 Welcome to The Advocate, where thought-provoking topics are discussed with no-holds barred here on PlusCVAfrica. We basically call a spade by its name. Today I'm talking about the future of works in Nigeria and how productivity will matter more than hours put into works. Raymond speaks on time management and attention management. Ruth will be talking about black tax and the increasing struggles of millenials to save. Why Felix runs up this conversation with advocacy on good governance. Sit back and relax after this break. We'll be here to dissect it or stay with us. The future of work. If there's one thing we should have picked in 2020 from COVID-19, it's how we must increase our flexibility and adaptability, especially with the way we work. We have seen several companies adopt the remote working structure. Why a few traditional companies are struggling to keep up? I personally think that work has gone beyond 9 to 5. That is resuming at 9 a.m. and closing at 5 p.m. In the coming years, employer time will no longer matter as the workplace will be driven solely on productivity and not amount of hours put in the work. Prospective job seekers will begin to seek for companies that are flexible with their working system. What is the implication for CEOs and HR experts? We must now develop a new performance metric system that measures productivity and not by how many times I showed up in the office. Companies who do not quickly pivot into the realities of the future of work may soon begin to lose their greatest assets, which is her people. Wow. It's interesting. The dynamics are changing. Each time there's a revolution, either by pandemic or by human thinking. I don't want to use that word. There are a lot of controversies around this, but the long and short of everything is that we should try to evolve. Times have changed. What industrial revolution are we? From manual automation to remote automation. It started from human efforts to manual automation, where you have to go through mechanics of doing things to reduce efforts. But now it's going beyond that one to remote automation. That means you can be somewhere and you'll be controlling something somewhere. So you don't have to be in a physical location. The idea of the advance of science and technology and especially internet technology has broken the barrier of connectivity of human resource. Before you have to fly, sometimes you have to fly an expatriate down to your locality to do something. But in this era, you don't even have to do that. Somebody can be somewhere and correcting something. What do you think? Just as what he said, I remember some firms in Nigeria had issues with millennia asking for opportunities to work from home. Now that COVID-19 happened and everyone was forced to work from home and it seemed that productivity really did not even drop. In fact, what you can find is that it increased. So there's now the struggle of, in fact, most of these firms don't want to ask their staff to return back to the office. Because they're sending a lot of money. Exactly. They're sending a lot of money. Operating costs in that entire aspect has been removed. So all they just have to be concerned is how to ensure that the staff deliver. And one thing I always tell people is that millennia, they like to own their jobs. True. They really like to own their jobs. They like to ensure that no one comes and tells them that they're not pulling their weights. And because of that sense of responsibility, everyone is able to work from home. And these days, you find people applying for jobs in the US and living here in Nigeria. I know some people that are working for companies in the UK and the US and they are here in Nigeria, earning dollars, earning foreign currencies and still able to deliver. So work has changed. COVID-19 has changed the way we do our work. And I think companies that do not even, companies that still work in the ways of the old would stand the risk of losing quality hands because I understand some, I spoken to some tech people in the past and they're like, if you tell me to come to the office, you know that I'm not going to work for you again. So, and they're not the only ones I've met like that. Oh, so let's take Raymond, what do you think about this, just chiming your thoughts on that? Yeah, so I think that the future of work, in talking about the future of work, I think it's important for people to understand that it's important to stay ahead of change. So what's happening now is that change is happening. I heard when you mentioned about people that have been swept off by the situation. That's because they are not able to stay ahead of change. You mentioned about measuring new metrics for measuring productivity. In the most sense, people are very, some people are still very traditional about how their work is being done. They want to see you do it. They want to ensure you are standing up and sitting down when they want you to do it without knowing that the world has completely, completely changed. But I also understand why these traditional thinkers have those challenges. You know that let's also take away the fact that there is also this issue of competence. There's this issue of competence against discipline and accountability. So you also want to look at these three things. Someone is competent, but the person is not disciplined enough to keep to time. So you have to keep struggling. You have to keep calling the person on phone. Most times they just go offline completely and they are not in touch as at when you need them and they also don't get to produce those results as when you need them. And it becomes a very big challenge with traditional thinkers. They also have to make do with the fact that change is here. No matter how much you don't want to accept it, if you want to, it's like pregnancy. The more you want to keep it, surely by nine months something has to happen. So we need to start changing our mindset on how we accept the future work to know that you can actually do more by the best way it was done