Eradicating poverty among the people is one challenge the Federal Government has been facing over the years. Series of poverty alleviation programmes to tackle the problem have proved abortive so far. But the group managing director/chief executive officer, Hazonwao Group, Wale Akinwade, tells Correspondent, CHRISTOPHER ADEDEJI, that building prosperity consciousness in the minds of the Nigerian poor is the only means to ensure their financial freedom and make their money work for them, rather than they working for money. Excerpts...

Various government intervention programmes to either alleviate or eradicate poverty in the society appear not to have yielded the desired results capable of launching the Nigerian poor into a realm of financial freedom. What are your thoughts on how to achieve a lasting solution on the problem?

Financial freedom is a situation where one does not do anything that he or she does not want to do for money, as one never omits doing something that one wants to do due to lack of money. Financial freedom refers to efforts to eliminate poverty in the nation and making abundant living socially acceptable. Building prosperity consciousness in the minds of the Nigerian poor is the only means towards ensuring that their financial success is achieved by making their money work for them, instead of they working hard for money.

To be financially free, one has to earn it, and it is not about the size of one's salary, but one's ability to faithfully save, invest and take some risks that may be borne out of ideas and information one has per time.

So, regardless of one's income, if one makes between N10,000 and N1,000,000 a month, financial freedom requires that one keeps abreast of new happenings in one's industry and the economy as a whole. One is interested in keeping Nigerians informed on how they can stretch their money to begin to work for them faster, rather than sweat for money all their life.

Irrespective of one's age, one can create a future of financial freedom by constantly updating one's financial intelligence by accumulating money regularly through a suitable savings programme and channelling such savings into an investment in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, hedge funds, real estates and other securities.

One would want to go through investments opportunities in the capital market, including real estate, investments clubbing, hedge funds, industries and micro-financing, as a means of poverty reduction that will make the dream of becoming a millionaire realisable.

Recently, seminars and training centres have been established in several locations to sharpen the financial intelligence and investing ability of some Nigerians.

One is constrained to ask this important question as we journey into financial freedom, even through this interview. In football, which is more important, the goal post or the ball? One may not give the answer now, but one should understand that nothing could be achieved in life, including financial freedom, without having a definite set goal.

In trying to achieve one's financial goals, however, it is expedient that one has a tool - that is money. There are four basics that govern money. One is that one must be able to earn money, save money, invest and spend it. Unfortunately, for most people, they are over-bloated with information on the last law, which is spending.

What Nigerians should understand is that the first step towards financial freedom is the ability to earn money, and that is why one always emphasised that everybody possesses the tool he needs to be financially free, if he is able to work to earn money, however little it may be. The level of importance one places on preserving and multiplying the money, the better and faster one will move towards one's financial freedom.

The question I posed earlier about the game of football brings one back to the money game question. The ball is the most important tool to winning a game of football, because it represents the little money one is earning today, which is what will decide one's victory or otherwise in one's finances.

How then does the Nigerian poor treat the ball in their possession either in the form of salary or gift? The salary or income they have today is a seed they need to cultivate for a greater harvest tomorrow. This is why Nigerians cannot afford to spend everything today. They have to set aside something in the form of savings for the future.

Are you positing that there is something palpably wrong with the earning attitude of Nigerians?

It should be made clear that the earning attitude is one of the most important inputs in wealth creation. If one cannot master the attitude of earning and constantly develops how to increase it per time till one has had automated multiples stream of income, then the financial freedom journey will be just an intellectual concept and not a reality.

In talking about the earning laws, one wants to be very realistic and bring home the cause and effect of this attitude, so as to acquaint us with the causative factors that provides wealth, to avoid the mistake of relying on luck or any other external factor to achieve financial freedom.

Just like one used to say, to become a millionaire, one has to learn to think like one. Most of us want to be rich, but this is not down to luck; it is about developing one's earnings skills, values and, especially, adopting the mindset of the wealthy. It is not about how well one did at school, or whether one had a happy childhood or not. It is all about attitude.

There are several popular myths that must be dealt with on the way to uncovering the earnings attitude. They are things parents, teachers, guardians and others, who are perhaps not so financially successful, have taught over the years about money.

The most popular one is that hardwork is the causative factor that produces wealth. If working hard for money produces wealth, then it will produce wealth in every case, especially for Nigerians, who are super-hardworkers. We all have or know one or two persons around us that we can refer to as super-hardworkers, who are not rich.

One has also come to realise that sometimes in most cases, rich people work less than the poor. The idea that hardwork and laborious work is required to become wealthy can lead to frustration in life, as most of us see our parent(s) come back home from work late and tired everyday, yet have little or nothing to show for their enormous efforts.

