Question: “Ndubuisi, who is the Richest Man in Abia?”
My Response: It is very unlikely to know the richest person in Abia State because in many Abia communities, tradition is not to recognize you because you are rich in money, but because you turned boys into men. So, the ideal question should be “ Who has raised more boys to become men, and girls to become women?” With that, you can get answers in communities.
In some communities, before you are allowed to speak in the village square, you must begin by pointing to people you have helped, before elders will yield the floor for you to speak. So, your money means nothing if none has benefitted from it.
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In Ovim, one of the “richest men” ever lived remains Dr ENC Ukpabi. He earned a PhD in Geography in the United States before 1960, and was the first indigenous dean in University of Nigeria Nsukka. He was so amazing that his house was basically an Ovim house.
He supported men and women to the extent that during Church baptism when people were asked by the Reverend to name their “Saviour”, some actually named Dr Ukpabi. Yes, they felt that he was the messiah! Of course, the Bishop will ask them to return to catechism and prepare for another Exam so that they can pass for baptism. And Dr was a very rich man even though he did not have a big bank account.
Scale that mindset across most Igbo communities. Yes, people build companies and break them, awarding market shares to future competitors. I explained that in the Harvard Business Review via the Igbo Apprenticeship System to the global world on stakeholder capitalism.
“Thanks so much for your work here. I like how you’re setting up the idea of stakeholder capitalism at the start while introducing the Igbo IAS…” The online version should be out by next month. The core construct is to present the Igbo Apprenticeship System as a thesis for the world as the conversation continues on stakeholder capitalism, not just shareholder capitalism.”
Indeed, the ancestral Igbo worldview was centuries ahead of the global push for stakeholder capitalism, in that view, you could get the idea of the richest person in your world.
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The framework for determining ‘Richest Man’ is pretty much consistent with what you described, if not for few corruption and speculation here and there. At a community level, counting boys you turned to men is practicable, but for a founder of a global corporation, that becomes a scaled version of it. A corporation with 50k direct employees with products and services that serve hundreds of millions, how do you quantify men/women its founders have raised? Of course they will run in tens of thousands, if not millions.
Nobody makes Billionaires List because he has billions saved in his bank account, rather these are calculated based on holdings, whether as investor or business owner. The thousands of employees who draw their incomes from those investments or businesses are indirectly raised by the billionaire, because without those incomes, many families dreams and aspirations would be punted.
Every productive life will impact a generation at a minimum, whether in small way or grand scale. What is paramount is to endeavour to live in a way that better the lives of those who exist in your time and beyond.
As always, it’s the job of non billionaires to analyze and debate how much impact billionaires should make. It is what it is.
Which local government do ovim comes from? What we have here is Isuikwuato not ovim sorry.
Ovim in Isuikwuato LGA Abia state.
Ovim is in Isuikwuato LGA , you should also mention Alayi community in Bende LGA just few minutes from Ovim ,there are a lot of people from these areas that has done these IAS since 1930s ,my Father did it Chief Eke Chukwu from Elugu Amankala Alayi he was known for trading across the Igbo land and his Son Chief Elekwachi Eke he started helping younger people from the extended family as far as when he was just in his early 20s . You can go and verify Thank you Timothy Onyema eke
My state of origin is enugu state
My local government Uzo uwani
My community ezikolo autonomous communication
My village is Anagoro village