POVERTY AMIDST PLENTY: GRAPPLING WITH A PAINFUL PARADOX

An enduring concern

On April 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy wrote a letter about the poor to the then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, insisting that: “Poverty in the Midst of Plenty is a paradox that must not go unchallenged in this country.” Today, I volunteer to speak in a similar tone and spirit to all African Presidents-especially of countries richly blessed in natural resources. Incidentally, almost all the countries on the continent that occupies what the late Afrobeat music legend, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, referred to as: “centre of the world” in verifiable geographical symbolism-are endowed with one important resource or another.

This is precisely why the reality of poverty as literal Siamese companions to the citizens of this continent constitutes a badge of shame and embarrassment as it is dehumanizing. As a concerned academic put it: “Poverty is an enemy to man. It not only humiliates, it dehumanizes its victims”.  

It is at the same time, uncalled for as it is man-made. Tomes of comments have been recorded on the topic, paradox of poverty- the summary label on the absurd co-existence of pervasive poverty and humongous wealth in a given society.

Of course, it is acknowledged that poverty is a global problem; according to the World Bank, over 700 million people are living on less than $1.90 a day, that number also includes those in extreme poverty defined by the UN as “a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information”. To the notable Indian economist and 1998 Nobel Prize winner, Amartya Sen, however, “being poor does not mean living below an imaginary poverty line, such as an income of two dollars a day or less”. Sen’s argument is that: “You cannot draw a poverty line and then apply it across the board to everyone the same way, without taking into account personal characteristics and circumstances”. From whichever conceptual perspective poverty is viewed, it is indisputably a complex, multi-dimensional phenomenon.

When poverty is described as a multi-dimensional problem, one of the meanings is that it manifests in diverse ways-as articulated and described by Human Rights Careers- in the piece, “common roots of poverty” to include the following:

1. Lack of access to clean water and nutritious food: Without access to basic essentials like food and water, it’s impossible to get out of poverty’s cycle. Everything a person does will be about getting food and water. They can’t save any money because it all goes towards their daily needs. When there isn’t enough sustenance, they won’t have the energy to work. They are also way more likely to get sick, which makes their financial situation even worse.
2. Lack of access to basic healthcare: People who are poor are more likely to suffer from bad health, and those with bad health are more likely to be poor. This is because healthcare is often too expensive or inaccessible to those who need it. Without money for medicine and treatment, the poor have to make really tough decisions, and usually essentials like food take priority. People who are sick get sicker, and then they cannot work, which makes the situation even more acute. If people seek treatment, the cost often ruins their finances. It’s a vicious cycle.
3. Inequality or social injustice: People who are victims of social injustice struggle with getting a good education, the right job opportunities, and access to resources that can lift them out of poverty. Groups like women and ethnic minorities are usually the most vulnerable.
4. Lack of good education: Poverty is a cycle and without education, people are not able to better their situations. According to UNESCO, over 170 million people could be free of extreme poverty if they only had basic reading skills. However, in many areas of the world, people are not getting educated. The reasons vary. Often times, families need kids to work, there are no schools close by, or girls are not being educated because of sexism and discrimination.
5. Poor basic infrastructure: Infrastructure includes roads, bridges, the internet, public transport, and more. When a community or families are isolated, they have to spend a lot of money, time, and energy getting to places. Without good roads, traveling takes forever. Without public transport, it may be next to impossible to get a good job or even to the store. Infrastructure connects people to the services and resources they need to better their financial and life situation, and without it, things don’t get better.
6. Climate change: According to the World Bank, climate change has the power to impoverish 100 million people in the next decade or so. We know climate change causes drought, floods, and severe storms, and that can take down successful countries while pulling poor ones down even further. Recovering is extremely difficult, as well, especially for agricultural communities where they barely have enough to feed themselves, let alone prepare for the next harvest year.
7. Lack of government support: A more accurate name really should be ‘lack of good governance’ for, as the Brookings Institution under the pen of Daniel Kaufmann on September 13, 2012 in the piece entitled, “Poverty in the Midst of Abundance: Governance Matters for Overcoming the Resource Curse” averred, “In many countries the failure to harness natural resource wealth towards national well-being is in large measure linked to a failure of national governance. Of the hundreds of millions of citizens living on under $2 a day in resource-rich nations, 85 percent live in very poorly governed countries – countries which, according to the updated Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI), rate very poorly in corruption control and other governance dimensions.”

