POVERTY TRIANGLE: QUAGMIRE OF INDECENT DEGENERATION OF AFRICA
By Babatunde Jose
The yawning gap between the have and the have-nots keep getting wider by the day and it is getting worrisome. Is there hope for the poor, the wretched of the earth, the hewers of wood and drawers of water? What hope for their children and children’s children when the hope of the present generation is bleak and betrayed? Worrisome statistics are being churned out by local and international organizations on the unbridgeable gap and deplorable conditions of the poor in Africa.
Are our leaders showing enough concern? The combined wealth of Africa’s seven wealthiest individuals surpasses the total wealth of the poorest half of the continent’s population, which is approximately 700 million people. In Nigeria, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest person, has a net worth exceeding that of the bottom half of the Nigerian population (109 million people). South Africa is considered one of the most unequal countries in the world, with the four wealthiest individuals holding the same wealth as the bottom 60% of the population; this is scandalous!
In Nigeria, 2024 highest dividend recipients: Aliko Dangote alone received a dividend of N439 Bn from his 85.97% holding in Dangote Cement; Abdul Samad Rabiu took home N285 Bn being dividend from his 98% holding in BUA Cement and 92.6% in BUA Foods. There are other staggering dividends collected by Jim Ovia N23Bn from Zenith Bank and Otedola’s N17Bn from his 78% holding in Geregu Power Plc.
The continent has rapidly become the epicentre of global extreme poverty; while massive reduction in the number of those living on less than $1.90 a day have been achieved in Asia, the number was rising in Africa.
The IMF/World Bank at the end of the recent Spring Meetings in Washington DC warned that poverty is bound to get worse in Nigeria by 2027 – 57% of the population would live below the poverty line.
Africa is failing to march side by side with other nations in world development. Rather, the tripartite evils of poverty, war and insecurity have combined to create the evil chemistry which is the mix termed the Poverty Triangle.
*It is no more the question of how Europe underdeveloped Africa but how the African leadership are entangled in the quagmire of indecent degeneration, impoverishment and immiseration of its people.*
Despite being rich in natural resources, Africa continues to grapple with severe poverty and economic disparities, primarily due to corruption and inadequate governance.
Every country has had its ups and downs. Europe bounced back from World Wars I and II, the U.S.A bounced back from civil war and racial conflicts, Asia and Latin America bounced back from the colonial situation, dictatorships and political turmoil, why will Africa not bounce back from the effects of slave trade and colonialism? But other countries have moved on.
At present, it is obvious that Africa is the least developed inhabited continent of the world. The region suffers from all sorts of problems, 90% of which are man-made.
The most prominent problem of Africa is leadership failure. Most past and present African leaders have failed the region woefully and their brutal sit-tight phenomena have made it very difficult or impossible for them to be replaced. More than 85% of African elections are not free, fair and nor credible. They are exercises in choiceless choice.
Hardly, could you find an African country that is completely devoid of religious and ethnic crisis. More than 60 years on the average, that African nations have gained independence from their colonial masters, rather than fashion solutions to their ethnic and tribal differences, unscrupulous leaders continue to weaponize the ethnic differences to split the various nationalities into aiding and abetting the various conflicts on the continent.
Every year thousands of lives and properties are being lost in Africa in the name of religious and ethnic differences. Just 31 years ago in Rwanda, more than 800,000 people were estimated to have been killed just because they belong to a particular ethnic group.
“Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy, yet the fruits of its economic growth are not shared equally. Poverty and destitution are stubbornly high: around one in three children are not attending school, approximately 10.2 million at primary school and 8.1 million at junior secondary school.
A quarter of citizens lack access to safe drinking water, and half are living below the $1.90 poverty line. It is estimated that $24 billion would be needed to end poverty in the country, which is less than the combined wealth of the richest four Nigerians; $37.3bn” – Forbes. Hmmmmmm!
To compound our tribulations, wages are extremely low and are never paid when due as a result of what a friend called ‘economic adversity’. Is there hope? There is no wonder the churches and mosques are filled to the brim with the poor supplicating to God for help from the Pharaohs who rule over them.
I see poverty not as a concept but as a condition; a state of being; a condition of human wretchedness, despondency, deprivation and want. A state of lacking in the basic necessities of life such as food, clean water, shelter ( even of a crude type), basic health care, basic education and a state of abject impoverishment. Poverty is not only a disease but a state of spiritual rejection. As a condition of deprivation, poverty is a state of economic marginalization and denial of fundamental human rights of fulfillment of basic needs and freedom.
Poverty is a political and economic crime that sentences the individual into a social and spiritual prison, making that person cursed as in *Joshua 9:23: “Now therefore you are cursed, and some of you shall never be anything but servants, hivers of wood and drawers of water.
People in a state of poverty are politically voiceless; they are emasculated financially and have no business in the political domain; they are constantly preoccupied with eeking a living from the dustbin of society. And they are at the mercy of ‘rulers’ who are supposed to protect their interest and ameliorate their living conditions. It’s as if they were born to suffer.
According to Wikipedia, between 1.2 to 2.4 million Africans died during the Atlantic Slave Trade over a period of about 360 years. The number of those who died as a result of ethnic and religious crises in Africa between 1980-2025 has since exceeded that figure. The people who died in the 34 months old Nigerian civil war alone are close to the entire number of Africans who died in the 360 years of Atlantic Slave Trade.
Meanwhile the rich get richer even as poverty and inequality deepen. “From Nigeria to Mozambique you can see poverty rising at the same time as rapid growth. What does this mean? The growth is being gobbled up by the super rich and transnational capital. And that means ordinary people, by comparison, find their lives even more impoverished.
Given Nigeria’s enormous resources, it is puzzling that such a huge portion of the populace live in poverty and squalor. This vast incidence of poverty in the midst of plenty has severally been linked to the endemic corruption in the country, as it involves the massive stealing of resources that would have otherwise been invested in providing wealth-creating infrastructure for the citizens.
The mineral-rich east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been dogged by conflict for more than 30 years, since the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Numerous armed groups have competed with the central authorities for power and control of the potential fortune in this vast nation. (DRC) is facing one of the world’s largest displacement and humanitarian crises.
Two years ago a conflict erupted in Sudan that few anticipated would escalate so rapidly or persist for so long. What began as a violent power struggle has become one of the worst and most neglected humanitarian crises of our time.
The country has been plunged into a state of devastation marked by mass displacement, hunger, violence and disease. The numbers are staggering. More than 30 million people need humanitarian aid. At least 15 million people are currently displaced. Some 11.3 million are displaced inside Sudan and 3.9 million people have fled to neighboring countries, making this the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 20 million people urgently need access to healthcare.
Modern day conflicts in Africa came to be after the colonization of the continent. No matter how one tries to see modern day conflicts in Africa, one cannot separate such conflicts from external influences. This is however not to say that Africans themselves do not have any iota of blame in the conflicts ravaging the continent. None can conquer a people effortlessly without an effective collaboration from within. This seems to be the situation of Africa.
Prayer: *Rabbana atina fid-dunya hasanatan wa fil ‘akhirati hasanatan waqina ‘adhaban-nar : Our Lord! Grant us good in this world and good in the hereafter, and save us from the chastisement of the fire. [2:201]
Barka Jumuah and a happy weekend
Babatunde Jose
Friday 2nd May 2024
