bashirsenior@yahoo.com

Against my actual/original wish and intention, I am now forced to highlight the nasty scourge of poverty from the world, African or more precisely the Nigerian perspective as it relates human development. This sudden change of course, direction or topic stems from a “power failure” problem that has been a very common Nigerian factor in the most especially, the last six years of Obasanjo’s naïve and simplistic model   of   democracy. My earlier article was per-arranged to contextualize General Buhari’s decision to jump into Nigerian politics, its desirability, implications and derivable benefits (if at all any) but the reverse becomes the case due to operational iniquities, managerial lapses and technical incompetence o f the Nigerian (NEPA) power providers. I digress.

The cause and source of poverty in almost all the countries or continents of the world other than Africa is roundly but rightly traced to the unavailable human and material resources bestowed on them by nature, and not because their Political class enjoy stealing public money to stash away in secret bank accounts abroad. Therefore, while other countries continue to wallow in grinding clutches of poverty by an act of destiny, most of Africa’s vast population (the second largest population in the world for that matter) lives below the average poverty level of one US Dollar a day as a result of bad leadership. I will however particularize the various stages of the e continent to another and in the end, see where Nigeria stands on the poverty league tabl e in the West African sub-continent.

The World Bank survey of the spread of poverty across the globe revealed that about 1.3 billion people of the world 6 billion population lives below the average poverty line of 1 us dollar per day. And since the most reliable index of an average standard of living in a country is the aggregate value of goods, services produced and its repatriated assets and nationals abroad divided by its population, North America consisting of only two countries: the United states and Canada, with a combined population of 313 million, an average per capita income of us 33,000 and a Gross National product (GNP) of $ 10.3 trillion is fairly and squarely too, the richest continent in the world.

Second to it is Western Europe whose economy is chiefly dominated by the following powers, namely; France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. The population of the continent is about 390 million, average income per capita us $ 23,000 and a combined GNP of $ 8.8 trillion. Next to west Europe is Australia. Like North America, the dominant economies are merely two countries: Australia and New Zealand, with a gross population of barely 23 million and an average income per capita of $ 19,000.

South America controlled largely by Brazil, Argentina and Mexico is the fourth runner with 470 Million and $ 4,000 as its natural, near-homogeneous population and per capita income respectively. East Europe is, by western economic standard, a disaster area, its average income per capita is merely $ 2,100 less than a tenth of the case of Spain considered to be a poor country within the western circle. Most of the countries in the East have seceded from the former soviet domination and the total population is about 340 million people.

Asia, they say, is a kerfuffle of the good, the bad and the ugly. Some of the richest countries in the world (like Japan with a GNP of $ 4.5 trillion and an average income per capital of $36,000) and poorest (like Tajikistan and Afghanistan) both with a meager $180 as their average income per capita. By and large, Asia with about 3.5 billion population (virtual half of humanity) has an average income per capita of $I, I00.

The last and sadly the least (on the table) is Africa. The population is approximately 800 million yet the combined GNP is merely $450 billion with the average income per capita being put at a paltry $676 less than what obtains in Spain alone (i.e. $588 billion as GNP and 39 million population). This funny and indeed wide –ranging economic gap between Spain and Africa is damning indictment on African political elite Most significantly, the likes of Congo, Angola, South Africa, and Nigeria  would have been each a front runner in global competition had their abundant resources been used for the betterm ent of  domestic economies.

The sorriest affair in the African scene precisely, however is Nigeria. It is lagging behind even in the poverty level in Africa with $260 as per capita income less than half the reigning average in the continent which is $676 per capita. In that regard, a common Nigerian man is obviously worse off than his counterparts in the rest of the continent. And the sight of any positive change of the situation in no distant future remains as elusive as ever.

Most Nigerians today cannot afford a three square meal talk less of standard health care, education for themselves and their children. Even official in 2004 data put 80% of the Nigerian as people living below a grinding poverty level. And this is happening at the same time the country is receiving unprecedented revenue from it daily sale of crude oil. The nation grows richer while its people become poorer and from all indications, there will be more misery and hardship among the masses   in days to come as the ruling elite continue to regale in predacious reverie of circulatory kleptomania.

God save Nigeria and its deprived masses from the tyrannical circle of bad leadership and artificial creation of penury, amen.

 Muhammad