Of Africa and Africans' Philosophy of Poverty

By

Yemi Ademowo Johnson

yemijohnson@gmail.com


Africa, north and south of the Sahara, is easily recognized as the region of deprivations where there is acute dearth of the basics that make human truly human: water, food, security, shelter, health and clothing. This pervasive condition of inhumanity thriving amidst supposedly humans leaves one with the question as to the beneficial import of the abundant natural resources within its domain. It is appalling, not pitiful, to know that Africa is stupendously rich while Africans are nauseatingly poor. Bearing in mind that Africans have remained in this condition for over half a century, one cannot but try to find out why Africans remain perpetually nay hopelessly poor; why they wallop in penury amidst plentiful. Why they have refused to think-out a workable developmental proposal for the betterment of their continent. The result of this finding is that the philosophy of poverty reigns supremely in Africa.

Philosophy of Poverty can be described as a situation whereby an individual or group is continuously awash with thoughts or ideas that could lead to an act that would neither benefit him/her nor his/her group or society in the long run. Short-term gain is the focus of this kind of thinking. Technically, Philosophy of Poverty is "a critical, rigorous and systematic thinking of ideas that are capable of inducing deprivations and make worse peoples' developmental condition". Examples are ideas of public looting, electoral fraud, etc among leaders at all levels; and vandalism, political thuggery, etc among followers. The underlying goal of the 'critical, rigorous and systematic thinking...' is personal gain: How the 'thinker' would benefit his/her pockets or bank accounts and that of his/her friends and family members at the expense of the others or the public.

Both the leaders and the followers are guilty of this negative thinking. While the leaders authoritatively, without lets or hindrances, divert money meant for developmental projects shortsightedly into their account for personal benefit, the followers join the train knowing fully well that to think otherwise may put their jobs in jeopardy. The follower therefore accepts his/her condition of perpetual deprivation and seeks to have a 'fair' share of the national cake or simply go for the crumbs of it. Basically, there are two classes of followers involved: the advantaged and the disadvantaged.


The advantaged followers, who are mostly middle class, are actively involved in the process, from idea conception, pruning, fine-tuning to execution. They are the leaders sure partner-in-thinking (PIT), working round the clock to lead other followers into the bottomless poverty pit. Their mantra is 'I'd better cooperate now and make some money than blow open the deal and remain a pauper'. With this seemingly critical but perverted thought, he/she agrees to the 'deal'. Millions of the national or foreign currencies are then diverted from the developmental activities it was meant for to serve the few individuals involved. On the part of the disadvantaged, their condition becomes that of 'hopelessness'. A total acceptance of their condition as either enemy induced or God wished. They forgot that the greener pastures they sought and pray for their children and wards in foreign countries, mostly America and European, were planted and watered by the dogged and relentless efforts of others like themselves in those societies. The problem here, of their condition, is that the basics of life such as water are often seen as luxury. Sponsors of mere borehole projects, such as assemblymen and the local authorities, are therefore seen as demigods. A messiah! Such persons are then decorated with chieftaincy titles. What balderdash!

That this negative thinking, philosophy of poverty, reigns in African minds is a fact. A fact glaringly verifiable in the manner we conduct the affairs of our countries at all levels, our myopic approach to responsive democratic governance, selfish management of our abundant human and natural resources, our nonchalant attitude to national growth and development and dearth of some other indices of peoples' desire for development. In Nigeria for instance, Chopism, a philosophy of poverty concept, is commonplace. By the way, Chopism is a school of thought in the philosophy of poverty parlance that posits 'group sharing of public property and fund even if it is at the detriment of the public good or development'. A direct derivative of Chopism is "chop, I chop" which means 'steal yours and avail me the opportunity to steal mine'. It means an agreement among a group of people or groups to ensure that parties to the agreement have access preferably equal, to steal limitlessly from a designated coffer. The parties are expected to take their turns in this robbery process and they are to show solidarity when any of them get into trouble. Can someone tell me how state or country could witness meaningful development with this kind of attitude? Sure, Africa is in serious trouble.

Having been to some parts of Africa and witnessed similar developmental problems, I cannot but conclude that the only problem we have, that is yet to be addressed, is attitudinal. Ours is not a dearth of ideas but perverted thinking, infested ideas. Until we succeed in correcting our thinking deficiency, we shall remain subservient to the rest of the world. Visits to countries of Europe and subsequent observations cum interactions with their citizens, in the course of this work, have further lend credence to the fact that a complete attitudinal re-orientation is essential if Africa will ever attain the greatness it craves for. The conclusion is that we must re-work our thoughts essentially if we must ever get out of our present bottomless pit of deprivation. I suggest we start with the youths and teens; let's re-orientate and make them believe in the African project that will celebrate hard work, transparency and accountability with due respect to social justice.


Yemi Ademowo Johnson, socio-political philosopher and applied anthropologist, is of University of Ibadan, Ibadan