By Dan Amor
I
think it was John Paul Getty, the American-born British billionaire,
philanthropist and heir to oil industry fortune, who quipped, when asked how
rich he was, 'No one is really rich if he can count his money.' In Getty's day,
anyone with one million British pounds ( or even one million dollars) was rated as
'rich' and anyone with more than five million pounds was 'very rich'. Above
that and you were in the 'super rich' category, and when you got above the
fifty million pounds level, you rated as a 'can't count'.
Nelson Bunker Hunt,
who with his brother inherited a fortune even greater than Getty's, was a
'can't count' man before he tried to corner the silver market. Asked by a
Senate Committee how much he was worth, he snapped, 'Hell, if I knew that, I
wouldn't be worth very much'. In the United States , for many years
Forbes Magazine and Fortune, among others, have
published lists of the very wealthy which have been eagerly awaited events in a
society where wealth is a macho symbol, to be boasted about rather than hidden.
In Great Britain, however, wealth is something best not talked about, and it
has never been easy to establish authoritatively just who owns what, and what
they are worth. Most of the stupendous wealth in Britain
as in Nigeria ,
had been shrouded in secrecy.
President Buhari and Vice-President Osinbajo |
Yet,
in 1989, the Sunday Times of London broke with tradition by publishing the
first real guide to Britain's wealthy, causing a considerable amount of unease
among those who hated being on it. In 1990, the Sunday Times repeated the
exercise, adding a further 70 names to the list and raising the stake to £70
million. Both the 1989 and 1990 lists which occupied most of one entire colour
magazine, have since been widely discussed and copied by the rest of Fleet
Street. They have also been used as ammunition by both sides of the Old Britain
versus New Britain , quoted on the one hand to
show how even in the Thatcher years old money had reinforced its power, and on
the other hand, to record the rise and rise of the new rich at the expense of
the old in Britain .
When the Sunday Times published the first list in 1989, the paper commented editorially on its own study, mourning the fact that, after a decade of Thatcherism, old money still dominated and paternalism appeared to be making a comeback. Others, of course, took an entirely different view of the list, expressing astonishment at the amount of new money, at the relative decline of old wealth, and the degree of egalitarianism which had crept in. It generated a debate which still goes on more than two decades after the publication.
When the Sunday Times published the first list in 1989, the paper commented editorially on its own study, mourning the fact that, after a decade of Thatcherism, old money still dominated and paternalism appeared to be making a comeback. Others, of course, took an entirely different view of the list, expressing astonishment at the amount of new money, at the relative decline of old wealth, and the degree of egalitarianism which had crept in. It generated a debate which still goes on more than two decades after the publication.
*Margaret Thatcher |
There is, indeed, a positive correlation between great wealth and influence, and therefore, a need to know who actually "owns"
Again,
Leonard Geert the multi-millionaire management consultant did not succeed until
he left the top accountancy firm where he worked for several years to manage
his father's company that specializes in the sale of foodstuffs. There and
then, he hit the mark as one of the richest fruit sellers in the world with a
total asset of $72 million and in the "very rich" bracket.
Nigerians hardly believe that publishers can be very rich people. Yet, no one in the English-speaking world would forget Paul Hamlyn the publisher of Peter Wright's book, Spycatcher. Hamlyn, the son of a Jewish pediatrician who fled toLondon to escape Hitler's
tyranny in 1933, opted out of school at the age of 16 to become an office boy
at Country Life Magazine and began the career as bookseller that
was to broaden his interest in publishing. Today, he is among the British super
rich worth over £165 million.
InNigeria , we have the story of Dr. Ifeanyi
Ubah, son of peasant teachers who escaped the drudgery of subsistence living as
his parents could hardly afford the siblings' school fees, to become an
apprentice to a business man until he started his own business. Today, the
Chairman and Managing Director of Capital Oil & Gas Industry Limited and
publisher of The AUTHORITY Group of Newspapers, is worth N500 billion. As a
philanthropist and master strategist who knows what he passed through to become
what he is today, he dedicates his wealth to the service of humanity. His
intervention in last year's unnerving fuel scarcity that threatened to ground
the newly inaugurated government of President Buhari in June 2015, and his
current attempt to redeem the nation's currency from the stranglehold of the
cascading dollar, are green in our memory.
Nigerians hardly believe that publishers can be very rich people. Yet, no one in the English-speaking world would forget Paul Hamlyn the publisher of Peter Wright's book, Spycatcher. Hamlyn, the son of a Jewish pediatrician who fled to
In
There is a high moral obligation for leaders and the wealthy in society to declare their assets. Wealth is a constantly moving feast. As stock markets and the price of gold, diamonds and other art treasures and land fluctuate quite sharply at times, so would the list of rich people vary accordingly. Fortunes have been won or lost when millionaires sell their firms or, in their quest for growth, over-extend themselves. But there will always be new blood coming along, whether rising business stars, sportsmen and women at the peak of their careers, or pop and film stars. For example, how many Nigerians know the net worths of our Nollywood stars amidst the huge revenue they are raking in?
How many know the exact worth of our multi-billionaires scattered all over the place? We constantly talk about the Dangotes, the Rabius, the Alakijas, the Adenugas, the Otedolas, the Abiolas, the Ilodibes, the Odogwus, the Ojukwus, the Odegbes, the Akandes, etcetera, as those who constitute less than one per cent of our population but ironically controlling ninety-eight per cent of our national wealth, and yet we hardly know how much they are worth.
What
is more! Another intriguing task is to ascertain the net worth of the
custodians of our traditional institutions. For example, putting a value on the
wealth of the British Royal Family is not only difficult, but to some extent,
pointless. There are art treasures and jewels in the Queen's collection which
are priceless and will certainly never be sold. Queen Elizabeth II is the 63rd
monarch in a line going back 1,000 years, each one of whom has added to the
collection. In 1971, the Royal Chamberlain told a parliamentary committee set
up to look into the Queen's finances that Her Majesty was concerned by the
astronomical figures bandied about in some quarters suggesting that the Queen
may not have been stupendously rich as speculated in the media.
But in the end, it was established that Queen Elizabeth II the richest woman in the world is worth £6,700 million. Yet, the question that may be asked is: how rich areNigeria 's
traditional rulers most of whom are even richer than politicians? Do we also
need to know how wealthy are Nigeria 's
super-rich pastors who own more private jets than our business moguls? How rich
are the Nigerian rich? The people are entitled to know.
*Amor, a public affairs analyst, resides in Abuja. He writes a column on the back page of the Authority newspaper every Friday
But in the end, it was established that Queen Elizabeth II the richest woman in the world is worth £6,700 million. Yet, the question that may be asked is: how rich are
*Amor, a public affairs analyst, resides in Abuja. He writes a column on the back page of the Authority newspaper every Friday
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