Billionaire businessman and founder of Coscharis Group, Dr Cosmas Maduka, has criticised the growing trend of flaunting wealth and reckless spending at social gatherings, condemning the popular slang, “money na water”, often used to justify such behaviour. In a viral video, Maduka expressed concern over what he described as a “dead value system” that promotes wastefulness and misleads the younger generation. He stated that truly wealthy individuals do not engage in such behaviour. Tell me any wealthy man that has talked about money na water. I’ve never heard Tony Elumelu say money na water. I’ve never heard Femi Otedola say money na water and I’ve never said money na water,” Maduka said.
According to him, genuine wealth comes with humility and restraint, not public display or waste adding that he deliberately walks out of events where such displays occur. “When I come to a function and you start those madness, start throwing money up on people, I behave like I’m going to the toilet and you will not see me again because these are dead value system, bad culture that we have learned and it became invoked in this state,” he added. The industrialist lamented that unlike in the past when wealthy people lived modestly, today’s social scene celebrates noise and excess. “When we are growing up, rich people don’t make noise. All these people that make noise, they never see money. Tweet it to people and say that I said so,: he said.
Maduka urged Nigerians to reject the glorification of wastefulness, warning that it sends the wrong message to the youth. “If you make money, it makes you humble, it makes you keep quiet. We have embraced very deadly bad culture and we are using it to train our children. Money na water, those things should stop,” he added. He urged the public to resent rather than applaud such acts, stating, “You shouldn’t clap hands for people like that, you should resent it.”