Of course, there are alternative ways of capturing the itemized indices as for example the World Bank’s summary under i) lack of opportunity; ii) lack of empowerment; and iii) lack of security. But the fact remains that many of the identified elements are interconnected; although this is not the place to go into the theories of poverty, neither is it where to enter the debate over theoretical and conceptual issues on the subject.

Nigeria in focus

In this discussion, we take Nigeria as a case study of the paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty. The nature of Nigeria’s paradox lies in the fact that the country is rich but the citizens are poor. In a country blessed with abundant human and natural resources, poverty is still rising daily as millions of people are pushed below the poverty line. Among the main factors identified as the causes of poverty in the country are: corruption, bad governance, income inequality, poor education system, unemployment, non-diversification of the economy, and over-dependence on oil revenue. But, as already alluded to and confirmed by several analysts, poverty in Nigeria is man-made, not natural.

Of the many factors identified to be responsible for poverty in Nigeria, two stand out as most prominent, namely: corruption and income inequality-both mutually reinforcing. In the words of Borgen Magazine: Corruption is the major reason why poverty is at such a high rate in Nigeria. In fact, many economists have declared that it is the “single greatest obstacle” that prevents Nigeria from prospering. Corruption is present in the everyday lives of citizens from businesses to the government. Consequently, poorer communities are suffering and the economic structure has experienced disruption. As to inequality, the Magazine sees it purely from a gender perspective but the issue is more general and deeper, as revealed by Oxfam International.

In its study. “Nigeria: extreme inequality in numbers”, Oxfam International noted that, “economic inequality in Nigeria has reached extreme levels, despite being the largest economy in Africa”-highlighting specifically the following statistics:

• The combined wealth of Nigeria’s five richest men - $29.9 billion - could end extreme poverty at a national level yet 5 million face hunger. More than 112 million people are living in poverty in Nigeria, yet the country’s richest man would have to spend $1 million a day for 42 years to exhaust his fortune.
• The amount of money that the richest Nigerian man can earn annually from his wealth is sufficientto lift 2 million people out of poverty for one year.
• Women represent between 60 and 79 percent of Nigeria's rural labor force but are five times less likely to own their own land than men. Women are also less likely to have had a decent education. Over three-quarters of the poorest women in Nigeria have never been to school and 94% of them are illiterate.
• Between 1960 and 2005, about $20 trillion was stolen from the treasury by public office holders. This amount is larger than the GDP of United States in 2012 (about $18 trillion).
• In 2012, Nigeria spent just 6.5 percent of its national budget on education and just 3.5 percent on health (by comparison, Ghana spent 18.5 percent and 12.8 percent respectively in 2015). As a result, 57 million Nigerians lack safe water, over 130 million lack adequate sanitation and the country has more than 10 million children out of school.

The study concluded by noting that: “Poverty and inequality in Nigeria are not due to a lack of resources, but to the ill-use, misallocation and misappropriation of such resources. At the root is a culture of corruption combined with a political elite out of touch with the daily struggles of average Nigerians”. It quoted a 29-year old Nigerian who declared in despondency: “Nothing is permanent here, except suffering”. Worrisome.

Resource Curse

It is morally obligatory not to leave out an issue of global interest concerning the theme of discourse here, the phenomenon of Resource Curse. This is because it is part of the core of the explanation for the morass of poverty paradox in Nigeria-as in several other oil-endowed economies. As poignantly summarized on Open Democracy platform by Nicholas Shaxson, “Countries rich in minerals are often poverty-stricken, corrupt and violent. A relatively small rent-seeking elite captures vast wealth while the dominant sector crowds out the rest of the economy.” The essence of the ‘curse’ is that countries that depend heavily on natural resources like oil or diamonds often perform worse than their resource-poor peers in terms of human development, governance and long-term economic growth. Typically, the windfalls are squandered; the fallout is that, “natural resources tend to make matters even worse than if they had been left in the ground, leading to higher rates of conflict, more corruption, steeper inequality, deeper absolute poverty, more authoritarian government, and lower long-term economic growth”.

