Of Africa and Africans’ Philosophy of Poverty
By Yemi Ademowo Johnson
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
