No. 853: Poor Africa

To answer one of the questions that Obi Nwankanma asked, poverty has its living room and territory in Africa. Any pretence that the continent is not poor is a deceit. How the poverty came about is another thing entirely:self-inflicted by Africans and artificially and cleverly imposed by the whites. Whichever, the continent is firmly in the grip of poverty. No wonder, President Ghadaffi of Libya did not receive any ovation when recently the African Union had a meeting in his country, and he, in his speech, appealed to African countries to stop begging advanced countries for funding.

In Africa,like in any part of the world, poverty is a relative term. To people like Mobutu Seseseko, Houphoue Boign, Ibrahim Babangida, Nyansigbe Eyadama, and a host of other African leaders who accumulated wealth while serving their countries, poverty is not in Africa. To people who have to sweat profusely and suffer much before they can feed themselves at least once daily in Africa, Africa is a breeding ground of poverty.

What people eat, the dress they wear, the houses in which they live, the condition of their roads, the infrastructure they have or do not have, their level of exposure, the capital income per head in their country, the general living conditions, and similar things show how rich or poor they are. African villages, for example, are good enough to prove that Africa is under the marching steps of poverty.

The abundance of natural resources and the rate at which many African leaders have accumulated wealth at the expense of the masses expose numerous Africans to present hardship. Also, the exploitation of Africa by the whites -colonial masters, slave masters, and foreign traders has reduced Africa to abject poverty in spite of different aids, loans, and grants that the west has "invested" in Africa.

Two things happen at the same time today: Few African leaders, who seem to be tired of the rate at which poverty marches on the continent, seem to be serious, at least, with talks and actions about corruption at the moment, and G8 countries (the world most powerful countries) have promised to effect actions to eliminate poverty. The indication from all the above references and points is that majority of Africans live in poverty, and that any denial that the problem does not exist in Africa is tantamount to humbug and insincerity to the continent and the people who own it.