originally. Thank you so much. So change is here and we've got to find new ways to really focus on productivity and then increase our metrics or how we measure actual work, as opposed to just hours of work. So up next is Raymond, please do stay with us. Attention management versus time management. Over the years, there has been this cliche and consistent teaching from motivational speakers and thought leaders about managing our time. I believe in that concept and I invest so much in making sure I make the best use of my time. But as we all know, the world is changing at a very unprecedented rate and greatly affects our ability to manage our time effectively. There is a thing that movement is not always equal to progress. This is true because we all have the same number of hours in a day and do so much to ensure we come outstops with the results on daily basis. According to some Sabri Subi in his book, Cell Like Crazy, being busy is not the same as being productive. Our lives are full of distractions and it's hard to stay focused when the world consists of hundreds of tiny tasks and millions of voices screaming for your attention. Again, the current jet age of the internet and social media make it difficult to manage time, so we easily get engrossed calling through several content which usually end up not producing the kind of result we had originally set out to achieve. On the other hand, deciding what exactly we want to do and focusing all your attention will lead to hitting goals faster than trying to use your time as a yardstick. And this is why I believe that we should channel our energy to manage the things we pay attention to instead of the time we all have which will never change anyway. Today, we live in a world where we have the ability to achieve so many results. If only we can shut down all the external forces constantly craving our attention. The truth is that you have in you right now all the resources, knowledge, skills and network we need to build, like in the Nigerian balance. But you are giving attention to the wrong things. That's the problem we have. You have believed that you have a low attention span, so much that you are now scattering the one you have and that is where the problem is. The fact remains that there will never be any significant results paying maximum attention to the wrong things, never. Through research and studies, I have become more particular about the short attention span of human beings and that perspective taught me that perhaps the most critical factor is our ability to control the things we pay attention to. Perhaps when we start focusing more on the things we pay attention to, we may just need to worry less about the time we have to achieve all we have. In the end, it will matter more about how well, talking about our attention and not how long, talking about duration. I think this is a very profound thought right from Raymond. There's been a lot of conditions around time management, of course. It's not just about how long, but how well. There's this Pareto principle, the 80-20 rule. 20% of the work creates 80% of the result. So I think it's the ability to find, I always say that being busy doesn't amount to productivity. You can be busy and not productive. So it's not that I'm busy. What are you busy on? Being able to find out what are the important things in your life that create the highest impact and then shifting your focus on that. I think time is living its life. Time is just moving. I don't have time. Time is living its life. So I think we should all also live our lives. So what we do is to pattern our lives according to time. By the time we're done with this conversation, the time would have gone beyond what it was now. So it's really about finding those high-impact stuff and then zeroing in our energy on that. I think in addition to that, whilst we find the high-impact stuff, it's important that we also remove or consciously remove the low-impact stuff because, I mean, there's the consciousness or there's an assumption that we feel like, okay, once I'm focusing on the high-impact stuff, the low-impact stuff are not just going to be there anymore, but you know you have to consciously tell yourself I'm not going to do certain things. Sometimes it might even be as responding to certain males that are not urgent and important at that point in time. There's this chart that I remember being taught some time ago, urgent versus important. Yes, and so you pick the exact the four quadrant. So it's important to find where you play at every point in time and understand the activities that you do that will help you yield the results that you want in life because at the end of the day, like Raymond mentioned, we have just time would never change. It's going to always be 24 hours every day, forever. So we just have to learn to maximize that 24 hours that we have in a day to achieve whatever it is we want to do. Just before Elijah chimes, I'm sorry, Elijah. So everybody said in my all my training sessions, I'd always say that, you know, when we were born, we had 24 hours, right? And our job this time was just to maybe cry, sleep, eat food. And then we grew further. You know, the JD are there. We're running around for our parents and all the stuff. We grew further. We just go out to be more responsible on all those days. Yeah, within the same duration, within the same hour. So our time never increased. So here's what I got from the intelligence there is that, you know, to be more effective in life, we need to be more efficient and efficiency is doing more with less time. Let's give you more time. Exactly. Go out to do more with less. Sure. I see we all read the same literature. You quoted 8020 Lou from Brian Tracy's book. You also quoted OJNC, the quadrant OJNC important, not important on all the things. But what I'm going to say is that we should always learn to work smart, not necessarily hard. First things first, there's the obvious waste of time. There's some people that actually sit down and do nothing, perhaps engage in unproductive