By Patricia Uyeh

Just few days ago, a fan accused King of Nigerian comedy, Atunyota Akpobomerere a.k.a Alibaba of being tightfisted, considering that all his wealth was God-given. In response to the text message received, this was Alibaba’s reply:

‘‘I must have addressed this before… but I guess, it needs re-addressing. Generosity is not a must. It’s advised. But it’s not a must. That said, when you have worked hard to achieve some comfort for yourself, it’s expected for you, to spread the love. The most difficult part of generosity is not how much you give, it is who do you give and who do you not give.

”I have on my own benefited from so much generosity and it is a given that I must return the favour. However, a certain group of people, believe that once they ask you, you must give. It doesn’t matter whether they deserve it or not. In fact, if you refuse to give them when they ask, they immediately conclude that you are stingy. They go spiritual on you and make you realize how IT’S NOT BY YOUR POWER THAT YOU MADE IT.

”Agreed that God makes everything possible, but are you now saying it’s God’s power that made you not make it? Because if one goes by that belief, then whoever made it made it by God’s grace. So whoever did not make is by whose Grace? When I saw this message this morning, I thought to myself, what are the criteria that people use to judge whether you are generous? I asked myself, are there laid down must do that qualify you as generous?

”I may have been operating the wrong way. I forwarded the text to someone I look up to and he replied, “Ali, your generosity is to God and no one else. Do it because of God. When humans need you to be generous to them to show you are generous, you will fail.” HE proceeded to send me about 15 text messages he got in November. All the requests totalled N4.6m.

”And he added, that November in question, all in, he made N2.3m… when he took out tithes, sorted out the compulsory expenditure, took out savings, met his recurrent pledges to some institutions, he had 260k. He asked me, “Where does he start from reducing that N4.6m that is demanded of him?” He said he looked at all of the requests and he picked the ones that he considered PRIORITY. This December, one request alone that he got on the 2nd, was for 850k. And the month never start. I just phewed and decided to share. What’s the sharing formula in the generosity equation. Who must you hep?”

Photo credit: xsouth.com