to apportion blames or stifle the efforts of investors in the industry through the introduction of unnecessary and cumbersome procedures that will scare prospective investors away.
ABUCHI OBIORA
abuchiobiora@gmail.com
For: Global Upfront Newspapers
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