whatever. That one is very obvious. But I want to come to the soft work space. The soft work space that there's some person that's actually doing something good, which is great. If they don't do the work on their table, but the mannerism in which they go about it is sapping a lot of energy one and taking more time is not efficient. So it's up to them that they're working hard. And as I said, saying that goes that if you do what you always do, you get what you always get. And every day they keep moving in cycle. Every year they keep doing this thing with a sweat and toy, but no growth. But yeah, they're doing something great. And if they don't do it, perhaps their family will not feed. But then they have to be subtle about it. That's where smart work is coming. How can I introduce some other mannerism? It could be maybe some machineries or delegation or some things you need to subtly engage. Or maybe there's some aspect of the work you are doing that you think you should not do again. Because the outcome is not reasonable. So these are things you need to consider so that you have enough time to do less and have time to rest and also think about something. I think for me, just quickly before you wrap up, I think again, the thing is also not really about the time we have. It's more about our clarity about on what we need to do with the time that we have. Like two people have two hours to finish a job. One person has to shuttle or try to multitask around seven things at the same time, which is fantastic if you have that ability. But I can assure you that one person who zeroes their minds to do one thing at a time will have increased focus, will have increased energy, and will automatically come out with a better result more than the person. And in lesser time, he will finish the seven tasks in lesser time, more than the person who was shuttling down and doing this and doing that all within the same time interval. I think people should really start focusing on more on what we put our attention on. Not about I need to achieve this in two hours. No, this is what you need to achieve. I need to achieve this. I need to achieve this. I need to achieve that. And not the duration that you need to achieve them. And I think if you start thinking in this manner, then we'll start spotting the things that sap our time, that eat into our time. Because immediately you want to press your phone. Your subconscious reminds you that this is not what you should be paying attention to. Roman, let me just add this before you go. There is this quote from Brian Tracy, I love so much from, eat that frog. He said, there is no need of being worried about tadpoles when there is a live big frog waiting to be eaten. Think about that. A live big frog in the place, you need to swallow the frog and you are bothered about tadpoles. When you swallow the frog, you are just going to be okay. The tadpoles will not actually sort out themselves. He mentioned something around attention. Do you want to talk about that? Exactly. I was going to say something around that. It's important that, I mean, there's the saying that women multi-tax better than guys. So I tend to multi-tax. But in the pace of multi-tax you have to understand that if I have two hours to achieve five engagements or five tax, I must ensure that for whatever one minute or two minutes or five minutes I have to give to a particular tax and doing it without thinking of something else. It has to be focused. Yes, less of a focus. Exactly. It has to be focused and sure that I'm able to deliver within that short space of time. And then I could spread it alongside. Because you're here, you're doing one work, you're chatting on the phone. And the beautiful thing is now that we all work laptops and all, you have your WhatsApp web, WhatsApp web, Telegram open, everything all at the same time. Exactly. And so you've been responding to messages while you are typing a mail. And in most cases, it affects the quality of our work. Exactly. Very true. You know, attention span is really, really, really dropping. So Raymond, that was really a very, you know, thoughtful stop because again, people go on Instagram and they are scrolling very fast. So attention span is really, really reducing. Again, there's this field of marketing that talks about once you can control people's attention, you can control their emotions, then you can create that trigger to buy from you. I can't even control that perception, life, everything. You have to buy people's attention. So you need to buy people's attention. Exactly. And that's why brands are talking to me, to buy attention of people, you know, perception. Engaging videos, influence, stuff like that. So they have manipulation to, of course, at the end of the day. But then you can make me buy what I never wanted to buy in the first place. So I could say I was kind of limited. Okay, so Raymond, yeah, you can close that. All right, who is next after the break? So I'll be talking of black tax and savings. If there's one thing I know many millennials are struggling with when it comes to savings is black tax. Black tax refers to the financial supports which is expected of any working class individual by their families. While some see this as an obligation, others don't. Some do it with joy, others don't. The problem with the situation is that for our parents, they didn't have the benefits of the current pension scheme, which came up through the pension reform of 2004. Hence, they really do not have so much to fall back to after, or did not have so much to fall back to after their retirement. I hope this won't be the case for my generation when we get to that or the age of our parents. Also, income level in Nigeria is so low with the minimum wage for civil servants at $30,000 an hour. When you add that to the black tax situation, people are left with nothing or little or nothing to save. The problem with black tax is that it can be impromptu, it can be unplanned. So all that you saved can be spent on solving a particular issue. So the question is, what