How Much Land Does A Man Need?
By Reuben Abati

The title of this piece is borrowed from a short story by Leo Tolstoy, Russian author of well-known classics, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This particular story, published in a collection of the same title is one of the standard readings at the Aspen Institute Nigeria Leadership Seminar, a highly subscribed programme that is dedicated to reflections on leadership issues, and the training of young leaders in various professions.

I was one of the Fellows at the seminar held in Watford, England, in January 2007; our reading list covered the writings of some of the most influential thinkers of all times, including Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Karl Popper, Ibn Khaldun, Milton Friedman, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Arthur Okun, Thomas Jefferson, E. F. Schumacher, Vaclav Havel, Lee Kuan Yew, Peter Drucker, Nicollo Machiavelli, Ehsan Naraghi, Chinua Achebe, George Orwell, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Ursula K. Guin, Mark Twain, and Percy Bysshe Shelley. But in the section on self and society, one story made a lasting impression on all the fellows: "How much land does a man need? by Leo Tolstoy.

It is the story that I remember today as I try to find a clue to the benumbing spectacle of greed that confronts us as the immediate past in Nigerian politics and society is subjected to a close analysis and review. At every turn we are confronted with real-life tales of government officials who stole so much money the figures can make the unwary go deaf or blind or both. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission once had cause to disclose that since independence in 1960, Nigerian public officials have stolen over six trillion from the coffers of the state. I guess it is a lot more than that. In a country where documentation is poor and the finance departments of government offices have been routinely set on fire, no one can effectively calculate the exact amount of stolen public funds. And this is money meant for development and the pursuit of the purpose of governance to wit: to guarantee the security and welfare of the people.

Probe panels and the media continue to reveal how public officials have gained access to stupendous personal wealth. This week alone we have heard about how one man and members of his family (probably acting as his proxies) acquired over 13 plots in the Federal Capital Territory. We have been told how within 24 hours before his exit from office in May 2007, the former President hurriedly awarded sundry licences and gave approvals for all sorts of matters, many of this in his own favour.

How about Governors who diverted public funds into private accounts? Or those who used government facilities to set up or to upgrade personal businesses? Two years ago, the story was told of a late Chief Accountant of a major public parastatal, in whose bank account billions of money were found. His list of properties drew gasps of breath from the public. He probably would not have been exposed if he had not died in a plane crash and if his wife and his mistress had not started quarrelling over the sharing of his vast and obscene estate.

In the Abacha days, one Minister was caught red-handed with over 50 cars in his garage, over 50 houses in Abuja alone, and money in all currencies in the world hidden inside underground water tanks, and over-head tanks, wardrobes and refrigerators in his house. Apart from the known cases, there are so many other unknowns, not just in government but also in the private sector and in the general society, men and women who are sold on the culture of primitive acquisition.

They are so greedy nothing is ever enough for them. They are not satisfied with one or two cars, they want to own 100 if possible. They are not satisfied with a roof over their heads, they want to own a whole community if they can. And yet no man can sleep on more than one bed at a time. No man can sleep in two houses at the same time. I have heard stories about wealth and the ingenuity of men, but I have not yet heard of anyone who rode two cars simultaneously. The greedy ones among us are the relations of Leo Tolstoy's Pakhom, the protagonist in the story: "How much land does a man need?" Hear Tolstoy:

"An elder sister came from the town to visit her younger sister in the country. This elder sister was married to a merchant and the younger to a peasant in the village. The two sisters sat down for a talk over a cup of tea and the elder started boasting about the superiority of town life, with all its comforts, and the fine clothes her children wore, the exquisite food and drink, the skating, parties and visits to the theatre.

The younger sister resented this and in turn scoffed at the life of a merchant's life and sang the praises of her own life as a peasant. � wouldn't care to change my life for yours", she said. � admit mine is dull, but at least we have no worries. You live in grander style, but you must do a great deal of business or you'll be ruined. You know the proverb, "Loss is Gain's elder brother". One day you are rich and next you might find yourself out in the street. Here in the country we don't have those ups and downs. A peasant's life may be poor, but it's long. Although we may never be rich, we'll always have enough to eat".

