Display Of Wealth: A Tragedy Of Our Time 

One of the issues that have been discussed and debated in recent time is the practice of display of wealth to impress others. This practice manifests in various forms and in the various domains of social life ranging from events like weddings and funerals to material acquisitions like luxury cars and mansions.

Many people have expressed worry as to the consequences of such culture on the values of society. On the other hand, it is also not uncommon to hear others express the view that people should be left to apply their wealth in whatever way they desire and deem necessary and should not be dictated to in the name of morals and values.

Undoubtedly, display of affluence has been with humanity from time immemorial. From the magnificent palaces and mansions of monarchs and noble men of the centuries past to the sheer spectacle of pomp of ceremonies organized by the rich of olden days and today, the phenomenon of display of opulence is never new to human society.

However, the culture of digital and social media with its elevation of optics to the status of religion is giving strong impetus as well as a novel dimension to the culture of flaunting of wealth. Images of opulence by way of lavish display of currency notes, luxury cars, expensive wines and other evidence of material abundance (whether in reality or as a matter of make belief) has become a dominant content on screens.

The extent social media is energizing and amplifying this practice is not difficult to see. In 2020, businessman and socialite, Obinna Iyiegbu (aka Obi Cubana), held the funeral of his mother. The buildup to the event was overshadowed by the buzz and anticipation of the spectacle of display of affluence which the funeral was set to be. The buzz continued even after the event that surely lived up to expectation. No doubt, without social media, this funeral would have come and passed quietly without most of us being disturbed. More recently, another businessman, Cletus Uzoezie Oragwa (aka Zenco), pulled the same feat, and like Obi Cubana’s hometown of Oba, the sleepy and hilly town of Ukpor, Anambra State, became a focus of attention courtesy of social media celebration of that episode of opulent display.

Before now, rich people had been spending lavishly on weddings and funerals. However, nothing can compare with social media in terms of powerfully spreading and sensationalising the news of such events. This is more so when the event’s host and/or his friends are social media enthusiasts.

With social media, people no longer have to invite you to their bedroom before you can see the bundles of neat and crisp currency notes they have stacked up in their drawers and wardrobes. They don’t need to bring you into their compounds before you can sight their mansion and fleet of luxury cars. No one needs to take you along to bars and clubs before you must watch them lavish money on crazily expensive drinks. Social media has expanded the possibilities of opulent displays as well as added much glamour to them.

Make no mistake about that; all this is never healthy for our society. Vulgar display of wealth promotes glamourisation of riches, intensifying the pressure to make money by fair or foul means among youths. Let me explain this further.

The pressure to acquire material things has two major sources. The first is the need to solve our basic needs of feeding, shelter, healthcare and education among others. The second is the quest for self-esteem and class belongingness where wealth is no longer pursued just to attend to basic and essential personal needs but to impress others and be admired by them.

Luckily, the pressure that comes from our quest to solve basic and essential needs naturally ceases once one attains a socio-economic state where they are permanently guaranteed of food, shelter, healthcare etc. However, the pressure that comes from our quest to impress others never ceases no matter how much we acquire. For example, it is impossible to imagine that billionaires like Aliko Dangote and Elon Musk are currently pursuing money because of the pressure to feed or have a roof over their heads, but perfectly reasonable to conclude that this stupendously rich individuals are still vigorously hunting for money just because of the pressure to maintain and improve their status as economic first among equals. Even Dangote himself admitted this when he stated in an interview that he never imagined he would get this wealthy but that once you get up there, “you never want to go down.”

The point I’m trying to make is that why it is possible to end the pressure to acquire material things for solving essential biological and social needs, the same cannot be said of the pressure that comes from the quest to appeal to one’s ego and sense of class. This latter pressure is insatiable and has been the engenderer of some of the most heinous evils perpetrated for sake of moneymaking, including embezzlement of public funds (which has kept our nation where it has been), transnational drug trafficking, so-called money rituals and human trafficking among others.