Policy Options

In dealing with the poverty challenge, we should take as starting point, the position of the late Indian statesman and world citizen, Mahatma Gandhi, which is that the economic constitution of every country of the world, should be such that:

 . . . no one under it ( a country’s constitution) should suffer from want of food and clothing. In other words everybody should be able to get sufficient work to enable him to make the two ends meet. And this ideal can be universally realized only if the means of production of the elementary necessaries of life remain in the control of the masses. These should be freely available to all as God's air and water are or ought to be; they should not be made a vehicle of traffic for the exploitation of others. Their monopolization by any country, nation or group of persons would be unjust. The neglect of this simple principle is the cause of the destitution that we witness today not only in this unhappy land but in other parts of the world too

At the minimum, the need to address poverty in Nigeria as elsewhere in Africa lies in the fact that poverty and inequities hurt all of us in the long run. They erode social cohesion and create a burden on all taxpayers to pay for poverty reduction, healthcare services, unemployment, crime and homelessness. Our economic system and well-being are at risk of serious deterioration unless we take action now. The eight measures suggested by World Vision – a global civil society organization with focus on fighting poverty-on November 3, 2021-for addressing poverty, are the following:

1. Educate children: even the most basic education – reading, writing and arithmetic – can open doors for children that would otherwise be locked tight.
2. Provide clean water: Safe water close to home can protect children from water-borne diseases, and free them from long, often dangerous treks to fetch water. This gives them more time to be in school, learning.
3. Ensure basic health care: Experts agree that affordable, accessible, basic health care is a critical solution to poverty. According to the World Health Organization, about 100 million peopleare pushed into extreme poverty each year, due to out-of-pocket spending on health.
4. Empower a girl or woman: Societies with greater gender equality enjoy more sustainable development and faster economic growth. Empowered women are role models for girlsin their communities. And they are more likely to send their own daughters to school.
5. Improve childhood nutrition: According to the World Health Organization, eliminating malnutrition is one of the most cost-effective solutions to poverty. The developmental, economic, social and medical impacts of malnutrition are serious and lasting. It affects individuals as well as their families, communities and countries.
6. Support environmental programmes: Seventy-five per cent of the world’s poor living in rural areas count on natural resources such as forests, lakes and oceans for their livelihoods. Extreme weather is playing havoc with these. And children in low-income countriesare suffering the most.
7. Reach children in conflict: According to the UNHCR, forced displacement is a key factor in perpetuating – or even worsening – poverty. More than 82 million people are currently displacedas a result of conflict, persecution, human rights violations and violation
8. Prevent child marriage: Poverty is often a cause of child marriage but also, a life-long consequence. This is because girls forced into marriage typically leave school earlyand become pregnant quickly. Without education, girls can’t secure good jobs and may remain poor and un-empowered for a lifetime.

While the above measures may not be dismissed given their essentially tokenistic status, a long-lasting approach is considered more realistic. This is because, all the suggested measures are so obvious and have been adopted in one form or another in different countries and contexts without causing the problem to disappear; even as they have been labelled by World Vision, as “8 World-Changing solutions to poverty”. The strategic failure of the measures arise from their essence as dealing with symptoms.

The truth must be told: the fundamental explanation for the observed ‘poverty in the midst of plenty’, is a historic feature of the economic system that places private profit above human welfare thus fuelling and glorifying selfishness. Once again the apostle of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi re-echoes in his words: “Working for economic equality means abolishing the eternal conflict between capital and labour. It means the leveling down of the few rich in whose hands is concentrated the bulk of the nation's wealth on the one hand, and a leveling up of the semi-starved naked millions on the other”. I come in peace, please.