Then the elder sister said her piece.

"Enough to eat indeed with nothing but those filthy pigs and calves! What do you know about nice clothes and good manners! However hard your good husband slaves away you'll spend your lives in the muck and that's where you'll die. And the same goes for your children".

"Well, what of it?, the younger sister retorted. That's how it is here. But at least we know where we are. We don't have to crawl to anyone and we're afraid of no one. But you in the town are surrounded by temptations. All may we be well one day, the next the Devil comes along and tempts your husband with cards, women and drink. And then you're ruined. It does happen., doesn't it?"

Pakhom, the younger sister's husband, was lying over the stove listening to the women's chatter.

"�t's true what you say", he said. "take me. Ever since I was a youngster I've been busy tilling the soil to let that kind of nonsense enter my head. My only grievance is that I don't have enough land. Give me enough of that and I'd fear no one - not even the Devil himself!"

The sisters finished their tea, talked a little longer about dresses, cleared away the tea things and went to bed.

But the Devil had been sitting behind the stove and had heard everything. He was delighted that a peasant's wife had led her husband to boast that if he had enough land he would fear no one, not even the Devil. "Good!", he thought. "�'ll have a little game with you. I shall see that you have plenty of land and that way I'll get you in my clutches!."

Most of society's problems are caused by the evil of comparison; there is a woman out there or a man out there misleading his or her partner by engaging in a class competition with neighbours and relations. This evil of comparison results in a rat race without an end, and envy that pushes men to overreach themselves.. In Tolstoy's story, Pakhom may blame the Devil for the tragic ending of his story, and this is a common thing here in Nigeria also (it was the Devil's work, it was the Devil that pushed me to do it: they all say so - all the armed robbers in our midst from the common felon to the big men in high places). But the Devil is not a physical entity, not a metaphysical abstraction, the Devil is within us, the Devil is the man himself, that part of his sub-conscious which pushes him to engage in anti-social activities or which robs him of reason in his pursuit of material gains. Tolstoy's Pakhom's prayer was soon answered.

An old lady in a nearby village wanted to sell part of her land of about 300 acres. Pakhom ended up buying about 30 acres out of this, partly on credit and with loan from his brother-in-law. Pakhom had become a landowner and the land yielded great harvest. And "he was happy". But he soon became dissatisfied with the peasants around him. Then he heard that there was land somewhere in the South,. "The land is so fertile that rye grows as high as a horse..." Pakhom sold off his things and went off to the new settlement where after bribing the elders of the community, he got ten times more land than he ever had. He built houses; he became truly rich. But soon after, he began to feel "cramped even here". So Pakhom went in search of more land, this time, freehold land, until he got to the land of the Bashkirs, where was told he could take as much land as he needed. All the land he could walk around in a day will be his at the rate of a thousand roubles a day, but he must be back at his starting point everyday, by sunset.

But Pakhom got greedy. He set out at dawn, grabbing long stretches of land, by the time he decided he had had enough land, and he embarked on the journey back, he had travelled so far and he was so exhausted. He couldn't make it. He slumped and "blood flowed from his mouth. Pakhom was dead." Now, hear Tolstoy again:

"The Bashkirs clicked their tongues sympathetically. Pakhom's workman picked up the spade, dug a grave for his master - six feet from head to heel, which was exactly the right length - and buried him."

Tolstoy's allegory is an impressive commentary on the vanity of human strivings, on the emptiness of materialism. In seeking to acquire more and more land, Pakhom ended up losing everything. In Nigeria, so many are losing, may be not their lives, but their names, their integrity, their greed has exposed them to so much public embarrassment, they can no longer stand up with pride in the community. Pakhom lost his original sense of values when he gained access to capital and opportunities, and he became a different man. This is the reality also in our society.