To further drive this point home, our quest for food, for example, is definite in terms of what it takes to satisfy it both momentarily and permanently. For instance, in momentary sense, one can say “I have eaten two plates of food and I’m satisfied,” and in permanent sense, can say, “I have got enough money and stored up enough grains to cater for my feeding need till I die.” However, no one can say, “I have made enough money that I do not need money this year anymore” or “I have made enough wealth that my self-esteem and sense of class have reached their peak and I will forever feel bigger than everyone else.” In the former case, moneymaking is tied to something concrete and which can be concretely satisfied, but in the latter case, it is tied to something imaginary and which one tries to satisfy in vain.

Now, vulgar display of wealth is a very strong engenderer of this latter sort of economic pressure. The pressure that comes from watching people bury their dead with millions of naira-worth of caskets, throw bundles of currency notes into the air, maintain large fleets of luxury cars etc. is not one of making money to feed, shelter and educate oneself, but one of scooping so much wealth in order to belong to the opulent class. Stated differently, watching people display opulence does not motivate one to work just to feed, shelter and clothe themselves, but to gather so much as to become the talk of the town. That is the danger of vulgar display of wealth; it undermines the wholesome values of honest work, temperance and contentedness.

Today, we are seeing the dangerous trajectory this whole thing is taking us to. The aspiration of many young persons is to achieve opulence and be able to display it. In our days, students finished their final exams in tertiary institutions and simply ate and made merry. Today, they rent costly cars, drive in convoys, pop expensive drinks and throw currency notes about. This is indicative of their worldview and aspirations.

One very sad and dangerous thing around this whole discussion and debate about display of opulence is the argument by some persons that no one should dictate to a person how to spend their money. This argument would have been unfualtable if the way one spends their money is entirely their personal business and affects no one else. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Every public action resonates in society, shaping beliefs and values. If Mr. A decides to go naked in the street and everyone claps for him, tomorrow Mr. B will do same, Mr. C will follow, and before we know it a new way of life is created in society. This is what social psychology calls reinforcement of behaviour. Display of opulence is the shortest way to creating a society where wealth is adored as the raison d’etre of life. Before now, our society had traveled dangerously too far on this path, so encouraging today’s social-media-amplified vulgar display of wealth is tantamount to deliberately quickening our collective destruction.

I was highly disappointed reading a piece by someone who is to be considered an intellectual defending the vulgar show of opulence at Obi Cubana’s mother’s funeral at Oba in 2020. It is surprising that one who possesses a doctorate in a field under humanities and social sciences was speaking as though he was ignorant of the concept of “construction of values” through which we have understood that the process of creating values in society is so holistic and intricate that even certain actions we may consider individualistic and private do contribute a lot in shaping beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in society as a whole.

Lastly, it is important to point out that the contention that no one should dictate to another how to dispose of their wealth is largely rooted in a shallow reflection on the intricacies of wealth generation and distribution in human society. The human economic system is imperfect, so much so that it is difficult to say that one who earns a lot of money deserves it and one who does not earn is deserving of their fate. Making wealth is an intricate process where hard work and smartness are just two of the factors — other factors include family background, connection, access to certain resources, one’s location, timing and of course the big hand of LUCK, also known as fortune or grace. The capitalist system itself imposes certain structural elements that undermine equal competition and perpetuate inequality, such that the richer gets richer and the poor gets poorer. It is for all this reason that one doesn’t necessarily get wealthy because they’re the most hardworking or the most intelligent — or for having done what others have failed to do.

In addition, the realities of the human economic sphere are such that there’s not enough wealth for all of us to possibly become millionaires and billionaires no matter how much we try. Thus, for every millionaire and billionaire, there is deprivation for some persons somewhere as more wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer persons. In other words, such wealthy persons are mere lucky beneciaries of the structural inequality of our imperfect system while the rest are its victims.

In view of all this, becoming wealthy should be seen as a privilege which should not engender the arrogance of “I will spend my money the way I like, don’t advise me,” but rather inspire compassion for the deprived and suffering humanity. So, instead of buying a 50 million naira casket or acquiring underutilized large fleets of luxury cars, the wealthy should, in acknowledgement of their fortunate status, extend a generous hand of charity to their less fortunate fellow humans. Wasting the wealth of humankind on frivolous opulence, just because one is fortunate to have a lot of it come their way, is a heinous moral evil. And as earlier stated, it is a danger to our collective values and quest for a healthy society.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.