By Richard Nyong
Good is the enemy of great.
A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. A great man leaves a legacy and an indelible impact that outlives him.
Three years ago, during a difficult season of illness, you heard about a young doctor, tired and defeated, complaining to no one in particular that he could not afford a house in Lagos and had been sleeping and coming to work from his car parked in the hospital.
An average person would have listened and felt pity. A good person would have given the young doctor some money to find himself a house. But that was not you. You did the unthinkable. You decided to build and donate a 36-apartment housing facility for doctors at the National Orthopedic Hospital, Igbobi. A first-class edifice to make life better for the doctors who do the good work of saving our lives every day.
Normal people focus on themselves when things go bad. Good people wait for the storm to pass before they give again. But a great man keeps doing good till his last breath. Who makes such huge contributions from their deathbed? Who puts others first in his final moments? Only a great man. Only my dear ‘Bro Bro, MISA’.
I will carry with me forever what we have shared since 2016. The year I almost lost everything and went through the most difficult time of my life.
Normal people would either make damning comments or shake their heads in pity. Good people would visit and show support. But that is not who you were. Even though we were competitors and barely knew each other, you went through thick and thin and found a way to reach out to me to try to stand by me and fight by my side when it mattered the most to me. Only a great man does that.
Without hesitation, you ran towards me with a heart to help and public words of support in rooms where they mattered. It did not matter that we were in the same business. You chose me anyway. That was the start of the amazing journey of our brotherhood, the one that made everyone wonder how two men who should be competing became closer than brothers or friends. That is why I also call you “Bro Bro,” because you are twice a brother.
Your wife spoke proudly at the commissioning, with so much grace, the grace of a woman who truly knew the man she married. And somewhere in all of that, in the new keys handed to doctors who now have a home to go to after a long shift, MISA was still present.
You did great in your absence. You were not a good man. You were a great man.
There is a particular kind of grief that comes with losing someone who made you better. It is not just sadness. It is the sudden awareness of all the conversations you will never have again. The late nights that are now just memories. The “Bro Bro,” we always called each other will never again come through on the other end of a phone call.
Average men are forgotten. Good men are remembered. Great men live on through the lives they touched.
Death could take MISA from us, but it could not take what he did with his life.
MISA was not a good man. He was a great one.
Till we meet again!
*Richard Nyong is the CEO, Lekki Gardens Estate