Many of the men and women who go into public office are usually persons who used to be defenders of public morality, humble members of the community. But as soon as they are given the opportunity to control financial budgets and told like Pakhom to do as they wish until the sun sets (that is, for as long as they are in office), they simply go to town and astray, and they grow a fertile ego. Those who served under President Olusegun Obasanjo are now being summoned to explain how they acquired so much wealth or how they managed public funds in their care. Nothing can be more humiliating for a man or woman who had been promoted as a role model and as an achiever to be put in the dock and asked to explain how he stole or mismanaged public resources. Why would anyone seek to grab all the land in any corner of Nigeria? Why should any Governor own everything and anything? Why would the name of Obasanjo, a man who had already acquired so much land, before becoming President in 1999, be associated with the insatiable scramble for more land?

Greed is the main obstacle to the leadership process in Nigeria. It works out in form of an obsession with the self and an abiding contempt for society and its needs. The primitive acquisitiveness of the Nigerian leadership elite has been without regard for the objective conditions of the people: people who wallow in abject poverty. The poverty in the land is so bad, it is evident in the rising cost of food items, the failure of public infrastructure, the disconnection between the country's enormous wealth in terms of resources and the filth on our streets, and the rebellious streak of armed robbers and assassins.

With everyone in a leadership position in the public sphere behaving like Tolstoy's Pakhom, the community's resources have ended up in the hands of a few oligarchs. Our society is adrift. And they are still grabbing and stealing and bending the rules to protect their personal interests. Nigerians need not look at them sympathetically, we should be amused and aspire to learn from their folly.

The Pakhom parable is not merely about man's wants being insatiable; it is about the abuse of power, privilege and access, and it raises questions about the role of the individual in society. What is life's purpose? What constitutes real value for the individual in society? What is the true meaning of happiness? Obituaries hardly refer to how much money a man has in the bank, Or how many houses he built. People are more likely to be remembered by their deeds as members of the community, and whichever way a man goes, he is destined for no more than six feet of land or worse, the crematorium. It is a pity that men, knowing this to be true, have refused to learn from the examples around them.

Robot  Villager

# 1 How Much Land Does A Man Need? By Reuben Abati T...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 20.04.2008 06:49

docokwy  Villager

# 2 Two years ago, the story was told of a late Chief Accountant of a major public parastatal, in whose bank account billions of money were found. His list of properties drew gasps of breath from the public. He probably would not have been exposed if he had not died in a plane crash and if his wife and his mistress had not started quarrelling over the sharing of his vast and obscene estate. Thank you Reuben. But something is still missing: You should call a spade one - name the exact culprit discussed above. You meant the Yoruba ''Pastor'' (of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, and former chief accountant of INEC) Tunji Akanni, whose Bishop did not even know he had 2 wives (one hidden somewhere). He stole billions of INEC money and God decided to show him how not to amass illegal wealth. Thus, He died unsong like a common thief, and his secret philandering/thieving lifestyle became public knowledge due to his factionalized family members warring over filthy lucre. Posted by docokwy| 20.04.2008 07:19

toksyleigh  Villager

# 3 Dr. Abati, What an interesting write up, kudos and thank you my friend!!!!! I have to really admit that NVS is a great place indeed, it is a place where different minds meet; it is place where you can read good intellectual well thought out articles from smart, well accomplished people that are blessed with good common sense and it is also a place where you can read some of dumbest comments from the least intelligent, ignorantly arrogant and empty tribalistic minds like "dockwy". As far as I am concerned, a thief is a thief regardless of his or her tribal affiliations. I guess it would have made a great difference in the lives of the suffering Nigerians if the accountant in question were an Ijaw, Igbo, Itshekiri or an Hausa man ahn!!! I shudder to think about what goes on in this guy's mind sometimes. What a great place where different minds meet indeed!! God help us all. Goriola Abamieda Jr. Posted by toksyleigh| 20.04.2008 08:42

