Sound familiar? Perhaps the definitions given by the guests on this edition of The Platform will help bring it home. Oluwatoyin Seidu believes Ownership Syndrome to be the same as ‘Founders’ Syndrome’, usually owned by business owners who try to lord things over their subordinates, just because they are the business owners.  Bukki Solanke defined it as a mindset; the quality of wanting to be seen and recognized as the owner of a thing, denying anyone else the right to it. These guests, being business owners themselves, were able to speak with authority on the day’s subject matter, even though this syndrome surfaces beyond business to family and spousal relationships among other things.

The guests chalked the source of this ownership mentality to a number of things, including the childhood selfishness of wanting one’s toys all to one’s self, perhaps a childhood where one is deprived of luxury and grows into an adult who feels the need to prove themselves, or the entitlement attached to a person who has been helped, from whom the helpers expect help in return whey have ‘made it’.

In the broad range of the causes of entitlement or ownership syndrome, particularly by family, it was agreed that wisdom is of utmost importance. One can give back to benefactors without being ‘owned’ or without having the affairs of their lives controlled.

The ‘ownership syndrome’ as a subject proved to be a delicate one, particularly in the area of family and benefactors, but the unanimous agreement was that nobody owns anybody, and in the passing of that message, wisdom is principal.  

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