 Entitlement is destructive. Entitlement has really destroyed the fabrics of our nation, especially among young chaps. It's a long chain of kankawom that has incapacitated the minds of people, is deeply rooted in the belief that people owe me stuff. This damaging belief system has created the ideology of the blame game. When people fail, they immediately look out for people or things to pass blame on, as a reason for their failure. The subject of entitlement is an old thingy. Here are some relatable examples to illiterate what I'm talking about. I am the first born so all my family responsibilities will be pushed to me when I start earning some income. My wife is supposed to get my food ready before I return from work because it is her sole responsibility as the woman. Everyone is making a fixed amount due payment of $15,000 in my department in church, but my own due is $200,000 because I work in a multi-national so I can afford it. After serving lunch to my auto technician on a few occasions when he visits my residence for repairs, he automatically thinks that every visit to my residence must be accompanied with lunch. Hilling me senior man, chairman automatically makes me your kashkao. I am the wealthiest in my hometown so my wealth must get to every family in my hometown. I just returned from Venice for my usual yearly vacation and some random folks believe that I must have something for the boys. The job is mine because I'm a first class graduate even when I clearly do not have the appropriate skillset needed for the job. We played street football together as young stars so you automatically owe me a spot on your cabinet as the governor even when you clearly do not qualify for such position. My money has become your money because we are from the same kindred. Examples are inexhaustive and I'm sure you can well relate with some of them. Entitlement starts at the mind level and then transitions into a behavioral pattern which creates a certain outcome within your life. When you consciously believe that people owe you stuff you may eventually suspend your creative energy and switch into dependency. Entitlement has crippled the operational system in Africa. If we must raise a new kind of forward-thinking progressive millionaires and Gen Z's we must get to the root cause and begin to deal with the subject of entitlement. If we must create meaningful success we must begin to unpack the mentality of entitlement from our operating system. The moment you come to terms with the ideology that no one owes you absolutely nothing. That is when your real freedom begins. Absolutely. I think I want Ijima to respond first. Ladies first. Ladies first so she's the only lady in the room. Ijima, what do you have to say about this? Wow, I like this topic actually. Entitlement for me and when I approach it from a balanced angle yes, you're so right, you're so on point with the fact that we back home we believe that you owe me this, you owe me that you must tip me because I've opened the door for you and well you earn a little more than I do so you have an obligation to give me a little this and give me a little that so while I frown on it completely I don't want us to lose the fact that in Africa as a whole there's poverty and there is a wide disparity between the rich and the poor and it might actually explain why people have this sense of entitlement I must say and I must explain that in totality because where you know that you can earn a living make the barest minimum send your children to school have food on your table and you're out of work yesterday you can get to work today then you won't have to rely on somebody else to help you pick up the pieces in your life and I want to also believe to a large degree that humans would not ordinarily want to be beggars or want to live off another person and so we must be very careful when we look at this world called entitlement particularly from the Nigerian and African perspective here is a different ball game if you ask me for something I can tell you there's a job you can pick it up and do it in the next one hour make 20 pounds get food on the table if you need somewhere to live for a week I'm ready to host you but I know that if you work for 10 hours a day for 5 days at the end of the week you'll be able to get a room and sleep you'll be able to get food on your table buy warm clothes you can go to a charity shop get cheap things and get a life for yourself so here the sense of entitlement is not so high but we must be very careful at home if you begin to preach this policy there's a huge gap between the rich and the poor at home and so sometimes in the neighborhood you're the only one that has a job you're the only one that can even get a job so when people rely on you we have to also be careful but at the end of the day we must find a balance before we criticize entitlement at home absolutely it's a balance it's a thin line to be very kind with you I think that some of it, I mean it's not all poverty some people that have money and are still entitled to it so it's not really a poverty, it's a right thing but I think that it came from a good place and I'll tell you what in Africa and Nigeria we're very familiar we're very common now growing up, your neighbors you're eating you have this big bowl of food everybody comes and eats we share together we're very common and very familiar so for that reason there's