abdulmumin  Villager

# 4 =docokwy;4295007803>Thank you Reuben. But something is still missing: You should call a spade one - name the exact culprit discussed above. You meant the Yoruba ''Pastor'' (of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, and former chief accountant of INEC) Tunji Akanni, whose Bishop did not even know he had 2 wives (one hidden somewhere). He stole billions of INEC money and God decided to show him how not to amass illegal wealth. Thus, He died unsong like a common thief, and his secret philandering/thieving lifestyle became public knowledge due to his factionalized family members warring over filthy lucre. Pray, what has the late pastor's tribe got to do with his crimes? Posted by abdulmumin| 20.04.2008 08:58

docokwy  Villager

# 5 =abdulmumin;4295007819>Pray, what has the pastor's tribe to do with his crimes? His tribe is important because I am currently preparing a compendium of who is who in the corruption perpetrated at the federal level between 1999 and 2008, the period when we got ''democratized'' again, after a long military interregnum. Thus, I needed Reuben to confirm that I was not, in this case, looking to the wrong quarters. Moreover, how can we change the status quo, if we continually try to be politically correct with serious issues such as corruption? I say shame all the culprits, wherever they may be. Yet, you can only shame them if you know them, with all the possible links appertaining to such knowledge. FYI: my compendium includes such names as Okoro, Mohammed, Omorodion and Akin. Posted by docokwy| 20.04.2008 09:10

employlawone  Villager

# 6 Dear Sir, Well, what can I say, another masterclass and masterpiece of an article. Very interesting, but very pointed, for you ask the most essiential question each of us must respond to at one point in time: "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world....?" Keep on speaking, Its with high regards, Olu Posted by employlawone| 20.04.2008 11:34

katampe  Villager

# 7 Your piece highlights the moral leadership that has become a rarity in Nigeria's political space, and the fixation of people on lucre. I watched one of Obama's past videos recently; in the video he encouraged college students on the need to do something worthwhile with their lives, something that was meaningful beyond making money.He further encouraged them using his career choice and the criticism of his choice from people, his mum and strangers to buttress his argument. He talked about his challenges and how he almost gave up, yet the sight of some kids playing in the neighbourhood and his feeling that they needed someone to stand up for them made the difference. I make it a duty sometimes to read ideas from Ivy League graduates, not because of the brand they sell, rather to get a fuller insight into their thought patterns and ideas that the schools embody. Take for instance, the beautiful piece, Uzodinma Iweala wrote long time ago in New York times about his experience with his mum when he was visiting Abuja. The idea that came out in that piece revolved around , " to whom much is given much is expected." Similarly, I have encountered that same idea in Bill Gates advice to graduating college students in Harvard, which incidentally is the same school that Gates went with Iweala. But what makes this idea strong is that people recognise the needs for communal effort, doing something for humanity. It has been these ideas that has moved the world forward, and created extraordinary individuals , and it is the same idea educators have sought to inculcate in their wards throughout history when they place value on character. But that has been torn to shreds in our country, our institutions have never consciously cultivated in our leaders.It explains why we are where we are. Take for instance Obasanjo, his life story and his marriage of many wives, and his handling of his marital affairs. No one ever considered and has used that as a yardstick for his competence, a sign of his moral weakness. I remember reading his book on Nzeogwu, and how Nzeogwu wasn't particularly interested in women, and how ambivalent he was in developing a relationship till he was eventually killed in his prime. This to me shows little details about character. Take another instance of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, whose book I happen to be reading this weekend, The People's Republic .He was loyal to his wife , and espoused this same principle in his followers. Also, reading his thoughts, you come away feeling he was an intellectual of towering status because the thoughts are logically and well thought out. It confirms what Chief Anthony Enahoro observed in his book, Fugitive Offender that he was impressed with the clarity and orderliness of his thoughts in Awolowo's book , The Path to Nigerian Freedom. If we we seek leaders in Nigeria, these little details are important. People's abilities to preside over their homes, the first conscious effort they make with life long leadership. But when a man starts to covet, and indulge in shady practices of women , you know he cannot be trusted with anything, talkless of the leadership of the country. To whom much is given, it is normal to expect much in return, but this hasn't be our lot in the country. Obama like Awolowo embraces the idea that "that to whom much is given much is expected." Ideas that continue to make people that embrace it in thoughts and acts , phenomenal individuals. Obasanjo and his bunch of soldiers ruined Nigeria , and there lack of understanding that it take more than brute force and bravado to rule a people explains why it is in a sorry state. It makes sense to argue , it is the quality of knowing what money can't buy, and the understanding of communal effort and discipline amongst the elites that can move Nigeria forward. It is partly the reason that Americans talk so much about Obama today. Posted by katampe| 20.04.2008 11:40

