Nigeria, Feb. 19 -- In conversation around African culture, the art of giving is often characterised as binary. The material and the immaterial. Whereas the former consists of gifting, say, gold and silver; the latter involves the intimacy of donating, say, time.

Without denying the value of a material gift, there can, of course, be no disputing the nobility in devoting time to the pursuit of the interests of others. For, in the materialist world, we are classified either as billionaire, millionaire, simply comfortable or poor. Which means that our ability to give is contingent upon what providence has endowed us with.

But while the size of our wealth may vary individually, time is definitely a leveller of all. So, it can be seen that t...