Read this if you're wealthy and your children have blown the capital you gave them to start business?

By Anayo M. Nwosu

The Annual General Meeting of the People's Club of Nigeria never ended without the members, who came from far and near, being served the best of the food a caterer could cook and the finest drinks or wine money could buy.

The club was exclusively started and populated by post-civil war Igbo millionaires. It has its headquarters at the Onitsha end of Owerri-Onitsha express way.

The after-meeting luncheon was a period of banter throwing and felicitation in line with the motto of the club that "ka anyi bilibe ndu…" meaning “let us continue enjoy life to the fullest".

Almost everybody noticed that Chief Akuatata was very pensive during the meeting even at the luncheon as if he was mourning his girlfriend or mistress.

He could only drink three bottles of big Guinness Stout after one hour. It was quite unlike him. He should have been at his eighth bottle if all was right with him.

"Ichie Atuatata obuginikwa?" one of the members intently inquired.

"My first son wants to kill me; the boy has squandered again the fresh capital I gave him to put in his business after lavishing the initial one in easy life. So, is that how I carefully washed my hands to crack palm nuts for fowls to eat?" Chief Akuatata said and the faces of many of those on the table became gloom.

Why would Chief Akuatata open their painful wound early enough in the day to spoil their moment of merriment?

The troubled man threw his grief too open for a wider audience discussion as many of them had only discussed this in hushed tones with trusted persons; persons that would not laugh one at one's back.

The extremely wealthy members of the club had all glossed over this pain of prodigality of their heirs apparent, a pain they usually buried in the opium of alcohol, and a pain which would always resurface when reality subdues soberness.

A successful Aba-based merchant amongst had a solution. He said that after his heart-searing experience with his sons that he had decided to sell off his assets before he dies and dash out the proceeds himself.

But Chief John Anya, the Omeifeukwu Nnewi didn't say a word but kept sipping his drink as his friends were taking turns to rue their catalogues of woeful experiences with their sons.

Omeifeukwu was in their boat few years before and had complained the more in gatherings like this until a solution occurred to him.

He was so sure that if he gave his friends the solution that they would not accept hence his suspicious silence.

"Omeifeukwu Nnewi, nkea igbaziri anyi nkiti, i na añu anyi añu", meaning "Omeifeukwu, we may be right to assume that you are mocking us by your stone silence", one of them asked with accusatory seriousness.

"The solution to the problem is not very far off if only you people would listen and apply my recipe", Omeifeukwu started.

"You people should know that our sons didn't suffer as we did while growing up and neither did they serve in the Biafra army as most of us did. They have grown up to become the children of very wealthy men with silver spoons in their mouths.

"Many of these boys we are talking about have slept with more women than we have; they drink more than we do and adorn more expensive clothes than we see as waste of money because they are the children of rich men.

"Recall that I was wailing with you last year on this matter but one day, I used my tongue to count my teeth. I realized that things have changed and cannot be done our ways anymore. Our children are not us and we are not them. They view the world differently and have a different orientation to risks and business.

"My suggestion is that you apply a method that I have tested to and have proven to be efficacious. I am so happy I conduced myself to waste money to gain a wealthy son!

"You must start by sitting down with your son and asking him what kind of business he wants to do. If he wants to continue with your line of business, let him have his own shop and office and allow him to be his own master after learning the trade as our apprentice normally does.

"Give him an initial capital as you would to an apprentice or ‘nwa boy’ that meritoriously served his master and allow him to run his affairs.

"You may ask him to get and move to his own apartment; this would give him the air of freedom and release him from the electromagnetic field of your domineering presence.

"Monitor his progress through third parties and invite him for a meeting if you hear that he has squandered his initial capital. Do not wait for so long after learning that he is low, before you call him for appraisal so that he would fall into the hands of failure gang or association of failed children of wealthy men.

"After a measured reprimand, double the initial capital you had given him and keep doing same till he becomes so ashamed of himself.

"Every man, including our sons, has a shame limit. Once it is reached, that prodigal son would become a prodigy.

"I didn't do any juju to get my first son, Johnpaul to start do well. I kept giving and doubling his capital beyond what he could lavish and I'm proud to tell all of you that I can now die and relax in my grave knowing fully that my son and my business empire are on the right footing", Omeifeukwu Nnewi concluded and left the venue.

They were all wealthy men and had suckled their mothers' breasts. They all could relate with priceless commodities or advice. Omeifeukwu had impregnated them with a divine wisdom.

In the 1980s when this happened up till 1990s, most wealthy Igbos were merchants and the first sons were expected to succeed their fathers as the heads of business empires though a man could hand over to another son if the first son is deemed unfit.

This theory of "keep giving and replacing the capital of the son of a very wealthy man in business until the son becomes ashamed of being wasteful and becomes useful and successful " as propounded by Chief John Anya, the Omeifeukwu Nnewi  helped in no small measures, to solve the biggest transition challenge of Post-civil war Igbo wealthy businessmen.

Unfortunately, not all madness is curable especially of those mad people who had been to the market square.

For an irredeemable son, “to his position let another take”.