can be done? I believe this is where financial planning comes into play. Saving through voluntary pension contributions, mutual funds, and even taking bets on local international stock markets would help a young person, while he meets or she rather meets his or her black tax obligation. So what do you guys think? Well, if a non-professional par excellence, when you are talking about black tax from research, black tax dates far some years back in South Africa. The issue of the emancipation of the black community, when they begin to get white collar job, blue collar job, even different collar job, for those of you that understand this, I do have the life which is looking at that. So what I'm saying is that, you know, many of them were leaving the villages to cities and towns to take up jobs, as click, what do you call them, secretaries, what have you, and craftsmen. So the little they get by way of entitlement, kind of the family, the family was like, okay, I have someone in town, I know he's going to send this, oh, this social person needs to pay a school fees, oh, we need to buy this, we need to do that. So the person on his own will be blackmailed, emotionally, into doing that, because even if he's not convenient, he or she will not feel comfortable. So that's where they stole the origin of a black tax, rather. But over years, the world has adopted that same black tax from South Africa. So black tax now anybody, now there's another research that said that some migrants, especially it's common among blacks in countries like US, UK, and what have you, when the migrates down, there's always high expectation from people like, oh, I have a brother in Canada or a sister in America, oh, she will send me $100, but you don't know what they are passing through to get that. So but you just feel entitled to do because I have someone outside, the person was always sending me money. And that's why they said this is the consequence of not having a note of this migrant building generation out. If you calculate the number of, sorry, I'm using this terminology, but I just have to explain it. If you go to countries like America, the white community, they have more, the percentage of the rich are always more compared to the black because of things like this. So it's now like boils down to the social construct. How can the government, through meaningful institutions, solve the problem of poverty? Because it boils down to poverty. If social amenities are put into place and proper sensitization, people will not really bother much, especially young people trying to get job about the appearance or so. Because somehow the society will take you of its own. So that's the problem. And another thing they gain is how can institutions like the Stock Exchange, for instance, various financial market exchange sensitize the public, especially here in Nigeria, like for instance, everybody, young persons know about cryptocurrency, they know about forex trading and all those things. But if you talk about the Nigerian stock, they don't even understand, they don't know anything about it. Many of us, or many of them, or many of us, we don't know anything about it. We don't even have fit in it. For a few of us that even know some things about it, we do anything in Nigeria, we don't believe it, in our country. And it's not supposed to be because Nigeria is a great country. How can the government provide enabling environment and people will understand this and say, okay, I can be walking somewhere, but I can have, I can buy bonds, I can buy company shares, I can invest in this market, I can maybe my pensions can go into Mutua Fund and why the governments try to struggle with or try to provide the basic community so that the life will be easy for everyone. So these are things, these are the conversations to have around it. Ruth, I mean, we're talking about this when we're coming down here. The truth is, like I shared with you privately, right? The truth is, and I love the way you ended, you know, your thoughts, which is financial planning, right? I mean, I've said to myself that I'm so, so, so laser focused on my savings culture, right? Not an angle to come in between me and my savings. It's like my baby girl. So nothing comes in between my savings, right? And I think the more, because the truth is, family would always be there. And the extreme side of that could be entitlement where, you know, it happens with this whole elder, elder child kind of thingy. The elder child has to bear the burden for everyone. And what happens is the other child does that. And then over the years, that child begins to become grumpy, become begins to complain because, you know, down the years, his or her life hasn't amounted into any significance, right? I think it's about, so if you're earning 30 K, right, you know, you say I'm saving 30% of 30 K, right? So we are not earning 300 K. And you do 30% the, the monies are going to be different. So it's about that consistency. So you don't say, oh, I'm earning 30 K now. Oh, let me reduce it to 2% because I'm earning much more. So it's about maintaining that consistency because the truth is, well, how long do they finish, right? They're always problems. So they're always problems. So it's just saying the same, you know, I'm going to share something with the person. So we're making it like a family contribution. And then my mom told me that, you know, so you're going to, you know, draw 50 K this month. I said, well, I'm not doing this, right? I've purchased something, you know, and I'm going to do my own contribution next month. And I'm going to add something to it. She was like, oh, please, please. I said, mom, you aren't going to, you know, blackmeme or something. I am, I'm fixed on this. I'm looking at my savings. Like I have like an Excel sheet where I track everything, right? So no confusion. So I think it's about that financial planning, right? And then keep putting. So if you are consistently giving somebody 10 K every month, it's better than 10 K this month, then 50 K after two