a sense where you feel oh if your neighbor has then it's yours if you have then it's yours okay, the world has moved on from those kind of things so on one hand, which is why I agree that the balance is important on one hand it's important to know that what is mine is mine, what is yours is yours and then if I give it to you it's because you have earned it or I feel like giving it to you when you start to feel as if you feel wrong because I don't give it to you, that's when there's a problem I mean you have a right to ask me and I have a right to say no, that's simple that's where the balance is I have a right to ask I have a right to say no and if you say no, I have a right to walk away and not feel disgruntled but it's not the same because every time you travel you go out to the airport everywhere I mean everybody just feels like they have done something that you've earned because they feel like you've probably earned more than them but I just think it's totally wrong I personally attack that thing I attack it every time I attack it there's an extreme there's just an extreme to it that makes people stand and it hasn't the probability to make people lazy if you're not careful, you can just enable these people and then you just find that they become lazy because you've said it's poverty or this I mean some people are poor and they work their way up out of poverty so it's not every time we say we have to be careful to look at those things and achieve a balance the truth is even if you are poor even if someone, I don't want to use you but say even if someone thinks he's poor because he cannot afford 3 square meters please don't believe you are poor just do something now let me stretch your examples election is coming 23 any person that comes to campaign must buy a sauce and rice, bag of rice, bag of sauce and this is corruption breeders if you go to the bank to deposit funds in the bank they open door for you and it's quite embarrassing a rich man is paying his tax the government did no fixed rule why this organ no fixed rule that's what they would be saying but is he rich man, he can fix the rule for us but he's paying his tax now if he likes to fix it why don't you go and hold the government as possible is he rich man so this entitlement thing it's an abuse form of communal living like you said, if the purpose of a chain is not understood, it's abused we have moved beyond communal living even though it's good to be a good neighbor but everybody should just be responsible for what they want but although not being said if you have access to give even if you don't have to give I would at least encourage people to give genuinely and also help people that really need seats do that with a good heart not because of you are trying to campaign or converse for something, do it don't assume that okay because I help you therefore I'm entitled to these people coming to worship me like a mini god it's a game of expectation management listening to it again and all the conversations I think for me it's expectation management I think the last line of your thoughts you said something about doing something and expecting nothing that requires a great deal of maturity a great deal of orientation so if I go back again to the previous conversation the value system needs to be a new launch of values because like Tolu said it is almost becoming a rights you can walk through the gates in the airport without and you know you get all those pleasantries and the moment it's clear that you are not ready to you will get a totally different the switch and it's almost as though it's a right and those cuts see where just there's something out of you so I think we need to revisit the value system those things need to be thought again it should go back again into the music that the children are thought in school and then as adults is that place of managing expectations they really don't owe me anything if we look at it it's a tough thing to review looking at the economic situation if I travel to Canada almost hammer if I go to Canada I will go to UK before I ever you will be a visitor in America exactly so your values define who you are let me just look at a simple example of tips for instance you go to a restaurant abroad it's almost a rule it's like an unspoken rule to give a percentage of what you spend and they expect it but if you don't do it they won't look at you for any so Ejimai the reality in the UK you should do it absolutely if you eat abroad if you eat abroad it's an unspoken rule sometimes it's 5-10% if you don't do it no one is going to hold you responsible but here you should do it if you don't do it it shows that you are ill-mannered if you can't afford it there is nothing to do it's not the most to do it so if you don't have the money if you don't want to do it it's a different thing you will not have it's an unspoken rule imagine if somebody is describing you as ill-mannered that's a huge thing it's not compulsory they won't tell you it's compulsory but because they know they expect that you are well brought up you have good manners then you should do the right thing it's really important that we draw the thin line but however I believe personally that no single person that has succeeded tremendously has been built around that mindset of being entitled and believing that somebody somewhere owes me stuff so stick around Ijimai is up next after the break