Another common myth is that education will enhance one's financial success, while the right occupations or professions, like those of doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers etc, are tied to financial freedom. If education will ensure financial success, then university professors ought to be the richest people in any given society.

There is still this third myth about financial freedom, a perception in the mind of Nigerians that there is not enough to go around, that the more one has money, the less there is for everyone else, so that it is better to be poor and righteous than be rich and evil. People with this kind of mindset usually resent the rich. Ironically, it is this resentment attitude of the rich by the poor that keeps making the poor poorer, because they would resent themselves a lot more if they eventually become rich.

Interestingly, one has also come to discover that money cannot cure poverty. Poverty is usually blamed on personal and social problems that are caused by lack of money. But, if we look at various Federal Government's anti-poverty programmes, the basic idea is that the problem with poor people is that they have no money, and the way to solve the problem is to give the poor money. Unfortunately, the policy did not work as intended. If it had, there would not be poor people in our society anymore.

One hopes the new government policy on micro-finance banks will work, and that is if the intended micro-finance banks understand and know how to empower people to create wealth. There is already enough money to solve poverty several times over. Curing poverty in the country requires practical education and banishment of erroneous thinking about money.

Note that the principle of the earning attitudes states that all wealth is created by the human mind. This means that thought is the causative factor that ultimately creates wealth in every case. The key to wealth is learning how to take charge of our minds and learning how to re-programme our minds to be in line with the way the truly rich thinks, freeing ourselves from the major inhibitors of the mind, resolving our disturbing feelings about money and learning to better use our imagination.

To increase one's wealth is a matter of increasing the quality of one's thoughts. The good book says, "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." So, increasing the quality of oneself, money and what one does for money, will help accelerate in no small measure your journey towards financial freedom. By adopting this principle or having a right-thinking attitude, one can become rich.

You have spoken extensively on the earning attitude of the Nigerian poor; could you say something about their saving, investing and spending attitude?

Saving attitude is one important money attitude Nigerians should be advised to adopt for them to realise their dream of financial freedom. Recently, I saw a banking product that was tagged "saving is good" and I immediately came to conclude that the promoters and managers of the bank know what they are doing. Possibly, one would lead you into some of my discoveries about this bank.

The savings attitude works distinctly from buying at a discount or buying through sales promotions. Rather, savings attitude is the ability to set aside money for a specific future use. One's ability to delay gratification and save, however little, depends on one's objective and dream for the purpose of future benefits.

The financially prudent and wise person often sees his current income or salary as a seed for a better income or salary in the future. The fastest way to become a millionaire is to master the savings attitude and accumulate cash for investment purpose(s).

Just as the usual phenomenon in the country today, some people give reasons they cannot save at this time. They say what they earn is too little to consider savings, or that they have too many dependants, etc. Whatever forms these excuses may take, it will never be enough reason not to save at least 10 per cent of one's income per time.

One must confess here that of the entire money attitudes earlier talked upon, the investing attitude is one of the most technical and will require a little extra care to execute so as not to jeopardise what we have been able to accumulate through our saving attitude.

An investment attitude is a decision that is made following a thorough analysis that guarantees the safety of one's principal, while also promising an adequate returns within a specified time frame. Once this is established, part of the money that has hitherto been set aside through savings can now be channelled into investment products or opportunities.

What are the common investment windows that Nigerians can invest their savings?

There are several investment windows that might be considered, depending on other factors, such as time, rate of returns, capital involved and the level of risk one is willing to take. Such investment windows include real estate, capital and money market, venture capital, etc.

One can take a position in anyone, or a combination of some of the above investment windows without being fully involved, that is, one can still keep one's regular job going, while one's money is out there working and multiplying for him or her.

On the other hand, one can enter into an investment by setting up a business as an entrepreneur in which case will require such to be fully committed to its day-to-day running.

In whichever case that is applicable, such an investor must possess the investing attitude to guarantee financial freedom, which is the ability to risk part of his current income in potentially-profitable investments.

The spending attitude, on the other hand, is the easiest money attitude to be imbibed by any human being, because it naturally wants to comply with the human insatiable wants as human beings.

It requires no special skill to be mastered, but what is only required is to be wary of it, as it can derail us from achieving our ultimate goal of financial freedom. But, for the financially-informed man, who has his eyes set on financial freedom, there are certain basic rules he needs to know about financial freedom. They would help him learn and practise the right spending attitude.

The foundation for the right spending attitude includes budget planning, avoidance of carrying about idle cash and credit cards, avoidance of impulse buying or emotional spending and limiting oneself from exposure to situations and places that tempt us to spend more than necessary, and finally, ability to always hold oneself responsible and accountable for one's unnecessary spending.