years. No, consistency. And when you grow, you are transparent. You see that you've grown in your income. You're giving them 10 K. Now you're giving them 30 K. You're giving them 50 K. You're giving them 100 K. That's that growth. And they see you as someone that is really, really, you know, intentional with your finance money. Money are like everything revolves around money. Money is the centerpiece of life. I'm going to be careful how we really build a relationship with money. Yeah. Thank you very much. I was just thinking around everything everyone was saying. And I think the thoughts that keeps coming to my mind is that at the end of the day, there would always be something that you have to do for your family. I was even telling you the other day that sometimes you just even have to think of yourself. Right. Self-care. Yes. I want to share an experience because I've been laughing since, you know, since she, Ruth was sharing her opinion. And I'm laughing so hard here. My cheek is, my cheeks are hot. Sorry about that, Ruth. I am here in Cyprus. And I have an experience, a first time experience of what you guys are saying. And so, so first thing I want to say is that you see problems to always be there. Family will always be there, right? So it's boils down on your own personal decision and your own personal goal. Before I traveled abroad, something very significant happened. And I want to share this for people that it might just inspire and all that. So I came back from a trip one time. I traveled abroad. I came back from a trip and then I called my entire family and I told them, see, I want to embark on the project. I know this person is sick. This person is this. This person is that. House rent needs to be paid, blah, blah, blah and all those. I say, I know all these things are there. But people will see I have money. It's not like I don't have money. Look at the amount of money I have. But it's in this month. Even if anybody is dying now, I'm not going to take out anything from this. I said, I can get emotional and give you, take you to the hospital, give this person, give this person. I said, the consequences that in the next two years, all of us are still going to be on the same level. And so I zeroed my mind. And for the first time, I spent three good months. I never looked right. I never looked left. I had not given anybody any time until three months. I traveled abroad. But what was the consequence was that by the time they left me alone, I had more focus. I had more energy. I had more capacity. I could do more for myself such that when it was time for me to leave the country, I had enough money to give them so that they will not even be able to disturb me in the next six months. Do you understand? So it's on two ways. First is from the individual that is being black taxed. What are your goals? Because the truth is that if you are not able to achieve your goals, you are still going to have your own self to blame. Nobody is going to bear that consequence for you. Nobody is going to feel bad for you. It is you who knows the vision and the goal and the dreams you have for yourself. I always tell people that listen, if you die right now, those people will find an alternative. And I told you, see, it went to so bad that I had to even look at my mom in the face and say, see, if anybody dies now, the person is losing in advance. If you decide to die right now, you're losing in advance. So it better be a life and watch me get to where I'm going. So what I'm saying is that for us as millennials, for us as young people, yes, we cannot afford to look away from our responsibilities. But we also need to start planning around those responsibilities. Because like when you give an instance, if you're earning $30,000 an hour, you have to plan around $30,000 an hour. And perhaps your salary scales up to $100,000 an hour. You also need to plan around $30,000 an hour, around $100,000 an hour. Note that it now gets to $100,000 an hour. You were giving 5% before and now it's $100,000. You now quickly start giving 50% of the money because you feel like the money is high. There is this principle that says that in this life, I've forgotten the name of that principle, but it says that once people's income starts increasing, automatically their needs also starts going up with it. And so if you are not able to plan around those things, then you're going to have a lot of problems. So here I am laughing because this is a problem for people. And let me also say this, there is also this pressure, pressure not to be called a bad person, pressure not to be labeled, not to be labeled as irresponsible. In fact, I had an uncle that called me and said that he had that I've not been taking care of my siblings. I've not been doing this. What kind of a responsibility if that by the time he was telling me this, I was already like two days away, leaving to Nigeria. And I just smiled. I did not have any explanation to give to him. So black task will always be there. But you must not allow it to pressure you into not achieving your goal. You must have your savings. Any day you stop saving, you don't have any dime in your account, they are going to survive. They are going to find an alternative. They are going to find another person. In fact, you will not even matter because the things that have made them to come close to you was because you have those resources. And so you must do everything to ensure that you always have. Don't forget, even this Moholy book will always say that to him who has more is going to be given to the person. Your ability to save means that you have the capacity to attract more resources. And anytime you start getting broke, forget it. The one you have, they will suck all of them and all of you will still be at the same level. And let me also end with this. I had a very powerful man who said something that two people that are at the same level can never help themselves. And so it has to take one person to come up, no matter what it means, even if it means you stepping on that person that is the other person, even if it means you coming up, but with the intention that by the time you are up, you can stretch out your hand and pull this person up. If that doesn't happen, then all of us are going to be at the same level. And we will be seen black as a bad thing or as a negative thing just because we did not take responsibility of our savings culture. