By Usman Abdullahi Koli
It is said that when the great Chinese philosopher Mencius was once asked why he treated a beggar with the same courtesy as a king, he replied with a simplicity that has survived more than two thousand years: “The king will not need my courtesy tomorrow. The beggar might.”
There is something quietly devastating about that response. It does not speak of generosity or charity. It speaks of something far more fundamental: the refusal to condition one’s treatment of another human being on that person’s usefulness to oneself. To treat the powerless with less dignity than the powerful is not merely an injustice to the powerless. It is an admission that one’s own character is shaped by the status of the person standing before them.
We have become remarkably efficient at adjusting our behaviour to the perceived importance of the person before us. We reserve our patience for the influential, our attention for the useful, our kindness for those who can return it. We have convinced ourselves that courtesy is a resource to be allocated, not a quality to be possessed.
The Mencius story asks a question most of us avoid: If you treat a person differently because of their circumstances, what does that say about you? Not about them. About you. The beggar did not become less worthy of courtesy because he was poor. The king did not become more worthy because he was powerful. The courtesy itself was not a reward for status. It was a reflection of character.
This is the first insight: courtesy, properly understood, is not what you give to others. It is what you reveal about yourself. If courtesy is a reflection of character rather than a response to status, then the truest test of a person is not how they treat those who can help them. It is how they treat those who cannot.
Anyone can be gracious to the powerful. Anyone can be patient with the influential. Anyone can be generous to those who can return the favour. These acts require no character. They require only calculation. But to treat with equal dignity the person who has nothing to offer, to extend the same courtesy to the powerless as to the powerful, to recognise that human worth is not conditional on circumstance—this requires the quiet conviction that every person matters, not because they matter to you, but because they matter. Period.
Human beings rarely forget the people who treated them with that conviction. Financial assistance may eventually be exhausted. Material gifts may lose their usefulness. Even opportunities become part of history. But the memory of being treated with sincerity, respect and genuine concern acquires a different permanence. It settles quietly into the human heart, where gratitude often outlives the event that created it. People do not remember how much you gave them. They remember how you made them feel.
Some people arrive at this understanding through philosophy, others through hardship, and a few through an almost inexplicable disposition that remains unchanged regardless of what life places within their reach. They continue to notice what others ignore. They remember names, not because memory is extraordinary, but because people genuinely matter to them. They create space for conversations that others would consider interruptions. Their greatest gift is not necessarily what they provide. It is the dignity they preserve while providing it.
Such people are becoming increasingly rare. The faster society moves, the easier it becomes to overlook the quiet burdens carried by those around us. Ambition competes for attention. Responsibility grows heavier. Without consciously intending it, many people become emotionally unavailable. They are physically present but mentally elsewhere. They hear without listening. They respond without understanding. Yet every community produces a few individuals who quietly resist that pattern. They carry the Mencius conviction as though it were instinct: the refusal to treat any person as less worthy because of their circumstances.
It is within that understanding that one begins to appreciate Dr. Bala Maijama’a Wunti. Much has been said about his public accomplishments over the years, and deservedly so. Yet those who know him beyond public recognition often return to a different observation. They speak less about the scale of what he has done and more about the consistency of the spirit with which he relates to people. His courtesy has never appeared to depend on convenience, visibility or circumstance. It has remained remarkably ordinary, woven into everyday encounters rather than reserved for extraordinary occasions.
Those who have spent time with him often describe the same experience. After leaving his presence, they feel more confident than when they arrived. They feel heard. They feel valued. They feel that their concerns mattered, not because they were important but because he made them feel important. There is no single dramatic story that captures this quality. It is found in the accumulating weight of small moments: the phone call returned when it could have been ignored, the name remembered when forgetting would have been easier. These acts accumulate in the memories of those who experienced them, forming a foundation of gratitude that outlasts any single event.
Mencius understood that truth centuries ago. He knew that the true measure of a person is not how they treat the powerful who can return their courtesy, but how they treat the powerless who cannot. Some merely admire that philosophy. Others spend their lives quietly practising it. For many who have encountered Dr. Bala Maijama’a Wunti, that is perhaps the simplest explanation of the man. His greatest distinction is found in the refusal to condition his treatment of others on their usefulness to him.
In the final analysis, people are seldom remembered exactly as they introduced themselves. They are remembered as they made others feel. Time eventually strips away status, possessions and applause, leaving behind only the character that sustained them through life. What remains is whether they treated the king and the beggar with the same courtesy.
Mencius posed that question more than two thousand years ago. It has never stopped being urgent. Every generation must answer it anew. Every person must answer it for themselves. Perhaps that is why the courtesy that cannot be returned never truly fades. It simply continues its journey in the grateful memories of those fortunate enough to have encountered it.
Koli can be reached at
mernoukoli@gmail.com
