DEDICATED TO THE POLITICAL AND BUSINESS GOD FATHER'S

DEDICATED TO THE POLITICAL AND BUSINESS GOD FATHER'S

Chief Osapolo Elemawushi’s final breath left him in the penthouse of his Dubai-style mansion in Maitama, Abuja, but his spirit seemed to linger for a moment, watching the scene unfold beneath the crystal chandelier.

He saw his third wife, Nneoma, already on her phone, her whispered "Thank God, it's finally over" cutting through the perfumed air. He saw his first son, Emmaus, slip the solid gold pen from his father's pocket before the doctor had even confirmed the time of death. He saw his business partner, Uncle Tunde, already calculating his shares in the oil bloc they'd just secured.

And Chief Osapolo, who in life had measured everything in billions, acres, and influence, realized with crushing clarity the ephemeralities of vanities.

Thirty years earlier, a younger Osapolo had stood on the red earth of his village in Edo State with nothing but a secondary school certificate and fire in his belly. "I will own Lagos," he told his mother, who merely smiled and said, "Own yourself first, my son."

But Osapolo hadn't listened. He conquered Lagos instead starting with a tiny container office in Alaba Market, selling electrical components. He remembered his first million naira, how he'd spread the notes on his bed in his Surulere apartment, smelling the ink of possibility. He'd framed that first cheque, a trophy of his escape from poverty.

The money grew. The container became a plaza. The plaza became a conglomerate. He moved to Victoria Island, then to a gated estate in Lekki where he built "Osapolo Mansion," a monstrosity of Italian marble and Greek columns that dwarfed the neighboring homes.

He measured life in acquisitions the fleet of armored Lexus LX SUVs, the private jet named "The Eagle of Wealth," the hotel in Asokoro, Abuja, the oil and gas licenses, the senator's phone number saved in his contacts, the three wives from three geopolitical zones a political and social portfolio.

At his 60th birthday party at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, five governors had toasted him. The highlife music played as dancers writhed and champagne flowed like the Niger River. His childhood friend, Adebayo, who ran a small pharmacy in Agege, had come and quietly left early, unable to get through the wall of sycophants.

"Life is good when you're the king of the world!" Osapolo had roared that night, his voice echoing in the hall. He did not see Adebayo's retreating back, nor did he remember his mother's warning. "The ground you walk on owns you; you do not own it."

The sickness came suddenly. A sharp pain during a board meeting in his Ikoyi office. The best doctors flew in from London and America. They spoke of rare conditions and experimental treatments. His private jet became an ambulance.

In his final weeks at the Abuja mansion, the parade of visitors changed. The contractors with inflated invoices disappeared. The politicians seeking campaign funds vanished. The social media influencers who once clamored for photos at his parties were posting with new "money mentors."

Only a handful remained. His first wife, Nkechi, whom he'd neglected for younger, flashier women, still came daily to pray by his bedside. His younger sister, Aisha, a schoolteacher in Kaduna, sent constant messages of scripture. And Adebayo, the pharmacist from Agege, traveled to Abuja and sat with him for hours, not speaking of wealth or sickness, but reminding him of the boy who climbed ukwa trees and stole mangoes from Mr. Okoro's farm.

One afternoon, high on morphine, Osapolo gripped Adebayo's hand. "Bayo, I own so much. Yet I feel... empty. Why?"

Adebayo wiped his friend's brow gently. "Osa, you spent your life collecting the container but forgot to fill it with what lasts. You gathered the whole Lagos but lost your own village."

The words struck a chord deeper than any business deal.

On his deathbed, the final vision wasn't of boardrooms or bank accounts. It was of his mother's face, weathered and kind, telling him to own himself. It was of the taste of roasted corn bought from a roadside seller in Lagos traffic, eaten with laughter in a car that wasn't armored. It was of the simple, uncalculated joy he'd felt fifty years ago, swimming in the river behind his village, his body light, his heart full, owning nothing but the moment.

The funeral was the biggest Abuja had seen in years. The service at the National Christian Centre was filled with dignitaries. The printed programme was thicker than a magazine. Women in expensive aso-ebi wept dramatically. Preachers thundered about "a great man gone home."

They buried him in a solid bronze casket at the Gudu cemetery, a plot he'd purchased as part of a "legacy estate." They lowered the magnificent box into the red earth. They threw in handfuls of sand governors, ministers, business titans.

But as the crowd dispersed, talking of the will and the corporate battle to come, only Nkechi and Adebayo remained. The sun set over the Aso Rock hills, painting the sky in temporary gold.

They will fight for everything," Nkechi said, her voice tired.

Adebayo nodded, watching the gravediggers begin their work. "They will fight for the ephemeral. The houses that will crumble. The money that will scatter. The cars that will rust. They will fight for the vanity of it all."

He placed a hand on the fresh mound, simple and final. "But here lies the only thing Osapolo truly owned in the end. The same thing we all will own. The same thing the beggar on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway owns. Six feet of earth."

He turned to Nkechi. "He finally owns himself. And his Maker."

The lesson of the ephemeralities of vanities was complete. Life had been the pursuit of everything; death was the reduction to the only thing that was ever truly, inescapably yours the vessel that carried your soul, now returned to the dust from which it came, equal at last to every other human who had ever drawn breath beneath the same Nigerian sun.

Until the moment when will shall dance in white Greater Grace.

Oyugbo Osagie Jonah 

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