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Raymond, I think just to put context to what he's just said, I think the quote is, two people cannot help themselves. So I always tell people you have to help yourself to be rich so that you can also help somebody else to be rich. And I think just before I round off on this conversation, I feel like it's important to also mention this, like we cannot neglect our responsibilities, especially when it comes to parents, because me, I am very personal when it comes to my parents. You cannot neglect that responsibility. One thing I suggest for people to do is take insurance, especially health insurance for your parents, because that 50,000-year-old health insurance can save you a 100,000-year-old bill. So I took health insurance for my mom at one point and she needed to change her glasses. She needed to go to the hospital. I didn't have to remove a dime from my pocket, which I would have actually spent that and more on that. So I feel like there's so many of these HMOs now that are given opportunities for insurance. Knowing fully that health is something that our parents are subject to. So we need to take health insurance. So right now, Felix is going to be the next after the break. Good governance. The what and how. The word governance derives ultimately from the Greek verb, kubanio, meaning to stay. It's occasional use in English to refer to the specific activity of rule in a country. According to Wikipedia, governance is all the processes of interaction, be they through laws, norms, power, or language of an organized society over a social system, be they family, tribe, former or informal organization, territory, or across territories. Governance objective. The main function or aim a governance system tend to achieve. Be it of a country, society, or an organization is summarized by the following. Decision making, creation of laws or constitution, enforcement, creation of access, occasional management of resources, justice delivery, security, achieving good governance. Good governance is a guarantee of the expectation of the governed. It employs fairness and upholding common values above individual interests. Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., the 46th and current president of the United States, once said that fighting corruption is not just good governance, it's self-defense, it's patriotism. This means that everyone from those in the position of authority or in the government to those at the grassroot level in a nation should make their personal responsibility to protect their nation or society from the shackles of parochialism, safe aggrandizement, and personal gain at the expense of common national values and progress. In order for a governance system to be viewed as good for its people, the following should be attained. Empathy in dealing with different constituent of the governed. There should be a healthy balance between equity and equality, inclusiveness and fairness. No national of a nation is more national than any other national of that nation, but within and outside the reach of that nation. Putting it in local context, no Nigerian is more Nigerian than any other Nigerian, but within and outside Nigeria. Thus, good governance should ensure that every constituent of the governed is expected and factored in fairly in decision making and planning, provision of enabling environments, high integrity quotients and transparency, open to constructive criticism and feedback, building strong institutions. In conclusion, let us ponder on these words of Raghuran Rajan, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Strong government does not mean simply military power or an efficient intelligence apparatus. He said it should be mean, effective, fair administration. In other words, good governance. When you talk about good governance, I think my experience, I've not had good governance as I was born. So, I mean, I've not experienced one, let me put it that way. I've seen it in other countries, but I've not experienced one and it's unfortunate, right? Very much unfortunate. Every patriotic Nigerian wants to see a better Nigeria. Every patriotic Nigeria wants the fact that whoever I'm putting into voting for in that election would give returns on or would deliver on all the things that he has promised. So, it begs the problem that we don't get to see good governance in Nigeria, which is so unfortunate. We always refer to countries like Singapore, we refer to countries like the United States and we always want to become like them. But we realize that the foundation is that we have to be conscious of the fact that we are putting in the right people in power that way we can then demand for good governance. And also there's a thing of where we most times we tend not to even demand for good governance. We assume that we will get it, but it doesn't happen. Sometimes you just have to demand for good governance and it's our rights as citizens of a country to demand for good governance. I feel you're consigned. I feel you're consigned because when in this situation I believe that good governance is a process. So, I'm going to specifically through two pointers to Victor and their real month's conversation. Victor, you're a life coach and most times you deal with feedback, constructive criticism and feedback. What can you see in this situation where the government of Nigeria, as seen by various administrations before this current one, finding it difficult to deal with feedback. In this case, feedback would come in terms of maybe social media banter or protests. There is always a recurring decimal in regard to we don't want to look feedback. The next thing is we send the law