We have embraced the December month. And I am grateful to God that except for the unfortunate loss of our colleague and network member, Mr. Dan Iloenyenwa of Kingdom Technologies & Transactions Ltd, Port Harcourt last month, we have not had any loss of our members since the start of this year. It is a reason for which we should give thanks to God.
The death of Mr. Iloenyenwa was more than enough reason to bring network members together in solidarity and in showing sympathy to his widow and family. But to my chagrin, only very few members actually reacted to his unfortunate demise by wishing his soul to rest in peace and expressing that concern on the Group WhatsApp forum. Only very few among the thousand plus that we are, showed their sympathy, and it kept me thinking because it could have been anyone else.
What sort of people do we have here who show so much lack of interest in the demise of a member of their ‘club’? What kind of people do we have here who are not worried that they suddenly lost one of their associates? Honestly, it is a big shame.
Members of Imo State Business Link Magazine Network whose well drafted advertisements have been on the magazine’s website for more than three years have practically maintained the same lackadaisical attitude towards contributing anything towards the maintenance of the website. To put it mildly, it is very discouraging. The attitude of most of our network members makes it difficult to give of the best that I brought home after more than 20 years living in London, learning the ways the white man built his society and desiring to transfer the idea to our people, and also being conscious of our cultural differences.
When we all suffered the excruciating financial crunch that followed in the wake of the Covid ’19 pandemic, the Board of Directors of Reach-Out & Link-Up Ltd, publishers of Imo State Business Link Magazine decided to slash the annual subscription from N12, 000 to N5, 000. In doing so, we had hoped that network members would take the opportunity to identify themselves financially with our aspirations to get our people more communicative and more trusting among themselves.
It is a part of what we have to achieve in the Igbo struggle – the ability to speak again with one voice, even if it is high pitched as in moving from analogue to digital marketing. It is a part of the lessons we had to learn from Covid ’19. Because of the experiences of Covid ’19, many businesses across the globe have gone digital. And our people are known to be adaptive, innovative and assimilative. It will be self-indicting to shy away from the trending digital and information era.
One of the things we need to do at this point in time is to mitigate our spirit of selfishness which is exhibited in many ways. Part of this is the way we follow some other Nigerian tribes to ‘spray’ money during an event. That is not the behaviour of civilized people and it should be stopped because it belittles our people in the eyes of the international community. Those who spray money during events do so in the hope that others would see them as rich people. That is a result of their egocentric nature, their selfishness.
In more civilized climes, if anyone wanted to give someone a gift of money, they would normally put it in an envelope and privately hand it over to the recipient. They don’t make a noise about it. That is what our people should be doing to earn the respect of the world and their admiration.
With regards to those members who are yet to pay their annual subscription for 2022, be reminded that at some point we would be forced to delist your business from our website and social forums if you fail to pay this month. We are in business as well. We pay staff salaries. We pay for data for the office computers. We pay for the domain. We pay for electricity without which we will not be able to produce the magazine. We maintain the official cars of the Publisher and so on.
The token N5, 000 you pay in the entire year is not all the money we need. But at least it will show that you are alert to your responsibility in an organization of this standard and clout.
So, for you to continue to enjoy the use of our facilities, please pay your annual subscription of N5, 000 now into the UBA account number 10 18 95 64 51 of Reach-Out & Link-Up Ltd. Otherwise, we would revert to the more conventional policy of every ordinary medium, which is “money for hand, back for ground”! You pay, we advertise your business. You don’t pay we don’t advertise your business.
Finally, I wish us a very blissful Christmas period. Please be careful. The pandemic is not over with this new Omicron variant reportedly introduced from South Africa. And keep an eagle eye on the children, especially those below 18 years of age. The times are not the best but with good management and the grace of God, we will continue to move forward in good health, with progressive business and loving families. That is my desire for us all. Happy Christmas in advance! And may the blessings of God see us through to 2022 in Jesus’ mighty name. Amen.
