Sen Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, has remarked that the country suffers from an overabundance of entitlement mentality.

This was revealed by Ngige on Monday while answering questions on Arise Television's Morning Show.

The Minister's comment follows a strike threat by health workers in response to a planned measure in the National Assembly to reduce brain drain in the health sector.

Remember that the House of Representatives, concerned about the impending threat of brain drain in the nation's health-care industry, sponsored legislation to solve the situation.

It is sponsored by Ganiyu Johnson, the representative of Lagos State's Oshodi-Isolo Federal Constituency 2 in the House of Representatives, and seeks to amend the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act to prevent Nigerian-trained medical or dental practitioners from being granted full licenses until they have worked in the country for at least five years.

Healthcare professionals have continued to speak out against the plan.

However, Ngige said that people borrow money to study medical courses in most countries, which they pay back after graduation.

He claimed that it is the reason they don’t leave their countries unlike their counterparts in Nigeria.

Ngige said, “It’s left for the education ministry and universities to fashion out what they can do where we now train people free of charge because they pay N48,000 to N50,000 a session for medical training. Whereas their counterpart abroad pays $100,000 in the US and £78,000 in the UK.

“They borrowed the money from the bank and when they graduate as medical doctors, they are paying back. That’s why they’re not even leaving their country.

“And here we train you free. I obtained that free training. In fact my own I was even on scholarship. Why won’t I be patriotic to serve my country?

“So you asked that the bill taken to the National Assembly by a member be removed that it is one of the reasons you want to go on strike?

“How can a government tell a member who has done a private member’s bill, it’s not even an executive bill, to withdraw it? You now enlist it as one of the conditions to go on strike. That’s absurd. The sense of entitlement syndrome is too much in this country.”