emj  Villager

# 8 Tolstoy's allegory is an impressive commentary on the vanity of human strivings, on the emptiness of materialism. In seeking to acquire more and more land, Pakhom ended up losing everything. In Nigeria, so many are losing, may be not their lives, but their names, their integrity, their greed has exposed them to so much public embarrassment, they can no longer stand up with pride in the community. Pakhom lost his original sense of values when he gained access to capital and opportunities, and he became a different man. This is the reality also in our society Hmmm.......Ogagun Reuben..how far? How many cars can one ride at a time? Is it possible to ride in 2 or more at a time? How many Rooms can one sleep in at a time? is it possible to lay on two or more Beds at a time? ETC etc etc ati bee bee lo Greed is the main obstacle to the leadership process in Nigeria. It works out in form of an obsession with the self and an abiding contempt for society and its needs. The primitive acquisitiveness of the Nigerian leadership elite has been without regard for the objective conditions of the people: people who wallow in abject poverty. The poverty in the land is so bad, it is evident in the rising cost of food items, the failure of public infrastructure, the disconnection between the country's enormous wealth in terms of resources and the filth on our streets, and the rebellious streak of armed robbers and assassins. The above is the main gist of this article...GREED...the main obstacle to real development in Nigeria...every little achievement/progress had since been eroded by GREED. Posted by emj| 20.04.2008 14:33

NWANZA  Villager

# 9 =docokwy;4295007820>His tribe is important because I am currently preparing a compendium of who is who in the corruption perpetrated at the federal level between 1999 and 2008, the period when we got ''democratized'' again, after a long military interregnum. Thus, I needed Reuben to confirm that I was not, in this case, looking to the wrong quarters. Moreover, how can we change the status quo, if we continually try to be politically correct with serious issues such as corruption? I say shame all the culprits, wherever they may be. Yet, you can only shame them if you know them, with all the possible links appertaining to such knowledge. FYI: my compendium includes such names as Okoro, Mohammed, Omorodion and Akin. Please stop this tribal nonsense you and orangecode bring into every good article we have in NVS. It is about time the admin get off his behind, and cancel some accounts that chip in their poisoned opinions. The things you say in this forum negatively impact someone else on the ground in Nigeria. You are not doing anyone any favour by your ethnic rascality. What I know is that OBJ, Governors, Ministers, and Local Government Chiarmen all did their part in looting. Start looking inward for your problems, and stop blaming other people or ethnic groups. Please, i am asking you in the name of GOD to stop. Posted by NWANZA| 21.04.2008 14:09

only1integrity  JJC

# 10 Dear Dr. Abati This is another masterpiece from the master. Each time I read any of your articles I keep wondering why you left Ogun State University (now Olabisi Onabanjo University). I remember in those days at the uni despite the fact that I was a year above the year you were teaching I used to abandon my own class to listen to your erudity and unequal oratory gift. I want to implore you for the sake of humanity to consider going back to the classroom. Villagers should pardon me for not commenting on the content of this article. I am captivated by the quality of the work. Dr. Abati for the sake of the prosperity of Nigeria kindly consider going back to the university to share your skills and knowledge. only1integrity Posted by only1integrity| 21.04.2008 17:19

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