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
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