enforcement agent to clamp them down. So, what can you see about the government? And then the next thing is that Raymond is going to talk more about creating enabling environment, especially for the offshoot of tech technology young people participating in tech. So, Victor, I want to hear your thoughts on that. Thank you so much, Elijah. You know, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely. So, when people taste power, I mean I was speaking to a young chap and said, listen, if you're getting there, you know, how are you sure you're going to make a difference really, right? We don't know, you know, when you squeeze something, I said that before, when you squeeze something, when something goes through pressure, the real content comes out. So, you don't even know if you are corrupt until you taste power, all right? So, we can just be tweeting, oh, we need to get the old guys out, you know, and everything, but when you get in there, I mean, look at the answers and all of that. Like, there was division, even with answers. You know, some people who are for this group, who started the answer, I mean, it was just a war around who started the answers movement, who cares about who started it, right? So, someone is trying to say, oh, I am the pioneer, I'm the initiator of the answers. This is just answers. So, why did that become the governor or the president? I mean, so, I think why most of our leaders in power do not take feedback very, you know, in good faith or seriously might be, from what I said earlier, which is, you know, when you taste power and it goes back to personal values. Family is the smallest unit of a nation. You know, cell is the smallest thing of life to fix, you know, the societal decadence, the moral decadence, the governance decadence. We need to go back to family because the guys that couldn't pass way, the guys that jumped friends in class, the guys that are, you know, terrorizing people in streets, young guys, that ones will end up in power in the next few years. So, if we don't do something about it, if we don't fix that values from the grassroots, then they're going to go run for power. And they say, I mean, I mean, bad things continue to happen when good people do nothing, you know. So, because of the way the, the, the polity is so structured, good people do not want to go risk their lives, right? So, what happens is the guy that couldn't pass jump, the guy that couldn't pass wire, the guy that was a dropout would end up becoming the governor. And what happens, what kind of values has he built, you know, or has he or she built, you know, from that fundamental? So, let's go back to the roots, to the fundamentals, the grassroots, and begin to inculcate proper value system. And I think that, that, that's how we can begin to create that chain of good governance. Sure, sure. Raymond, just hold on a bit for, before you respond, the lady wants to say something. So, I mean, in addition to all Victor said, I'm thinking we need to build institutions. True. Because the truth is regardless of whether you bring in that, I mean, if you take this crop of politicians to a country that has solid institutions, they would not survive. They would not survive, they would not be corrupt. They would not do anything because they know the consequences of their actions. And it's the same thing. I mean, we are human. But I just love you right now for saying that. Thank you very much. So, I was having a conversation with someone, yesterday, and I mean, a senior person, and she was saying that because it was a struggle around a particular person. And she said, she has something that actually struck me. She said, you know, the issue that we have with this person, you can also do the same thing if we don't put structure. And then just hope you understand the fact that we need to ensure that we set up structures due to institutions that can help us push what we want in terms of a correction free economy, and in terms of holding people accountable to whatever it is that you promise the electorates. So let me say something very quickly. I'm very excited to talk about this. For one, I am one person that never, ever, ever shout about corruption. I don't believe there is corruption. I don't believe that. I simply believe that there are no consequences for action. You know, all over everyone in the world, we have corruption. I mean, I've been privileged to travel to 14 countries and all these countries, none of them is an angel. None of them have sent field governance. But the difference is that they have set up system to ensure that people are severely or adequately punished for every action, for every decision, right? I think the problem we have back home in Nigeria is that there are no consequences for action. And it's not just about, you know, the people in government. And I think we also need to, because when they talk about corruption, people think it's about the politician that was elected three, four years ago. No, corruption is about the driver who jumps the traffic lights. Corruption is about the individual who is asking for money before he can submit a file. Corruption is about the policeman on the road who saw somebody with a device, a gadget, a laptop, and is asking the person to give money or else he's threatening to kill the person. Corruption. Raymond, thank you very much. Well, it's important that we build strong institutions that can stand the test of time beyond individual sentiments, because if we focus more on the individuals, we sabotage the system. So the institution is more important than the individual. Join us again next week on another edition of The Advocate. The Advocate continues on our social media platforms on Facebook at Plus TV Africa, hashtag The Advocate NG, and Instagram at Plus TV Africa, hashtag The Advocate NG. To catch up with previous workers, go to plustvafrica.com slash The Advocate NG. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel Plus TV Africa. Join us next week, same time, The Station. Let's keep advocating for a better society.