 Happy New Year and welcome to The Advocate, your Sunday reminder that important conversations are among the necessary tools for a sinner's society. I will be talking about how we're being abused on a roll. Elijah Felix is going to be talking about 23 elections in view, the tension in the air, and Stephen will be talking about education, make it the man and the nation. Tomorrow we'll be talking about male suicide has to stop to be a man, but first, speak up. We'll be back just after the break. Just stay with us. We're being abused on a roll. Why does it look like the average Nigerian has a long standing relationship with abuse at diverse levels? We're making it OK for people to get away with abuse from the family to the workplace and school. I don't even want to get started with political abuse where our wonderful politicians appear every four years to tell us sweet words about what they are going to do, which they mostly never ever do. Today I'm piggyback on what happened at the Bonoboys concert held in December in Lagos, Nigeria. People parted with their hard-end monies to literally get abused. I learned some people got to the concert venue at 8 p.m. and Burnaboy didn't show up until about 2 a.m. or so. He didn't seem to need to apologize because, of course, he is the Almighty Burnaboy and there is no one like him. There's no searching of his greatness. He made the attendees believe that he's doing them a favor for even showing up for a concert they paid him for. It's even more appalling that he would treat his fellow countrymen in such a demeaning manner. Wasn't he the one that made music about government brutality and oppression? Isn't he doing the exact same thing he had constantly talked against? To think that he had to physically assault an attendee by kicking him on the head, aren't there better ways to stop attendees from, you know, storming the stage? I took time to listen to the words he said that very night and I was utterly disappointed. I love Burnaboy's music, no doubt, but we must call out bad behavior. If he won't do it at the O2 Arena, why should he dare to do it in Nigeria? Why should he even think of doing it at all? We must collectively come together and decide that we have had just enough. We're not going to be abused at any level. This should be a critical decision in this new year. I'm now going to turn to our advocate and let's just talk about what happened that very night. I'm going to start with Tiamh, tell you what do you think about it? Yeah, well, there's no love, there's no sin. Many industries are left unregulated, right? There are no fines, there are no associations, there are no regulations for people that display bad behavior in their industries. Like you said, even in politics, what's the repercussion for a bad governor or a bad commissioner or a terrible House of Reps member for more years as a reward? Such a good reward. The reward for bad behavior is more responsibility. So until there are proper laws in place, until every industry is properly regulated, I mean every industry, people are the real estate, customer service. You pay for a service, you don't get the service. It's just in recent times that they settle the consumer for different counsel. This has been up for a hundred years. Because now people are afraid of being penalized, so they try to render the service. How did we get the viral sensation of what I got, what I ordered? It's just bad service, it's everywhere. So it's the same thing, you pay for a service, you pay for a concert. Somebody shows up six hours later and starts to talk to you like, you owe him a favor. That's because there are no repercussions. He will be slapped with fines that will pay him for months. So, I don't blame him. Thank you. Steven, what do you think? I agree with Tulu. I think it's basically the fact that our show biz industry is largely unprofessional. The maxim in show biz world is the show must go on. You must come on time. You must do what you need to do. You must do it very well. What seems to be happening is a little bit of any how-ness. People just do things the way they like. I'm a big star and nobody cares anyway. I think it's about time that their fans begin to pay them back by not attending some of these concerts. If you have one or two flops as a concert, you begin to sit up. And I think also, like Tulu has said, there needs to be some unionization. Because Bonabo is someone that maybe did not professionally train as an artist. But if you have a union, you would then have a preponderance of people who are properly trained in that field. So even if you are coming in, this is how we do things and you must do it like that. I think that is what is missing here. Well, I'm going to say this from two perspectives. The first perspective is talking about role models. They prove that the fact that somebody is good in his craft, someone is a celebrity and good in his music or as a star or as an artist does not necessarily make him someone of best character or good behaviour. In instances where you see people that have nasty attitude, but yet they are good at what they do. So they don't necessarily serve as role models to younger people. We don't need arrogant people. We don't need arrogance in profession. It's good to be humble. When you meet people or you're dealing with people, be humble because without these people, you will not go far. Your music, if you are a musician, nobody agrees to listen to your music. Imagine you have a concert and people say, you think you are expecting crowd and you came, you didn't see anybody or you saw a few people, how would you feel? So now, the other aspect is I can't agree less with all what you have said. Regulations, you know, these guys will go abroad. They don't try to rubbish. They will sue you. So, behave well. Stick to your, what do you call it? You know the terms and conditions. The contract agreements. So if there is a problem, apologize. Some of them even offer to do a free concert later. Okay, to make up for this. I'm going to do a free concert. So don't make it look as if bad behavior is, I don't want to use a local theme here, but don't make it look as if bad behavior is something that will make you feel fly. Because you are tough, you are arrogant. They should respect you. And if we extrapolate on it, if you go to public service, just imagine you go to queue up to collect your passports. Oh, let me know. I don't want to single out any government power starter, but you know what I'm talking about? Beat the passport office, or you go to, let's say, INEC, to go and get your PVC. That's a good choice. I'm going to use it as an example. Or you go to the hospital. If they say you should go to the hospital to go and take vaccines or do something. Some of those professionals, they will treat... I mean, they will just talk to you anyhow. Like, stay in the queue or do this, you know, so arrogant. I don't think it's... I think you can see that it's... Should I say it's a cultural thing? But somehow, it's even in our attitude as Nigerians, let's be... On the road, you see someone driving. He's obviously doing the wrong thing. We're still insulting you. You know these things. We should stop it. We have to be calm and humble. And a separate responsibility where necessary. Alright, it's super important that, you know, you understand your self-worth fundamentally as a human being. If you're being abused at the family level, talk to someone about it. If you're being abused in your relationship, talk to someone about it. If you're being abused at your workplace, you should talk to someone about it. It's high time would stop enabling bad behaviour and start calling it out. Of course, I mean, we're going to the polls this February. It's time to use your PVC to also show that behaviour. Elijah Felix is going to be next after the break. Do stay with us.