Humanist

“Your father worked for his name. You can’t hide behind it. You have to build yours. At the end of the day, people might respect your father’s name, but they will only remember yours if you put in the work.”

Son of late President Umar Musa Yar’ Adua of Nigeria profoundly advises in a video clip on X (@dammiedammie35).

This profound youthful wisdom is what has excited me the most this morning. There is more, in the clip, this wise young man (i assume his youth) adds:

“I grew up in a family where the name already carried weight. But here is the truth, their names do not automatically make me anything. If I don’t build myself, I will just be another shadow living off their reputation.”

This advice is so directly relevant for us all here in my homeland. In politics, in business, in inheritance, lazy deadbeat greedy barbarian children are self-glorified shadows living off of the reputation of their parents – dead or alive.

I know a criminal one who has even changed his name to that of his late father, for without it, he has nothing to show for his own acumen.

The beauty of most of our cultures in Uganda, however, is that you may publicly and officially change your name, but our rural kin in our ancestral homes, will always refer to you in your original name given to you at birth.

And so, for the most part, the criminal’s activities that would ordinarily denigrate and degrade the late father’s name aren’t. His ancestral rural kin, at least, assign to him and his name his criminality; while the respect for the late father’s name stays intact.